By Daniel East

Getting images to look their best and brightest, appropriately, can be challenging. Add to that the plethora of products available to produce pleasing pictures and it can become a bit dizzying.

The area where more and more developers are focusing their attention seems to be performance to make the dream of one-click corrections more of a reality, eliminating the need for more tweaking after the fact. Enter Athentech Imaging (http://www.athentech.com) that, to some degree, splits the difference between total correction and an easy-to-use interface for a quick fix to photos.

Where Perfectly Clear (US$199) really shines is with outdoor images, such as automotive, landscapes, or portraits that either have caused the camera’s sensor to over- or undercompensate for lighting, or where a polarizing filter may have helped. The controls are divided into tone and tint removal; exposure and white balance; color vibrancy and fidelity; sharpening controls with noise reduction; and portrait enhancement that includes red-eye reduction, skin tone, and light diffusion.

Preview modes are simple with 50/50 horizontal or vertical modes, and full view. Like many correction tools, it’s easy to overuse the correction capabilities, so it’s important to have a properly calibrated display for best results. Once the desired correction is achieved, it’s applied to your original image.

Perfectly Clear is not only an effective color-correction tool, but a well-rounded one in that Athentech Software also offers iOS versions for iPhones and iPads that also do a fine job of correcting images if you’re on the go. The bottom line is this is a good choice and an effective product that can save you time while producing good results.

Rating: 8 out of 10

(This review is brought to you courtesy of "Layers Magazine": http://layersmagazine.com/ .)