Have you ever taken a bunch of pictures at an event and had inconsistent color in all the shots? Doesn’t it bug you? I know it bugs us… With so many features in modern DSLRs you’d think we’d all be taking pictures like the pros!

One of the things we’re on the lookout for are things that make life easier, especially when it comes to photography. Anything we can do to keep us from pulling out the manual is a real treat. Recently we’ve discovered a handy little accessory that puts the joy back into picture taking. Introducing the: White Balance Lens Cap.

This little gadget will pay for itself the first time you use it. All you have to do is figure out how to put your DSLR in a custom white balance mode, put the cap on, snap a picture (yup, with the cap on), take the cap off and then fire away. With a little tinkering you should see even color, even lighting and better contrast in all the pictures taken during the same session.

This little gem is definitely worth the price of admission and it will make a great stocking stuffer or birthday gift for your all your shutterbug friends.

If you’ve ever wanted to find a good alternative for Adobe’s Photoshop that wouldn’t cost a proverbial “arm and a leg”, look no further than Paint.Net. After spending some time with GIMP and other alternatives for our PCs, we have really begun to appreciate the look and feel of Paint.Net. Of course, the icing on the cake is that the program is free!

Paint.Net provides most of the features of Photoshop without all the complexity and should suit most users for quick photo editing tasks and some intermediate ones as well. Even if you have some experience with layering and photo montages you should feel right at home with Paint.Net.

We’ve managed to handle all of our editing challenges with Paint.Net and love the fact that it’s fast and doesn’t take up a lot of room on your hard drive.

Give it a try and start working on those pictures, your Scrapbooking projects will love you for it!

Flickr currently reports that the camera that is most used by it’s members is… you guessed it – the venerable iPhone. If you’re among one of the many people that take most of your pictures with this handy gadget then we’ve got a great way to punch up your pictures and turn them into some serious ‘artwork’.

Web | Urban Software has released a real gem in its FotoMuse App. With a couple of clicks and swipes you can turn even the most mundane picture into something that will turn heads both on the screen and in your latest scrapbooking project.

Of course, you’re limited to the resolution provided by the iPhone itself but we’ve had great results with the new ‘high res’ version all the way up to the 5x7 photo size.

FotoMuse is definitely worth the price of admission and allows you to create some really great pictures without all the technical stuff getting in the way. If you need a little inspiration you can get some ideas from the FotoMuse Flickr group. Get a copy and start having fun today.

Sometimes the easiest solutions are right under our nose. In this case, they’re right under our pet’s chin. Getting some almost indestructible ID tags is just as easy as heading out to your local pet store and making them yourself. You can pick from a variety of sizes, shapes and colors to get exactly what you want.

For a couple of dollars you can get a bunch for camera bags and equipment, your luggage, your kid’s athletic gear, backpacks, computer bags, purses or anything else you’d like to get back if you manage to misplace it. And by the way – they work great for pets too!