No matter how small and simple our image editing tasks are, they usually involve launching an image editor in order to perform them. CoolTweak is a unique, free application that offers a customizable context menu, integrated in Windows Explorer where you can add and launch actions for image resizing, watermarking and sharing on social networks.
Installation & Requirements
Nowadays, installers are made with the minimum number of settings, but CoolTweak’s installation is almost fully automated. The user only has to agree with the license terms and set the installation folder. The install process doesn’t involve any adware, donations being the only source of revenue of the developer.
CoolTweak supports all 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows 2000, Server 2003, 2008, XP, Vista, 7 and 8; even though it probably works on older systems, the developer recommends a computer with at least 1 GB of RAM and a multi-core CPU. While an internet connection is not mandatory, it is needed to use the sharing features.
Interface
At first run, a Welcome screen pops up, offering a step-by-step tutorial on how to use CoolTweak. Even if the program is fairly easy to use without any help, the Welcome screen can help new users a lot, or at least offer a quick glance at everything CoolTweak has to offer.
The program’s interface is actually the menu editor where the current menu is displayed at the left and the settings for the currently selected action at the right. The context menu provided by CoolTweak can be fully customized here. You are free to add/delete menu items, create sub-menus or modify existing ones. You can even delete all the default entries and recreate the menu from scratch. Each menu entry can be customized in two tabs: the first one is the Action List and the second one is the Output Options.
CoolTweak offers the following tasks: image resizing, watermarking, and sharing on Facebook, Picasa or Twitter. All tasks except Twitter sharing can have fixed settings that you define only once, or can be set for live mode, a method where you will be asked for options, very useful for the cases that are hard to include within fixed settings.
When you choose an action that has fixed settings it will be performed in the background and by default, the output folder will open up automatically once it’s finished. Live mode actions will display a dialog box where you will perform the settings on the fly. Even in this case, a few default settings are offered to speed up the tasks.
Editing the CoolTweak menu is very easy to do, as the program even allows the user to copy and paste menu items. This is very useful when you want to set up similar items so you can use one as a template and perform minor modifications on it for the others. The Output Options also allow you to use fixed settings or use the live mode. Both original and processed files can be moved, renamed and the folder structure can be preserved for new files.
Pros
– Very simple and fast installation.
– Easy access via the context menu of any supported image.
– Image resizing and watermarking is supported for bmp, jpg, png, gif and tif image formats.
– Social network sharing requires the user to logon to its account and the information is stored automatically by the program for future use. Nevertheless, for privacy reasons CoolTweak also has an option to clear all personal data.
– Multiple settings are available for image resizing (resizing mode, restriction, fixed size…etc.) and watermarking (text or image watermark, location, margins, opacity..etc.).
Cons
– More image editing options and other actions need to be included.
Conclusion
It’s pretty obvious that in order to stay away from the traditional image editing applications, other features need to be provided by CoolTweak, such as effects, adding text/highlights, adding basic elements and shapes, optimizing images..etc. However, CoolTweak can be very useful even as it is right now, and this wonderful tool has great potential thanks to the comfortable, efficient way it allows users to perform actions.
