One of the easiest ways to make any photo pop is to process it with High Dynamic Range, or HDR. Basically, it combines high and low exposures so that your photo represents a wide spectrum of light and color. HDR gives you a ton of creative options, which you can easily explore with the three Mac apps and plugins in the Photomatix Pro Plus Bundle, which we’re currently offering at an unbelievable discount.

This week we trim our SSDs, make PDF statements from our Apple Cards, and drown everything in delicious, springy reverb. These are the apps that got us buzzing this week.

Upgrading your Mac doesn’t have to mean downgrading your bank account. These four Mac utility apps are among the best you can get, and right now you can grab each one for less than $20. Whether you want powerful dictation software, a superior iTunes alternative, an iPhone ringtone creator or a YouTube video downloader/converter, these great Mac apps deliver the goods — at big discounts!

A new version of the Microsoft Edge web browser based on Google’s Chrome starts rolling out today for Windows, of course, but also macOS.

Among the most notable benefits is support for Chrome extensions.

This week we create music-synced video art with Glitch Clip, import music to our iPhone with Doppler 2, take proper control of Shortcuts with LaunchCuts, and more.

If you’re at your Mac, go ahead and click a window for another app (don’t forget to come back right away). Clicking an app’s window brings it to the foreground, of course. But did you notice that only the window you clicked came forward. If that other app has any other windows open, they will stay hidden. It wasn’t always this way. In pre-OS X days, the default behavior was to bring all those windows to the front. And now, thanks to a new app called Front and Center, from John Siracusa, you can get this behavior on a modern Mac.

Using a computer means working with PDFs, one of the most common document formats around. But just because they’re common doesn’t mean they’re easy to work with, especially when it comes to editing. With this PDF editor, that changes.

For my job at Cult of Mac, I test a lot of apps. But of course, I also use a lot of apps, for work, for recreation, and for making music. I thought I’d make a short list of my most-used apps this year. Few, if any, of these apps are new this year, although some of them received major updates in 2019. But all of them are excellent, well-made apps, well worth checking out.

So, let’s get started.

This week we boss a metronome around with only our voices, let a music app write our songs for us, and create beats and tunes like little children might. Yes, the only good new apps I’ve seen this week have all been music apps, so try to enjoy it.

Making your Mac more productive can be as easy as getting the right app. So we’ve rounded up four of the best deals on some great software, from a useful screen capture tool to a speed reading helper, an intuitive data syncing tool and a powerful PDF editor. Each one is already discounted, but you can save an extra 15% off when you use the promo code MERRYSAVE15 at checkout.