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If you've ever spent much time manipulating JPEG images, you know that although the JPEG image compression algorithm is very effective at spitting out relatively tiny file sizes, that effectiveness comes at a cost. JPEG is what is known as a lossy compression algorithm, which means that in order to achieve the compression rates that it does, it basically throws away image information, and attempts to fill in the blanks by "faking it". Granted, this is an over-simplification, but it gives an idea of what's going on. JPEG files can be saved with varying amounts of compression, so you can have better image quality at the expense of a larger file, or worse image quality with a much smaller file.

Once you've saved a file at a high compression rate, you've basically lost the quality from the image. One of the unfortunate things about JPEG compression is that when that quality is missing, it's very obvious. Rather than blurring in a uniform fashion, the JPEG algorithm creates "artifacts", which are blocky areas, typically around parts of an image that have sharp edges or gradual gradients.

While it can't bring back the quality to a heavily compressed JPEG image, JPEG Enhancer can smooth out the artifacts and make a much nicer-looking image as a result. It's so easy to use, it's ridiculous; simply open a JPEG image that you would like to fix, set the filter slider at the bottom, and press the Process button to see the results. Once you have it set to your satisfaction, save your new image and you're done.

JPEG Enhancer recently became a free download, so what's to lose?