Not long ago, webcams were mainly used for holding videoconferences over the Internet. Now there's a wide choice of software applications that allow you to make the most of your webcam, ranging from surveillance tools to image-capture utilities and also featuring fun webcam apps like Snap.

The aim behind an application like Snap is, in fact, quite simple: take pictures with your webcam and add effects to them. But beyond that simplicity, Snap stands out for being extremely easy to use and obtaining fun results in no time.

Once installed, launch the program and you'll immediately see the image taken by your webcam. That is, you don't need to configure anything nor go through any setup wizard at all. Snap automatically detects your webcam and offers you all its tools to begin playing around. We say "play" because this is what you're going to do with Snap. Don't expect to create serious, professional photo collages like you would do with other graphic editors. Snap is a fun tool, therefore it's intended to obtain casual photo compositions that you can use to play a joke on a friend, create an original avatar for your favourite IM client or design a custom greeting card.

Snap includes quite a variety of filters to apply to your photos, such as night vision, mirror effect, black and white, sepia or cartoon style. Using them is a cinch: just select a given filter, see what it looks like in the preview window and click on the snap button to capture the image if you like the result. Snapshots are automatically saved in a specified folder, but unfortunately you can't to select their size or format.

Besides filters, Snap also offers a bunch of clipart graphics that you can add to your photos to liven them up, as easy as dragging and dropping them anywhere on the image. You can resize and rotate these graphics simply with your mouse, to make them fit your pictures perfectly.

Although you can use the program just to save customized webcam snapshots, Snap also enables you to share these pictures by uploading them to their own photo hosting service, Snapstrip. Simply turn the sharing option on and enter a valid e-mail address in the program's settings. You'll receive a message with a link to view your photos online and share them with your friends. It's a pity Snap is not compatible with other popular online photo systems, like Flickr. We also missed the possibility to do more with our pictures, like printing them or sending them by e-mail.

All in all, Snap is an incredibly easy-to-use application that can provide hours of fun with just a webcam and some creativity. Give it a try and you won't be disappointed.