Light pulses of sub-picosecond duration can ablate any material with minimal effects on the areas surrounding the ablation zone. Material processing with ultrashort laser pulses is for this reason of great interest for many practical applications. In this talk, I will present a brief introduction to the technique and some examples of the applications we are developing at the “Josef-Ressel-Center for material processing with ultrashort pulsed lasers”; two examples are modification of surface-liquids interaction by surface patterning and the cutting of brittle materials where the mechanical properties of the cut edges have to be preserved.