Factory42

Factory Featured Plugin displays a set amount of posts in a loop with a custom field image and links to that post, making a gallery of images linked to the posts.
Has configurable settings, such as; 
* Image Width and Height 
* Set the category to pull posts from 
* Set the amount of posts to show.
Nice and easy way to present a certain category of posts in a widget area. Have a look at the Sceenshots to get a better idea of what it looks like.

Featured Factory

Displays a set amount of posts in block with custom field images. Configurable from the Widgets panel.

Michael Torbert

Once activated, only posts from the current category are displayed in your loop (no posts from sub cats). 
That’s all it does. No options. If you find you need options, let me know and I’ll build them into it.
As of 0.4 I remove the filter after the main query is built so that it doesn’t interfere with widgets. 
If you have a custom query or call wp_query on a category archive template, you’ll need to add and remove the filters before and after your query. Below is an example of how to do this if you use wp_query. Again, this is not necessary unless you have modified queries in a template file.
<pre><code>add_filter( 'posts_where', 'ft_nscp_mod_where' );
query_posts( array( 'your-custom' => 'args' ) );
remove_filter( 'posts_where', 'ft_nscp_mod_where' );
</code></pre>
Its important that you remove what you add.

No Sub-Category Posts in Loops

Once activated, only posts from the current category are displayed in your loop (no posts from sub cats).

Featured Factory vs No Sub-Category Posts in Loops