So enter Free Photoshop alternatives

Fotografix (616KB)

Fotografix is an image editor that can be used to enhance, adjust and add filters to images as well as retouching photos. Fotografix does allow you to use layers so that you can even create basic graphic designs and transparent backgrounds. Since the file size is so small and doesn’t require installation, Fotografix can be run from a USB drive. There is support for a large range of different image formats. Fotografix also allows you to use scripts which automate frequently repeated tasks.

Splashup Light (93.5KB)

Splashup Light is the lighter version of the more advanced, full version of Splashup. It is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to edit and add effects to photos with numerous creative tools. With Splashup light you can open a file on your computer or take a picture straight from your webcam to edit. There is also a great pan tool that lets you move your image around for the best view. Along with being able to add shapes and text to images, you can resize, crop, rotate and flip.

i.Mage (850KB)

i.Mage is a unique small yet fast graphics editor that lets you do easy and precise pixel editing. It’s not weighed down with a lot of plugins so the program actually starts in under a second. i.Mage is definitely the right tool for the quick and simple tasks. You can either start a new project from scratch or from the contents of your clipboard. There is a two-pane view so that you can see the full image on one side and the pixilated image on the other. i.Mage might be small and simple but it’s loaded with great tools and features.

Paint.net (1.6MB)

Paint.NET is actually a personal favorite of mine that I’ve been using for a few years now and is a GIMP competitor. Even though it’s lightweight, it allows you to do a lot of advanced enhancements and adjustments. Paint.net also supports layers and even has an unlimited undo feature. If you are looking for more adjustments, effects and/or enhancements, there are quite a few plugins that you can install to do just what you’re looking for.

IrfanView (1.28MB)

IrfanView is another great tool that lets you view, convert and optimize images. You can do more advanced things like creating slideshows, batch processing, and playing sounds and movies. You can view just about any file format with IrfanView. Plus, it also supports plugins and even has different toolbar skins so that you can change the look of your toolbar. Though IrfanView has less emphasis on image editing and more on image viewing, it’s still one of the best in its league.

Easy Photo Editor (1.25MB)

When you download Easy Photo Editor you will have the trial version which has a 6 images limit per process; the full version is $29.95. The title definitely fits the program, as it’s very limited in features. Easy Photo Editor lets you view, edit, and enhance your photos to a certain extent. It supports the major graphic formats like BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and multipage TIFF. You can also convert, resize, rotate, and stamp text or graphics onto your photos in batch mode. Lastly, Easy Photo Editor makes it easy for you to email your edited images via the Internet.

Free Image Editor (1.39MB)

Free Image Editor is a another simple bitmap image editor that lets you retouch photos or create original graphics. You have the choice of starting a new project from scratch, opening a file, capturing the current window, scanning an image from your scanner, or using the contents of your clipboard. What I really like about Free Image Editor is the built in capturing tool for taking screenshots. You can capture the desktop, a selection, the active window or an object in a window. Free Image Editor also provides a rich set of graphics tools that can be used for digital photography such as raster and paint tools.

PhotoFiltre (1.6MB)

PhotoFiltre is great for retouching and adjusting images as well as applying filters. There are numerous filters that you can use such as soften, sharpen, noise, relief, color, artistic, and much more. There are also numerous adjustment options as well. PhotoFiltre also uses two types of selection tools one which uses automatic shapes and the other which is a lasso and polygon tool. These tools allow for great customized drawing and even lets you save each selection as a separate file.

Is there a certain image editor that you like better? Which is your favorite? Please let us know in the comments.

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Some of the time however, I found somewhat good use of my time by doodling various stick figures onto a stack of post-it notes, creating what we know as a flipbook.

Flipbooks are quite possibly the simplest form of animation and easily the oldest. Several drawings of similar, but different figures that transform into one long or short animation for you to look at or show off. “Old School Art” such as this has really taken a backseat to today’s computer generated graphics and products from Adobe and others. Even you yourself can create online flipbook drawings on various websites and can even create your own from an incredibly simple and free application, called Flipbook Printer.

Flipbook Printer is a simple application that allows you to create your very own flipbooks from your very own movie collection. You import the movie of your choice, edit accordingly, and print them onto business cards. Below is a more in depth look at how it works.

After importing either an AVI or MPG, you would first select where you want the flipbook to begin and where you want it to end.

After that you select the card stock that you’ll be using for printing off all the various animations. You have a couple of default Avery options, along with customizing your own if you like. You can then select a front and back cover, along with several various print options.

After you’ve selected all of the options you’d like, you simply insert the business card sheets that you’ve purchased into your printer, and print away. After they have completed the printing process, you simply have to cut each of the individual animations out, assemble them in the correct order, and staple them together, similar to the below screenshot.

If you’d prefer not to go through the more advanced editing process, Flipbook Printer also offers a simple step-by-step wizard.

The flipbooks can be used simply for your own enjoyment, to have fun with your kids, or maybe even a fancy party favor to pass around. Whatever the case, it doesn’t get any simpler than what the free Flipbook Printer application offers. With a few movies from your own collection and a little computer knowledge, you are well on your way to generating your very own flipbooks.

Know of any other similar flipbook creation products? What other programs or sites have you seen to create flipbooks?

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The site has two membership plans available at the time of writing this article – Basic (free) and Pro ($9.99 per month). With Basic and Pro you can use all four of Aviary’s applications. With the Basic and Pro account you also get access to basic tutorials on the applications so that you can learn how to use them properly.

With Pro you’ll also get access to new beta applications. As of writing this the application that is in beta testing is Talon the screen capture addon for Firefox. There are lots of other features that are only available to Pro users such as setting permissions on who can see your files, unlimited storage, the ability to watermark your images, more advanced tutorials on the applications so that you can learn more advanced techniques and community enhancements such as a Pro badge so that other community members can see you are a supporter and subscriber of Aviary.

Now let’s take a look at each of the four Aviary applications.

Aviary Phoenix

Phoenix is the Photoshop-like web based image editor of the Aviary application suite. Phoenix has quite a few advanced image editing techniques considering that it is a web based app. The layers, blending modes, alpha channels, layer styles, levels, hue & saturation and masking allow you to do some very effective image editing techniques.

If you head on over to the creations page and you see an image you like and wonder how it was created using Phoenix then you can click on ‘Open in Phoenix’ and you will be able to see what is on each layer.

Aviary Raven

If you are looking for a web based version of Adobe Illustrator that you can access from anywhere then Raven may be the perfect tool for you. Over at Aviary’s creation page for Raven I have seen a lot of creative things so I can’t see this application having many limitations for being a web app.

If you are a fan of Adobe Illustrator and are looking for something free with good features then I am sure you will be happy with what Raven has to offer.

Adobe Photoshop has it’s own online image editor known as Photoshop Express.

Aviary Toucan

Toucan is a great web application that allows you to create color swatches for projects such as websites. So instead of visiting websites like ColourLovers for color swatches, you could alternatively create your own.

Aviary Peacock

Aviary describes Peacock as a “visual laboratory”. Peacock allows images to be manipulated by applying effects to give it a completely different look and feel simply by dragging and dropping different generators, effects and controllers.

Anything that is created in one of the Aviary web applications can be used in any of the other applications that they have created. So far Aviary have four applications that are available for use but a lot more will be available soon that allow things such as 3D graphics manipulation and audio editing. So keep an eye on the site!

Let us know what you think in the comments and whether you think this site is a worthy web contender to their Adobe software counterparts that they are trying to rival.

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Images that are rendered using vector graphics will scale to any size and still maintain smooth edges. This is ideal for dealing with things such as fonts and logos. Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor that you can use to convert raster images to vector graphic images.

I will demonstrate how to use Inkscape to convert the Inkscape logo above into an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) image. SVG is a vector graphics file format.

First of all you will need to download Inkscape and install it. It’s available for Mac OS X and Windows, and of course with the source you can compile it on Linux and other platforms as well.

Once you’ve installed Inkscape, launch it and open the raster image you want to convert. In this example, I’ve opened the inkscape-logo.png file. You can see from the screenshot that the edges are not smooth. Converting it to an SVG file will allow us to scale it to any size, and maintain the smooth edges.

Select the entire image by navigating to Edit > Select All in the Inkscape menu or by pressing Ctrl-A on your keyboard. Then go to Path > Trace Bitmap – or press Shift-Alt-B on your keyboard. In the trace bitmap dialog, select Colors as the mode and be sure that Smooth is unchecked.

Click the OK button and the conversion will take place but the dialog box will be on the screen. Close the dialog box by clicking the X in the upper right corner. Next you have to get rid of the original image, which is lying beneath the trace you just performed. To view the original, go to Object > Lower to Bottom or press the End key on your keyboard.

Now the original jagged looking image should be on top. Click on it to select it and then press the Delete key on your keyboard. Now you should see the nice and pretty vector image with smooth edges. Next, save the file by navigating to File > Save As… Give the file a new name, and be sure that the file type in the bottom right is Inkscape SVG.  The image below was created from the SVG file I made.

When you do use your SVG images in web pages, you’ll want to convert them from SVG back to a raster image, just as I did in the image above. To do this, just go to File > Export Bitmap… Not all browsers support SVG images, so you’re better off exporting SVGs to bitmaps. This way you will have your nice image and also be able to use it online.

Using SVGs makes a big difference when you scale the images to be much larger than the originals.  Wikimedia Commons actually has a better SVG image for the Inkscape logo than I made. The Wikimedia Foundation has made an effort to make most diagrams and logos available as SVG files, to allow them to be used at higher resolutions without degrading the original content.

Are you aware of any other free tools that can convert raster images to vector graphics?

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This post has two goals in mind: first, it lists a few interesting sources, some that offer photographs that are simply beautiful or quirky, while others are pertinent to events or offer cultural insights. The second goal is to challenge the reader to share with others their finds, ranging from the obvious to the under-appreciated.

Before we proceed, a word of caution: while the sites mentioned here are both interesting and artistic, be warned that not all the content on them may be safe for work.

Flickr’s “Last 7 Days Interesting” Set

It would be sacrilege to speak of photography on the internet without mentioning Flickr, and some might contend (though I do not) that the list can even end right here. The above is a screenshot of Flickr’s page of interesting pictures from the last 7 days. The page can be refreshed to display different subsets of photographs that are almost all reliably worthy of viewing.

Alternative ways to explore Flickr include Flickr Groups, or any of a number of Flickr content showcase sites like FlickRiver, an AIR application called DestroyFlickr (don’t let the name scare you, the authors intent is anything but!), RSS feeds from Flourish (Flickr offers its own RSS feeds, of course), or a Flickr widget from WidgetBox.

Other sites, such as Photo-Eye offer sumptuous visual galleries of professional and artistic photography that are well worth your time.

DeviantART

DeviantART is an old (and favourite) name for chronic wallpaper hunters and admirers of digital art. Also available from this “community of artists” are collections of impressive photographs that are categorised into Still Life, Street, Humorous and other sections.

The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture

A few times each month the Boston Globe presents in its “The Big Picture” web pages, collections of some of the most amazing photographs that range from natural wonders to political events. The page includes an RSS feed, a comments section, and archives are also available.

Views of the News

Sure you scoffed at “the MSM” (MainStream Media, for the uninitiated) during the US election season, but now that that’s all settled, you can quietly return to their online offerings, since many of their websites offer interesting multimedia, including slideshows that provide a pictographic equivalent of current events and news.

The New York Times multimedia page includes photo slideshows, interactive features, audio slide shows, and a Pictures of the Day section.

The German newspaper Spiegel provides a section called “Picture This” (clever!?) updated daily with interesting pictures, typically from Europe.

Time Magazine’s website includes a Photo Essays section that includes sections similar to other such sites, sorting pictures by day, week and year. Also of interest is their “Graphics” section with, well you might have guessed it, graphics highlighting various bits of data (e.g: 5 Truths About Health Care in America). One recent Photo Essay offers a haunting look at The Remains of Detroit.

The BBC gets in on the act with their In Pictures offering the now familiar temporal categories, as well as Audio Slideshows and user contributed content.

Its brethren, the Times Online (broken down by region and kind) and The Guardian (including this cheerful Flickr set that documents the recession) too offer similar photo galleries.

And then there’s Tumblr and Google Maps Sightings

In the last two years, the micro-blogging (or perhaps more accurately, tumblelog) site Tumblr has attracted photography and picture buffs whose posts include their own snapshots as well as interesting pictures found elsewhere. One contributor you will find infinitely resourceful in teasing out the most intriguing and amusing pictures from the nooks and crannies of the internet as well as the real world is Szymon Błaszczyk, author of the Inspire me, now! blog:

So… what are you lookin’ at?    What online photo sources feed your fetish?

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Let’s search the web for an autumn-like palette (yellow, red, brown) using the following 3 services. Let’s see how the search results are like.

1. PicItUp

PicItUp is a visual image search engine that combines word-based with color based search.

Test it: search for [autumn] and choose any color from the left column (I chose yellow). Now let’s look at the results:

Impressive, isn’t it?

What the tool lacks: you can’t combine several colors to refine your search (for example you can’t search for a yellow-red palette) – you are only able to search for one color.

2. Multicolr

Unlike the above one, with the Flickr-based Multicolr (already mentioned at Make Use Of) service you can combine as many colors as you want.

Test it: choose several colors and watch how the image list changes with each color added (I combined red and yellow):

What the tool lacks:you can’t combine word-based and color-based searches with this service. You are limited with playing with colors only.

3. Etsy

Etsy, an online shop of handmade products, has developed color search for their own product database.

Test it: It’s real fun to play with. Just browse your mouse across the screen and watch various colors and same-palette products pop up.

What the tool lacks: here you are unable to either set the color option or the search term. Nonetheless the tool is such fun to use that you definitely need to try it out.

Now, what do you think could be possible practical applications for these tools?

Would you use them on a regular basis or are they just for fun?

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There are several ways that I know of to do that. The first is to open up a program and seek out its color matching dialogue and apply what I call the “gosh, that looks close enough!” method to pick out a color. Another way is to copy the item that has the color I want by hitting “Print Screen” and then opening Paint, pasting in the item from the clip board, zooming in on it and then use the ‘Pick Color’ tool. At that point I can copy down the HEX code and I am good to go.

Obviously the first method is not very exact, and the second method requires a number of steps. If you need to do this a few times a day, one heck of a lot of time gets wasted!

So, to my great delight, Instant Eyedropper reduces all of that to one click, for free!

Once you install the free download, a new icon appears in the system tray that looks like this:

To use the tool you simply left click on the icon and then drag the mouse to the color that you want and voila! The hex code appears in the tool window. Release the mouse button and the code is now in your clipboard. Now you can return to your project and using the PhotoShop (or another graphics program) color picker tool, just drop in the code and you are done. You’ll have the exact color match.

A simple set of options is available if you right click the icon.

As you can see, you can choose from HTML, Hex, Delphi Hex, VB Hex, RGB and HSB formats.

I think that this is a really great time saver and you sure can’t beat the price!

Do you know of any other similar color tools?

(By) Jerry Kidd is a California Real Estate Broker, blogger, educator and author of RealtyTechBytes

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With the rise of the internet came the ability for everyone and anyone to self-publish. ‘Webcomics’ is a term that came to refer to any cartoon published on websites and archives.

While many conventional cartoons are also published on websites like Comics.com, Webcomics developed a unique and definable style which differentiates them from print media comics.

To give you a sample of some popular Webcomics I’ve chosen just 5 which are my favourites. Don’t get too worked up over me omitting your favourite comic, it was hard narrowing it down and there were quite a few more I would have liked to put in.

Dinosaur Comics

Dinosaur comics is a WebComic that has also made itself into print media and a selection of strips have even been published in book form.

The format consists of just one set of 6 panels which contain exactly the same art each day but are accompanied by a different series of dialogue.

The characters consequently remain consistent throughout the series; T-Rex, Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus. Occasionally other characters will interact with T-Rex but only through dialogue and stay off panel.

A Softer World

It’s hard to ever truly explain a Softer World. It’s humorous, sometimes, even when you’re not sure why. It’s thought provoking, which isn’t always a good thing and often it’s just plain disturbing.

Every strip contains three panels displaying one photograph by Emily Horne and several captions by Joey Comeau. It’s released three times a week and one book of selected comics have been published.

On the Softer World website hover your cursor over each cartoon for an additional sentence which often provides the text what could be a 4th panel.

Garfield minus Garfield

Barely 6 months old Garfield minus Garfield is already gaining rapid popularity and success and has been featured in numerous publications such as Time and Rolling Stone.

“Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.”

In fact Garfield creator Jim Davis likes the idea so much he’s even publishing a book juxtapositioning the originals against the modified ones.

Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”

Possibly the first original idea to come out of Garfield for 20 years.

Gaping Void: Cartoons on the Back of Business Cards

I don’t really know if this is a ‘web-comic’ as such, it’s published on a website so that is good enough.

Hugh Macleod draws cartoons on the back of business cards and yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

In recent times he seems to have branched out a lot more and does giant squiggly patterns to sell to New Yorkers to hang in their apartments. He also wrote an incredible article on “how to be creative” which is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read.

He posts his business card cartoons on his blog as well as his work in progress and his thoughts on technology and marketing in general.

ToothPaste for Dinner

A minimalist hand-drawn WebComic consisting of single self-contained panels which cover strange, ironic and surreal topics.

Do you know of any good webcomics that I have missed out that you would like to recommend? If so, post the URL in the comments and let us know why you like it! Or maybe you have your own webcomic you would like to show us?

(By) Laurence John was born naked, screaming and utterly helpless at some point in the last century. He currently blogs about heroic failures and the development of Windows 7.

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But we know that an online image editing tool has its limitations and hence it usually doesn’t give the feel and the effect which Photoshop can provide. But FlauntR could well be an exception. After playing with this tool for about a hour, I can confidently say that it is the most powerful image editing tool available online which is free to use and available to the public ( I know about 2 other tools which are currently in private beta and are exceptionally good too ).

So what really makes me praise FlauntR? As I mentioned, an online image editing tool has its limitations. There are some tools which are loaded with features like Fotoflexer. But when it comes to loading speed, they don’t live up to expectations. This is where FlauntR beats them all. I was particularly impressed by it’s loading speed. It’s fast and easy to use.

FlauntR let’s you apply various effects to your images and you’d be surprised to see the variety and the vast collection of effects. There are literally thousands of effects which you can apply to your images.

FlauntR divides it’s image editing task into 6 primary segments – stylR, textR, editR, mobilR, profilR and picasR. All these services are available at one click on the top of your main dashboard. If you look carefully at the image above ( yeah, I hope to be on billboards someday ), you’ll find those options at the top left.

It also integrates seamlessly with various social networks like Facebook, MySpace and blogging platforms like Wordpress and Blogger. It also provides a desktop plug-in for Google Picasa and lets you upload photos directly from it.

StylR gives a huge number of one-click effects, overlays and a new look to your photos.

ProfilR, as the name suggests, lets you easily create a profile photo which you can add in various social network profiles. Another service that can be used for the same prupose is Mypictr.

EditR does the image editing and tweaking for you and has all the necessary features like cropping, red eye removal and various effects ranging from night-vision to pencil sketch effect.

TextR let’s you decorate your images with different fonts and background colors.

MobilR is an innovative feature which allows you to create mobile wallpapers from your images and supports a huge number of cellphone models.

PicasR uses different paintings to apply some incredible effects to your photos.

Like in the screenshot below, I was trying to create a wallpaper from my photo for the Nokia N91 cellphone using MobilR.

And in the image below, I was trying to get myself on a magazine cover using StylR.

There are many more features like the ability to create slideshows, galleries and print frames . The more you explore this tool, the more you’ll come to know about it. I’m still in the process of exploring it and it continues to surprise me. Keep in mind that it’s still in its early development stage and hence you can expect many changes and new features in the future. So go ahead and try this out and let us know how your experience was using this cool image editing tool.

(By) Abhijeet Mukherjee is addicted to the internet and loves blogging and freelance writing. He blogs about tech tweaks, blogging tips and productivity hacks at Jeet Blog

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You are probably saying, “Oh, but there is Google image search for me. Why would I need another one?”. But TinEye is an entirely different kind of image search. While Google image search uses text to search for associated images, TinEye uses an image as a query for searching. Google can’t do that – at least, not yet.

If you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick video explanation from Idée on how TinEye works. Or read on for my explanation.

To search using TinEye, you can either enter a URL to a image on the web or upload an image from your computer. Another way is to install the TinEye browser plugin for Firefox or Internet Explorer. With the plugin installed, you can right click on any web image to search for it using TinEye.

Just like Google indexes all the web pages it crawls, TinEye creates a digital signature or ‘fingerprint’ of the images using sophisticated pattern recognition algorithms. Once you query using an image, TinEye instantly analyzes and compares the ‘fingerprint’ of your query image with the images in its search index.

TinEye not only finds identical images but also the modified versions of the image. As long as the images are alterations of the same query image, TinEye can find them and include them in your search results. But, do remember that TinEye does not actually ’see’ the image, in the sense that if you upload the image of a dog, it does not see it as a ‘dog’ and fetches you images of other dogs. It only finds if the same image has been used, even if altered or modified. TinEye orders the results by most similarities, meaning that altered images are found towards the end of the search.

So if you take the example of the Mona Lisa :

TinEye will return results such as these :

Now that we have seen what TinEye can do, let’s see what you can do with TinEye. Here are some of the possible uses of TinEye.

• Suppose you see a photo and would like to have some more information about it. Finding out where else the photo has been used could give you more information about it.
• If you have posted an interesting photo captured by you on your blog, it would be great to know where else the photo has been used.
• There could be another side to the previous scenario. You could use TinEye to track if any of your copyrighted images are being used elsewhere.
• Professional photographers and illustrators can find out where and how their creations are being used.
• If you have a low resolution image but need a higher resolution image, TinEye could be of great use.
• If you have a brandname or logo you can use TinEye to see how it’s being used.

I am sure you can think of even more uses for TinEye. If you do, please put your ideas in the comments.

As of writing this post, TinEye has over 586 million images indexed, which is actually a small number considering the size of the web. But TinEye crawls new images on the web on a regular basis and the number of indexed images is constantly growing. So this is gearing up to be an amazing website and you have to wonder when Google will have technology like this?

TinEye is currently in private beta but the company has generously given Make Use Of 1000 pre-approved invites to give away to our readers! They’ve told us you just have to click on this link and you should be on your way to getting set up! Then come back and let us know in the comments what you think!

(By) Suresh Chandren, a computer and internet junkie who loves blogging. He blogs about computers, software and productivity at Digital Quest.

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For instance, drag a window and the window wobbles. Compiz also has plugin support which means that you can add more such effects to decorate your desktop’s look.

Compiz works perfectly on most hardware that has good drivers – however, problems do exist and sometimes it may not work so well with your computer’s graphics card. Depending upon the kind of drivers and support, Compiz may not work at all, or it might throw up errors when activated.

Those of you who want to experience the ‘wow!’ that Compiz does on your desktop, but are not sure whether it’ll work well with your graphics card and other devices can make use of this little tool called Compiz Check.

Compiz Check checks your system’s hardware and gives you a brief report on the compatibility of your hardware. You can basically find out if Compiz will run on your computer.

Follow these steps to use Compiz Check:

• (1) Download this file and put it in your home directory (ie, /home/username/).
• (2) Go to the terminal and type: chmod +x compiz-check
• (3) Now, type: ./compiz-check

Here’s how the Compiz Check report looks in the terminal:

You’ll see some technical things listed in there, and the last line, as described in this page. The script checks

• for the current’s driver compatibility with Compiz.
• if it’s an nVidia card, it checks to see if there’s adequate memory on the card
• ATI/Radeon drivers
• if the current resolution is compatible with Compiz

Just in case something seems to be incompatible, you’ll get a clear report on what’s wrong. You’ll get descriptions which will help you to understand the real reason why Compiz wouldn’t run well on your computer. You could then analyse those details, and then ask for solutions from others in the Ubuntu community – things will be much easier then!

(By) Shankar Ganesh, a 16 year old Blogger and Freelance Writer from India. He writes about computers and software at Killer Tech Tips

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