Free Graphics Alternatives
With Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop and most other popular image
editors being commercial, paid-for software, you might be
forgiven for thinking that there aren't any free alternatives.
While they're not very well publicised, there are plenty of free
graphic editing alternatives out there, if you know where to
look. Here's a rundown of some of the best.
The Gimp
Despite its daft name, the Gimp is widely considered to be the
best graphics editor you can get for free - many devotees
compare its features to those of Photoshop. While it isn't easy
to use as most commercial offerings, the Gimp is certainly
powerful, and has become the most popular image editor for Linux
(which doesn't run Photoshop).
The Gimp (or GIMP, standing for GNU Image Manipulation Program)
was specifically designed to be an open source competitor to
Photoshop, in much the same way as OpenOffice.org competes with
Microsoft Office and the Mozilla browsers compete with Internet
Explorer.
However, Gimp still hasn't picked up much of a following outside
the open source community, mainly because of its unusual
interface. Gimp is based on the Linux GTK (Gimp Toolkit) system,
and that makes its interface look very un-Windows-like, since it
is broken down into small, separate components. This approach
does come with advantages, however, such as the Gimp's useful
ability to let you 'rip' menus and sub-menus away from where
they usually appear and use them as toolbars instead. If you
haven't had time to get used to Photoshop, you might even find
that you prefer the Gimp's interface.
In some areas, the Gimp outshines Photoshop by a long way. For
example, Photoshop comes with a rather limited selection of
filters, and there are plenty of companies who make a business
out of selling extra ones at a premium. The Gimp includes every
filter that the open source community has ever found useful,
which is quite a few, and they all come for free. Essentially,
if you're willing to take a small hit in ease of use, the Gimp
provides you with thousands of dollars worth of functionality at
no cost whatsoever.
If you want to download the Gimp, go to
gimp-win.sourceforge.net/ to get the Windows installer version.
There is also a version that has been customised to have a more
Photoshop-like interface - you can get it at www.plasticbugs.com.
Paint.NET
Paint.NET is a recent arrival in the open source graphics world,
but has gained a lot of followers in the year or so it's been
around. It offers a powerful graphics editing program with a
deliberately simple interface, based on the 'Paint' program that
comes with Windows - the fact that people already know how to
use that interface has been an important factor in its
popularity.
The program's development is taking place at Washington
University, and is supported by Microsoft, making it likely that
it might be included in future Windows releases. Paint.NET can
currently be downloaded for free from www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net.
SodiPodi
SodiPodi isn't really an alternative to Photoshop or Paint Shop
Pro - it's more like a free version of programs like Macromedia
Freehand or Adobe Illustrator that graphics designers wouldn't
usually use often enough to justify purchasing. It lets you draw
using vector graphics, giving you the useful ability to create
your own artwork instead of sticking with stock symbols. This is
mainly worth mentioning here because it makes a great complement
to tools like the Gimp and Paint.NET, letting you make something
of your own to apply all your fancy effects and filters to when
you're making a logo or a design.
You can get SodiPodi at www.sodipodi.com, although you might
also like to look at another version named Inkscape
(www.inkscape.org), which again has a more Photoshop-like
interface.
Picasa
Finally, if all you want to do is organise photos simply and get
them ready for display on the web, you could do worse than
Picasa. Recently bought by Google and made available for free at
www.picasa.com, Picasa makes it simple to organise your
photographs and apply simple effects like red-eye removal to
them.