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Killersites.com Forum » List all forums » » Forum: Graphic Design and Software » » » Thread: Free Image Editors |
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| Print at May 24, 2013 8:57:48 PM |
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| Posted by tpattison at Apr 27, 2005 2:54:02 PM |
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Free Image Editors Here is a list of a few good image editors and converters I've found. Sometimes you don't need to fire up Photoshop to crop or resize an image for uploading to your webpage. I haven't got around to trying all of these yet, the information is mainly what I have gathered from their websites and forums etc. If anyone has tried any of these, or have any to add to the list then post them on this thread. PowerBatch 2.7 - 1.6MB - Batch renaming, resizing, converting, printing, rotating, colour adjustment, cropping. - Crop with aspect ratio confinement. - Built-in FTP client! - All program files are contained in a single folder. - Converts JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, BITMAP and JPEG2000. - Supports animated GIF and multipage TIFF. - Contact sheets. - Image effects. - Add text. Paint.net 2.1rc1 - 4.9MB - In development. - Clean GUI. - Developed with help from Microsoft. - Requires 24MB .NET Framework 1.1 to run. - Limited layers support (cannot be moved on canvas). Pixia 3.1 - 3.6MB - Not much known about this one yet. Photofiltre 6.1.1 - 1.6MB - Multiple images open at once. - Many plugins. - More than 100 filters. - Feature packed. FastStone Image Viewer 2.0.5 - 2.4MB - Convert major formats (inc. PSD). - Lossless JPEG rotation. - Magnifier viewing. - EXIF support. - Resizing, flipping, rotating, cropping, colour adjusting tools. - Crop with aspect ratio confinement. - Compare images side by side. - Batch image converter/resizer. - Supports animated GIF and multipage TIFF Xnview 1.74 - 2.1MB - Utility for viewing and converting graphic files. - Imports 400 graphic file formats. - Exports 50 graphic file formats. - EXIF. - Copy, cut and crop. - Brightness and contrast adjust. - Modify number of colours. - Filters and effects. - Windows print (Contact Sheet) and TWAIN support. - Supports animated GIF and multipage TIFF. GIMP 2.2.6 - 7.3MB (Windows version) - Probably the best open source contender to Photoshop. - Requires GTK+ 2 runtime environment - 3.5MB. - Layers support. - Difficult to get used to GUI layout (or so I've read). Tim ---------------------------------------- Pavonis Mons | Listen of the week: "Residue of Desire" by Acumen |
| Posted by admin at Apr 27, 2005 5:57:52 PM |
Re: Free Image Editors@ tpattison: Good post! I've linked to it from the site map. ---------------------------------------- Stefan Mischook Video Tutorial Store | Web Templates |
| Posted by LSW at Apr 28, 2005 3:36:20 AM |
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Re: Free Image Editors Note on GIMP 1) It does not support GIF creation. GIF is a comercial format, you hve to buy a license. Normally you get the license when you buy the softwares it is included because PS, PSP Fireworks etc. have payed for it, so it is included in the price. This is not the case with GIMP so you have to buy it yourself and install what is needed. 2) GIMP can be programed. I do not know how to do this, but I almost had a job by a Web Design - do it yourself - assembly line business. GIMP was programed on the server so that when a customer added text to a field in a form and sent it, GINP automatically placed that text over a pre-chosen button template, created the button and offered it to them for download. So for online work this could be real handy. |
| Posted by tpattison at Apr 28, 2005 8:46:08 AM |
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Re: Free Image Editors Thanks Stefan and LSW! Update - added PowerBatch. This one has its own FTP capabilities! Tim ---------------------------------------- Pavonis Mons | Listen of the week: "Residue of Desire" by Acumen |
| Posted by tpattison at Apr 28, 2005 1:56:33 PM |
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Re: Free Image Editors I have just tried PowerBatch. My verdict is that it looks good - it makes good use of Windows XP themes. But, is slow, there are no dither options for GIF and it expects you to do the same thing to every file in a folder. Other than that it's packed full of image editing features especially where adding text is concerned. Tim ---------------------------------------- Pavonis Mons | Listen of the week: "Residue of Desire" by Acumen |
| Posted by dawg at Apr 29, 2005 9:19:59 AM |
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Re: Free Image Editors Now on to the three images, are they really being converted? or is this merely saving that file with a different file extension. .png and .gif are both transparent and .jpg's are not. So taking our study this far it makes sense that we could simply change the extension on either the .gif or .png and both would work. There is no file conversion we are just saving with a different extension. The proof is in the browser and how they display in web pages. The browser does not care if a apple is an orange, all it cares is that the files are named right and in the correct path. Now lets throw .jpg's into the mix, we already know that .gif's and .png's are transparent but .jpg's are not. So can you name a .jpg a .png extension and have it work? The answer is yes and proof is in the pudding. I have often changed a .gif to a .png and visa versa. You may ask why, well when working within a database it is hard to always have time to trace down the exact file that has the path to the image. Case in point, if you work with several different databases they all are structured differently. So if you know the file calls for a .png it is much easier to name the gif with a .png extension. I have done this countless of times without a problem. I had a transparent png that for some reason showed up in IE with a slightly grey background. In FF it viewed properly. This was just simple text but for some reason IE had this problem with it, the background was #CCCCCC. OK I know some may feel that I messed up the .png well for the litmus test I redid .png file again with the transparent background, same thing. Maybe IE does not like .png yet. What is my solution? IE has this background that is grey that annoys me and I do not like. The background is suppose to be white/#FFFFFF/#fff. I open up a simple photo editor and start with a solid white background and then add my text to it. I choose to save the file as a .png because that is the file location within the database. I then upload my .png to the folder first deleting the old file. I check, white background in both IE and FF so then I upload the renamed .jpg to the location of the now deleted .png file and VIOLA everything works how I want in both IE and FF. So are they really that much different or am I just playing tricks with the browser? copyright 2005 Jamie Star. |
| Posted by tpattison at Apr 29, 2005 1:24:34 PM |
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Re: Free Image Editors Ok... Well not quite sure what your talking about but IE still has PNG transparency problems and there are many differences between those 3 file formats. Maybe some browsers ignore the extension and check within the file to determine its type. Macs don't rely on file extensions while PC's swear by them... Tim PS. I have just installed FastStone Image Viewer. This thing ROCKS considering its free. Quick review on its way soon! ---------------------------------------- Pavonis Mons | Listen of the week: "Residue of Desire" by Acumen |
| Posted by tpattison at Sep 1, 2005 1:58:53 PM |
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Re: Free Image Editors Alright, it's been a while now but here's my review of the FastStone Image Viewer V2.22. A new version comes out every few weeks and each time it gets better. It has so many features that I now use Photoshop very little for those every day graphics tasks. I think the best thing I can do is a "whistle stop tour" of most of the features. So here goes...  Interface - 3 panes - Directory tree, Image preview and list view/thumbnail view. It's skinnable. Clicking in the preview can magnify or draw a selection (for cropping, effect application etc). Double clicking enters fullscreen view. Full Screen - This is a very nice mode where nothing but the image is displayed, but touch any of the four sides with the mouse and various panels appear to access the many functions the application has. Save as - This has undergone the most changes recently. Formats supported are: JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PCX, PNG, BMP (windows & os/2), TGA, PBM, PPM, PGM, JPEG2000 (JP2 & J2K), DCX, PDF. There is an "advanced options" dialogue, where you can preview the optimised image against the original along with respective file sizes. The are many advanced options to play around with depending on the selected format, but there are still no dither options for non true-colour images. FastStone can load these and many more file types, including PhotoShop PSD, Windows metafile WMF & EMF, Windows cursor and icon files Canon and Nikon RAW files. Effects - Include: Brightness, contrast, gamma, hue, saturation lightness, RGB levels, sharpen/blur. These have previews of original against the effected image, and the ability to preview on the actual image. There is a tool for adding pre-defined frames to images, an easy to use red-eye removal tool, drop-shadow tool, an interesting "bump map" tool (rather like emboss in other applications), lens wave and morph effects all with previews. Resize - By pixels, percent, or print size, with or without fixed aspect ratio. Crop - Crop using a fixed pixel (or other unit) size, ratio or freehand. Lossless for JPEG images. Rotate - Any angle, or 90 degree steps which really is lossless for JPEGs! Compare - View two or more pictures side by side. Slideshow - Display contents of a directory full screen, with mp3 music and great transition effects. Screen Capture - More than your regular screen capturer. You can capture the whole or portion of a screen, single windows or even just the toolbar or list view; you can just click on any object and it'll neatly grab it for you. Email - Allows you to optimise, resize rename and package many images in a ZIP file and attach it to a new message in your mail client. Print - The only feature which could be better in my opinion. Still useful though. Allows you position, resize and print a single image. Would be nice to be able to print a load of images on one sheet. Batch convert - Select a load of images to do the same thing to - good for making thumbnails. You can: resize, rotate, crop, adjust canvas size, change colour depth, alter colour and contrast etc, add text and watermark. So thats it. Overall, an ideal little proggy for preparing images or uploading to websites. Well worth the 2.6MB download. Try it! If you have tried any image editing apps you like or dislike, then tell us of them here! Tim ---------------------------------------- Pavonis Mons | Listen of the week: "Residue of Desire" by Acumen |
| Posted by shelfimage at Sep 1, 2005 6:14:06 PM |
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Re: Free Image Editors My favorite is IrfanView . I found it about 4yrs ago. It is the BEST.  It has remained my default image viewer since.I can open about 75 different file types: http://irfanview.com/main_formats.htm With lots of plugins and functionality, including, slideshow, multimedia, emailing, text on images, printing... Available in over 30 languages. The plugins must be downloaded and extracted into the program's directory for full functionality - very easy to do. It also has a good Explorer-like Thumbnail viewer for your directories - much better than photoshop's and other app's I've used because it's Fast! screen shot of irfanview thumbnail browser And as listed on the Features page: Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired" No registry changes without user action/permission!  My favorite part is that the image viewer loads quickly, opens my psd files (no edit  ) and uses a very small amount of resident memory! I usually have it open along side Photoshop and with no affect on my resources.I do not have the latest version installed. I'll do that and edit this post if there is anything significant to be noted. - ---------------------------------------- "The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings." -Okakura Kakuzo Save the developers<!> Maine Webworks |
| Posted by tpattison at Sep 2, 2005 10:39:31 AM |
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Re: Free Image Editors Sounds good. Thanks! I'd add it to my list, but can't edit it because it's well over 3 days old! Anything else anyone would like to share? ---------------------------------------- Pavonis Mons | Listen of the week: "Residue of Desire" by Acumen |
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