Free Graphics Software
In this category, FreebieList.com takes a look at the Internet's best free graphics programs. If you happen to stumble across an outdated link, we'd very much appreciate it if you could report it.
PhotoPlus
Here, you can register for a free download of Serif's fine "PhotoPlus" graphics editing software. The program includes many powerful features, such as an imported image optimiser and allows you to slice images, draw shapes and add editable text areas, just as if you were using a commercial graphics program. Note: this version does not support .gif or .tif file extensions.
Picasa
This free photo organising utility from Google allows users to quickly locate, organise and share digital photographs at the click of a button. The program also features a number of tools that will allow you to edit and perform minor modifications to your images, so you can perfect them before sharing. Picasa's album building function makes creating a digital photograph library simple and efficient. (Currently Windows 2000 and XP only)
GIMP
A free and highly capable graphics program for Windows, Mac and various UNIX-like operating systems. GIMP is ideal for manipulating photos or for sprucing up existing images. It's one of the best programs of its kind.
FotoMix
Billed as "The Free Photo Manipulator", FotoMix is a highly capable (and completely free) image manipulation tool, designed to help you doctor photographs with a variety of effects. One of the more popular uses is to remove people from (or insert them into) existing photographs to create a whole new image.
Fotobounce
This free photo organiser software features something quite unique: face recognition. Fotobounce makes it easy for you to organise photographs by utilising tagging to catagorise images, and (by using the in-built facial recognition), it can save you a whole lot of time. It also easily integrates with Facebook and Flickr and features a simple "drag and drop" interface.
Digital Scrapbook Artist Compact
An interesting and easy to use digital scrapbooking program from DaisyTrail, which you can use to transform your photographs into a scrapbook of memories. A number of backgrounds, frames and embellishments are available.
Ashampoo ClipFinder HD
This handy tool from Ashampoo allows you find, view, save or convert Web videos in HD or standard format. If you have ever wanted to capture a video, or even download the audio track, ClipFinder should be able to handle it. In addition, the program is excellent at locating videos based on keyword searches, and once found, can also help in organising them. It searches a total of 15 popular video portals.
Thumb Studio
Arclab's Thumb Studio software is a free image gallery program, offering a variety of features, including thumbnail and slideshow viewer, and also an album creator. Note: the software is licenced for private use only. If you upgrade to their commercial version, you will be able to include your own personalised watermarks over the images.
Shrink Pic
If you work in an office, you or your colleagues may be required to resize pictures ready for the Web. This handy program speeds up the process by lurking in the background, waiting until an image needs to be sent. Once you're ready, Shrink Pic springs into action and automatically resizes the image according to a pre set criteria.
Splashup
This free Web-based image editing service (previously known as Fauxto) allows you to edit images in your Web browser, without the need to download software. Splashup features an interface similar to most top graphics programs, and supports the use of layers, filters, brushes, and other standard tools you would expect to find. The service is also great if you wish to edit and share images using Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, etc.
WebShot Free
This nifty little program could prove a real time-saver if you need to take numerous screenshots of Web pages. In the click of a few buttons, WebShot will take a screenshot of a Web page of your choice, then export this as either a full-sized image or smaller thumbnail. You may select how you'd like to save the file: GIF, JPG, PNG or BMP.
Gadwin PrintScreen
This handy (and free) print screen utility allows you to easily capture any portion of your computer screen and instantly save it as a file. You may also paste the image to the Windows clipboard, print it, or e-mail it to a recipient of your choice. If your work involves frequent screen captures, you may find Gadwin PrintScreen a real time-saver. Once on the site, scroll down to the appropriate download link.
Album Burger
A free, easy-to-use and useful program for organising and presenting digital photographs. Album Burger allows you to label albums and photos with comments, dates and various other details. What's more, since the program integrates directly with your digital camera, searching, viewing and exporting photographs can be done on the fly. The integrated image editor is ideal for making minor adjustments to images.
IrfanView
Here's a cool freeware image viewer (for personal usage) that supports a wide variety of popular image formats, including GIF, animated GIF, JPEG, BMP, FPX and many more. IrfanView features a "drag and drop" facility, thumbnail tool, directory view mode, cut and crop tools, special effect implementation and to top that off, comes ready to run in a single and very handy .exe file.
PIXresizer
If you use digital photos in e-mail attachments or on the Web, this freeware program comes in handy for quickly resizing them. It can instantly reduce the file sizes of your photographs, allowing them to download much quicker than usual. As well as this, this nifty program is able to convert the file format of any images you have and will output BMPs, GIFs, JPEGs, PNGs, etc.