WINDOWS WARES free & open source 2

Part 2

GRAPHICS and IMAGES

Whether or not you consider yourself an illustrator, photo enthusiast, or power user. In the windows environment graphics and images are a part the experience. Finding the best tools can be a daunting task. But here are some of the top contenders, with a quick list of runners-up in each category (but without descriptions).

EDITING

the Gimp

Open source with features that will amaze you and is equivalent an many aspects to Photoshop. It is simply the open-source "gold standard" image manipulation, illustration, and photo editing. The bad news, it's learning curve is very steep, and very high (especially if you have not had any Photoshop experience). While documentation and tutorials have improved significantly over the years, be prepared to do a lot of learning! If you are unfamiliar with open-source versioning even the windows download page may be confusing. But, you want the GIMP for Windows Base Package.

Associated tool: abrViewer which lets you view your old Photoshop brushes or borrowed ones and convert them to Gimp brushes. I’ve actually used this a couple of times, the whole conversion was a bit of a headache, but it did work.

Paint.NET

A free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

Hugin

A panoramic photo tool, ". . .with hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete immersive panorama, stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more."

ImageMagick

While it doesn't have a graphical user interface, ImageMagick is incrediably powerful. I give it a low rating not lack of abilities, just the lack of easy accessibility to the average user.

MANAGEMENT

Picasa

A free Picture organizer and editor that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized. Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips.

IMAGE VIEWERS

Irfranview

It's fast, it's compact, and it's full of function. While you could call a simple image viewer, that does not beging to capture everything that irfranview can do. It's a more then capable image editor and convertor. It supports just about any image file type you could have. All that and offers drag-and-drop support, directory viewing, TWAIN support, slide shows, batch conversion, and modifications such as, resize, color depth, crop, blur, and sharpen. Includes support for Adobe Photoshop Filters.

VECTOR IMAGES

Inkscape

This IS the premier open source image editor.

3-D

Blender

Honorable mention: K-3D | Art of Illusion |