10 Free Alternatives To Buying PhotoShop

Top Ten FREE Image Programs

Being a novice programmer many years back. I always wanted to doodle and build stunning designs for my sites. The big problem was not having the money to buy an expensive program like Adobe Photoshop, and having the necessary talent for that matter!

So we here at WebTempleX sat down and went over some of the best graphics programs that are FREE and posted all over the net -

The Top Ten FREE Image Applications (not in order of importance – they are all good)

1. Gimp – is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Works on many operating systems, in many languages.

2. Paint.net – Paint.NET is 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.

3. Cinepaint – Support for 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels of deep paint. High fidelity image file types such as DPX, OpenEXR and 16-bit TIFF. These files can’t be opened in ordinary 8-bit image applications (e.g., GIMP) without crushing them. High Dynamic Range. HDR images can go brighter than white. Ordinary images can’t be brighter than a white sheet of paper (0=black, 1.0=white). Gallery-quality printing. B&W photographs have only one color channel and degrade quickly when manipulated as 8-bit images. CinePaint has higher fidelity and offers a 16-bit printing path to the print-head using GutenPrint.

4. Krita – Krita is a creative application for raster images. Whether you want to create from scratch or work with existing images, Krita is for you. You can work with photo’s, scanned images or start for a blank slate. Krita supports most graphics tablets out of the box.

5. Pixen – Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac. It’s designed from top to bottom for pixel artists—people who make low-resolution raster art like the sprites you see in old video games. But it’s great for artists of all arenas: Pixen is like a very powerful MSPaint or a simpler, more agile Photoshop. And best of all, it’s Free!

6. Splashup – Splashup, formerly Fauxto, is a powerful editing tool and photo manager. With the features professionals use and novices want, it’s easy to use, works in real-time and allows you to edit many images at once. Splashup runs in all browsers, integrates seamlessly with top photo-sharing sites, and even has its own file format so you can save your work in progress.

7. Chocoflop – ChocoFlop allows you to edit your photos or design stuff using Apple’s CoreImage technology. It takes advantage of the power of your graphics card (GPU). Because of this it can show real-time previews of filters and keep modifications live for as long as you want.

8. Pixia – The original Japanese Edition was created and developed by the author, Isao Maruoka, but has also been aggressively raised by its fans, which makes this software to be quite unique and different from other tools.

9. Picnik – Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. It’s fast, easy, and fun.

10. Pixlr – Get creative with the free online photo editor and do your quick fix with the image express! Jump in and get going within 2 seconds!

Adobe Photoshop – we really couldn’t leave this out as there is a free 30 day trial of the latest CS package. The download is quite long but well worth it to get your feet wet without the huge cost. Adobe is bar none one of the finest software applications that partner with all other applications to make a perfect system.