Best free photo editors
Edit and share your photos online
Most photo sharing sites like Flickr focus on the sharing side and provide only limited photo editing features. SplashUp makes editing the center of its offering while the sharing function is more limited. The editing setup works very well; using SplashUp is very much like using Adobe Photoshop, and the tools, while not as comprehensive as PhotoShop's, allow you to do almost anything you could conceivably want in the way of image editing. It is 100% free.
http://www.splashup.com
Another free option for resizing digital photos
In last months Premium Edition I mentioned a little freebie called Photo Gadget Resize [1] that allows you to resize a photo by right clicking on the photo and simply selecting the size/quality you want. I also mentioned ShrinkPic [2], a program that works in the background and detects when you are sending large photos. It then automatically resizes these photos based on settings you have pre-selected. This prompted subscriber Tom Wilson to remind me that Microsoft's free Windows XP PowerToys package also has an excellent context menu photo resizer, along with 13 other applets which include a Virtual Desktop Manager, a syncing program, a power calculator and toolbar magnifier.
[1] http://www.xemico.com/photogadget/freeware.html
[2] http://www.onthegosoft.com/shrink_pic.htm?referer=shrinkpic
[3] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Free HDR alignment tool
Regular contributor Paul Lawrence writes "In February's issue of the newsletter we saw some excellent freeware choices reviewed by Tony Bennett for creating HDR images from a series of bracketed digital images. [1] If you go right out (like I did) and tried to take some snapshots to create your own HDR's, you will soon discover that a tripod is an important part of HDR photography, because image alignment is pretty important. The problem is that it is not always convenient or possible to have a tripod handy. The solution is to take those pics as steadily as possible, and then use an image alignment tool. The excellent freeware "HDRAT" (HDR Alignment Tool) is just such a tool [2]. You can take several very crooked shots, add some control points to each image, and then output the aligned images in any of several popular ready for loading into your favorite HDR creation tool. HDRAT will also help correct some FOV and perspective distortion problems. This tool is a must have for those times when you're caught without a tripod! Be aware that the site that is currently hosting this freeware has limited hourly bandwidth, so if you have problems try back later"
Tony Bennett rejoins: "A technique you can use when you don't have a tripod handy is to press the shutter down, hold your breath and don't let go of the shutter until the three or so exposure-bracketed photos for your HDR shot have been taken. It's when you let go of the shutter that your shots get out of alignment. It also helps if your elbows are held against the chest making yourself into a tripod. Using this technique, the results can be surprisingly good. For example, check out this hand-held HDR shot [3] I took. Of course there are other alternatives to using a tripod such as this [4] :>)"
[1] http://techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm#119[2] http://www.geocities.com/rnd6statrat/hdr_alignment_tool.html
[3] http://techsupportalert.com/download/HDR-Stream.jpg
[4] http://techsupportalert.com/download/Who-needs-a-tripod.jpg
Free Picasa add-ons
Subscriber Paul Lawrence writes, "Gizmo, Google's Picasa is definitely a good photo organizer, and it can create some pretty nice galleries of your photos for use on the web. I ran across a website that offers 17 free very nice flash and html gallery templates for use with Picasa. There is also a demo of each on the site so you can see how great they look before you download them."
http://www.paulvanroekel.nl/picasa/index.asp
Free software to improve your digital photos
Digital cameras may be the best thing since sliced bread, but almost all current cameras have a glaring weakness; they take poor photos in conditions where both brightly lit and dark areas feature in the same shot. Typically the dark areas come out black and/or the white areas get bleached out.
HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography is a technique that overcomes this problem. It works by taking several shots of the same scene using different exposure settings and then merging the individual shots into a single photo that is correctly exposed in both the light and dark areas.
The results can be quite spectacular. Check out these shots [1] on Flickr.
Creating HDR photos is easier than you might think, because most modern digital cameras have an exposure bracketing feature that allows you to automatically take several shots of the same scene using different exposure settings.
And there is plenty of free HDR software available to merge the photos.
Tony Bennett, one of the volunteer category editors for the freeware wiki project, has just prepared a review of free HDR programs and that's now online here [2]
So get to it and make you own HDR shots. Better still, send your best ones to Tony at the email address shown at the end of his review.
[1] http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/pool/
[2] http://techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm#119
Photoshop look-alike for $7.95
Serif PhotoPlus V11 is a powerful digital image editor that has a lot of similarity in look, feel and function to Adobe Photoshop. It's not quite in the same league as Photoshop CS3 but at $80.00 it's a lot cheaper and more than powerful enough for most users. Here's how subscriber John Munro got it for $7.95. "Gizmo I downloaded the old free version 6 of Serif PhotoPlus that you recommend in your "46 Best-ever freeware" list. A few days after downloading I received an email offering me the latest full version for a discount price of $7.95! I naturally took up the offer." That's quite a deal though I'm not sure they are offering it to everyone. I suggest you download PhotoPlus V6 from here [1] and try your luck. Even the old version is an excellent product. It's a 19.4MB download and works with all versions of Windows.
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/default.asp
Free program removes ugly wires from your digital photos
If you take a lot of digital photos you will really appreciate this free utility suggested by subscriber Ken De Pree. Wire Pilot is photo retouching software, available as a stand-alone program or Photoshop plug-in, that's specially designed to allow the easy removal of unsightly wires, poles, antennas and other linear objects from your digital photos. I found it worked particularly well where the background behind the wire or pole you wanted to remove was sky, snow or other untextured surface. In these circumstances Wire Pilot was quicker to use than Photoshop's own tools and the results were just as good. The results with textured backgrounds were not quite as acceptable and clearly looked "processed." That reservation aside, this is a really useful free tool that can greatly improve the appearance of some of your favorite digital snapshots. You can either download the stand-alone program or a plug-in that works with Photoshop, Photoshop Elements 4, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Corel PHOTO-PAINT, Macromedia Fireworks or XnView. Freeware, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 1.9MB.
http://www.colorpilot.com/wire.html
Free program removes ugly wires from your digital photos
If you take a lot of digital photos you will really appreciate this free utility suggested by subscriber Ken De Pree. Wire Pilot is photo retouching software, available as a stand-alone program or Photoshop plug-in, that's specially designed to allow the easy removal of unsightly wires, poles, antennas and other linear objects from your digital photos. I found it worked particularly well where the background behind the wire or pole you wanted to remove was sky, snow or other untextured surface. In these circumstances Wire Pilot was quicker to use than Photoshop's own tools and the results were just as good. The results with textured backgrounds were not quite as acceptable and clearly looked "processed." That reservation aside, this is a really useful free tool that can greatly improve the appearance of some of your favorite digital snapshots. You can either download the stand-alone program or a plug-in that works with Photoshop, Photoshop Elements 4, Jasc Paint Shop Pro, Corel PHOTO-PAINT, Macromedia Fireworks or XnView. Freeware, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, 1.9MB.
http://www.colorpilot.com/wire.html
Free online digital editing service
I've previously mentioned Fauxto, an online digital editing service that offers PhotoShop like capabilities. Picnik is another such service but with a different twist. Rather than offering fancy editing features it has blinding speed and excellent integration with Flickr, Picasa web albums and Facebook. You can of course upload photos from your computer as well. Image formats supported include JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIF and TGA. Picnik is Flash based and makes use of Google's new Gdata API. If Picnik is an indication of how well this interface works then I look forward to seeing the next round of applications that embody this technology.
http://www.picnik.com/
Free online Photoshop-like image editor
This is a very neat. Fauxto (pronounced foh-toh) is an online service that allows you to create or edit digital images using an interface and tool-set very similar to Photoshop. It even supports layers. Images can be imported from your hard drive, from Fauxto's servers or from a website. They can be saved to your computer or to the Fauxto servers for later use. Fauxto is currently only a beta but it seems to work fine. My only complaint was the limited set of file types supported but that's minor in the context of the power and usefulness of this service. To use the site you need to register. Thanks to subscriber Andreas Büsing for letting me know about Fauxto.
http://www.fauxto.com/
Free utility helps create a perfect group photo
Often when you photograph a group of people, one or more of the subjects frowns, blinks or moves, thus spoiling the whole shot. This free utility called "Group Shot" from Microsoft Research overcomes this problem by allowing you to splice together the best bits of several different shots. It's also good for removing unwanted objects in the background, like a passing car or pedestrian. Of course it's only useful if you have sequential shots of the same scene. Free, 1.3MB
http://research.microsoft.com/projects/GroupShot/
Free downloadable eBook of Photoshop techniques
Subscriber Dan Hervey writes, "Gizmo this free PDF eBook is really useful for anyone who wants to improve their digital photos using Adobe Photoshop. It uses a step-by-step approach so it's great for beginners but there's plenty for experts as well." Thanks Dan, I notice it's for version 7 of Photoshop which is now a little out of date. That's OK as most of the techniques still apply to the latest release though you may find that the tool locations have changed. To download this 32MB eBook right click on the following link and select "Save as .."
http://hellnet.perverz.hu/ebookz/Adobe/50%20Fast%20Photoshop%207%20Techniques.pdf