Free Alternatives to Photoshop for Editing and Finalizing Your Photos

You probably use your camera every now and then to capture those vacation or party memories. Pictures help you relive that time, so you want to make the shots as vivid and clear as you can.

But sometimes, when you take the photo you don't have time to adjust the aperture and ISO and all that so the picture may not turn out great and may be blurry or noisy or have red-eye. The only option is to edit the photos on a computer.

I will show you some free alternatives to Photoshop and some other popular image editing programs that cost money and a little bit of what they can do. You can choose which one has the tools you need or is convenient for you.

I will also show how finalize and publish your photos on a disc or on the Internet.

Step 1 Materials

Depending on what methods and/or programs you use will change what you need. I would recommend to have at least these things.

• A decent computer. Check out the program(s) you will use and search the minimum system requirements.
• An Internet connection. Doesn't have to be blazing fast.
• Photos to clean up.

These are just the basics. Look at the services/ programs you using to find what else you will need.

Comments

[Dipankar]

The last word......Nothing to beat Photo shop......all other photo edit software are child's play.

[cowscankill]

Can you use GIMP or the other programs in videos? I wanted to get photoshop originally for gun effects, but I was hoping this would work.

[AlternateLives]

GIMP can work for these applications. note that for effects you should create your dimensions to match your video, ie 720x480. simply create your image, import it to your video editor, and keyframe it.

I read down, and saw your question about Green Screen. Chroma Key, or green screen,is usually handled by the video editor. Avid's Pinnacle Studio, Adobe's Premier Elements, Apple's Final Cut Express, and Nero Multimedia Suite 10 should handle these effects described.

another way to do graphics is to use a program such as Anime Studio Debut. simply do all of your effects that you want in that program, export your scenes, and cut them together. that program has a bit of a learning curve, so be prepared to figure it out.

Another good program for special effects is Blender. It is an open-source 3D modeling program, and is found at www.blender.org. this program has a steep learning curve, so don't expect to create the next Avatar. however, for short sequences, it works just fine!

I am an aspiring film major (still a freshman in college), so I run Final Cut Studio. however, any of the effects that I just described should work in any of the programs listed.

hope this helps!

[technosapien]

There is a version of GIMP for video editing called CinePaint. It forked from GIMP somewhere around 2000 and is from what I understand a good, feature-rich program.
http://www.cinepaint.org

[cowscankill]

thanks man! I'll try it! Also, could you use it like for green screens? or is there a special program for green screens?

[technosapien]

I haven't looked at cinepaint for a long time, but the website indicates not yet: "CinePaint is a paint and image retouching program that today is mainly used for dustbusting, that is, manually cleaning dust off 35mm film scans. The architecture of CinePaint is a core program, a library of service routines, a procedural database (PDB) with a wire interface, and program resources. Resources include brushes, gradients, palettes, patterns, plug-ins, and scripts. There are rc settings control files for core, gtk, menus, and plug-ins. Fundamental to the core of CinePaint is the frame buffer, and for scalability that is operated upon as tiles. CinePaint has its own tile cache. "CinePaint does not currently support motion picture editing, compositing, morphing, rotoscoping, or blue screen mattes. However, there are ideas in that direction. "CinePaint seeks to support all popular operating systems including Linux, Macintosh, and Windows."

[AlternateLives]

I use GIMP, but I really want to upgrade to photoshop. GIMP can be quite irritating if you have gotten used to photoshop, as I have.

But for free, you can't beat it!

[Jaif14]

I like GIMP the best

[phant0m_sp00f3ra]

i used to have the same wallpaper. Got it from Interfacelift :P

[IncrediblyCondensedBlackMatter]

gimp is the shizzles.... i use it on ALL my deviations. check me out at 666thsystemofchaos.deviantart.com

[Humer]

Try out Aviary

[modelman]

Artweaver is another free alternative to Photoshop. It has a similar layout opens PSD files and has a lot of the same shortcut keys. Windows only.

[ClayOgre]

Perhaps a bit late, but there are a number of tutorials on Gimptalk. You can also find tutorials on GimpDome, and on DeviantArt.

[Babyshoes]

A good overview! A bit more detail on actually using the ones you prefer (perhaps another instructable at a later stage) would be nice, but isn't essential :) I recently downloaded Gimp, but can't figure anything out intuitively, so need to go and read some instructions. I am just being lazy about it. I know, I know, RTFM!

[TechnoGeek95]

Ya, GIMP is quite hard to learn in the beginning, especially when you are used to Photoshop. I'll try adding instructions or point to some good ones.

[samalert]

My First Try...............! Done it in photoShop CS2. Hope its done correctly Plz Experts Any CommenTs FoR mY WorK ,aNy improVeMent Comments always entertained

[Tarzan138]

i downloaded GIMP but everytime i turn it on and make a new file or layer it says there's a problem then it shutdowns can you help me out in getting it fixed

[UltraMagnus]

GIMP is great, its as good as photoshop IMO, and no harder to use than photoshop, just a lot different, personally i hate the UI of photoshop..... adobe like kids pirating their software, so once they go pro and join a business they or that business have to pay through the nose for their software because of auditors and such, its like drug dealers that give free samples....

[lawizeg]

What's an auditor?

[UltraMagnus]

basically someone that makes sure that a company is paying the right amount of tax or not doing anything else dodgy. <br/><br/><a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_auditor">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_auditor</a><br/>

[stuuf]

Inkscape is great for 2D illustrations and diagrams, if you learn how to use it. I think a lot of the diagrams that you see on various web pages that people tried and failed to do with MS paint would look a lot better if more people knew how to do vector graphics.

[CalcProgrammer1]

I like Gimp, it's pretty easy to use once you start using it a lot. I don't like all the different windows, but it's pretty powerful, so it gets the job done.

[alvincredible]

theres also photoshop online, btw. its free too. look it up! its very useful

[jtobako]

Have they changed the 'everything you do here belongs to us' part of the usage statement yet?

[jotter]

I've wanted to use GIMP for several years however, didn't know how to run the program. I just recently found several tutorial video's on YouTube. I've learned some valuable GIMP how-to's, tips and tricks by watching video's.
Take a look at my YouTube page for some examples (video's are by various artists):
ijotter's Channel - http://youtube.com/user/ijotter

I found the video's by doing a search on YouTube for 'GIMP'.

Here's a GIMP video tutorial on Photo Manipulation:

[momule]

I'd love to have Photoshop but don't have an extra 600 bucks laying around. And then, the learning curve.... sigh.. .I guess I'm not just the lazy, financially distressed type but also don't really have a way to justify spending money on a program that I can live without....would rather spend money on my boat so I can play on the river. A great overview of things I've never heard of though and I'm all over the Free part of it. I'll be checking those sites out. Thanks for your effort !!!!!

[a grain of alt.]

Great instructable, which gives people an alternative to acquiring Photoshop through *cough* less-than-legal means when they want to edit images.

That said, I tried really hard to love Gimp when I was running 64-bit Ubuntu- but it had serious stability issues. Can't speak for the Windows version. Gimpshop also didn't work on that version of Gimp : ( .

[TechnoGeek95]

Thanks! Maybe try some of the online services, since GIMP was unstable.