Photoshop and Illustrator are among my favorite image editing tools. I use them daily for a number of things, from graphic design work to the simplest tasks, like re-sizing personal photos. But not only are they quite expensive, but the learning curve is tremendous.
It’s not easy for someone with little experience with these applications to install them and start using them fully. Heck, I don’t even use them to 100% of their capability and I have years of experience!
So what do non-designers do? What can you use to modify photos or do basic image optimization when the funtionality in the software that came with your digital camera or scanner is not enough?
Two of my favorite free image editors are Paint.NET and GIMP. I have used both on my second (and third) computers at home or at other locations when I’ve had to work in a pinch. Here are some details.
Paint.NET
Paint.NET is free and has a lot of features, including:
- Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface
- Layers
- Effects such as blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing
- Adjustable brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, curves, and levels
- Simple tools for drawing shapes
- Unlimited history (I love this feature because it means you can undo and undo….and undo.)
I primarily use a Mac for my work and Paint.NET is only avaialble on Windows. But I have installed and used it on a PC, and it’s really easy to use…almost deceivingly easy with the amount of functionality it provides. There is virtually no learning curve here, so I vote this as a must-try for any non-designers interested in doing image editing work.
GIMP
GIMP is probably one of the most used open source image applications. It has pretty extensive functionality and mimics Photoshop in some ways. Some of the features GIMP has includes:
- Painting tools including brush, pencil, airbrush, clone, etc.
- Gradient editor and blend tool
- Unlimited number of images open at one time
- Layers and channels
- Editable text layers
- Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip
- Supports all of the major file formats
There are versions available for Windows and Mac. While it does have a lot of functionality, there’s a bit of a learning curve. If you have time to play around, do some tutorials and practice, you can do almost anything that can be done with Photoshop. One major downfall to note, however, is that GIMP doesn’t support CMYK, which makes it a no-go for any print design work. But this is still a very good, advanced (and free!) image editor.
So, have you used either of these? Are you up for giving them a try?
Written by Alyssa Gregory
EMAIL Alyssa.
Owner of avertua, LLC, author of VA Secrets Revealed, founder of the Virtual Assistant Hub, blogger at the Small Business Idea Generator, and a whole bunch of other stuff!
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