Gracey

Link listing of free software relating to graphics and imagery. These are either freeware, open source or donationware – not free trials. Some are “light” or free versions of a full-version software.

As with anything, PLEASE READ THE TERMS OF USE and Licensing for each thing you download. Just because it is free that doesn’t always mean you can use it for commercial outputs.

I have not tried all of these personally, so I can’t give you recommendations on their functionality; the graphic/paint programs which I have used (some I still use for certain things) may have notations of my opinion on them, but it is just that, my own personal opinion.

Many of these are available for both Mac and PC, but you’ll have to go check at the link site yourself – make sure you check the system requirements before you install anything (mamy older programs may not be compatible with WindowsXP or Vista), and be sure you have an up-to-date antivirus. I have accessed all of these links and downloads with no warnings, but it pays to be safe.

One last thing…if you use free software and find it useful, please donate to the creators (or upgrade to the paid version if they have one at reasonable cost) when you are able. Donations are how we can encourage free software makers to continue making the software free.

MINI ANIMATORS FOR ANIGIFS

Unfreez2 I have been using this since the days of “blinkies” – this is probably one of the tiniest programs – takes up no space and almost no memory and creates an animated gif. You need to have all your files ready to go when you use this. There is no time line, and not much in the way of control, so it’s not for those who use more sophisticated programs. It will, however, make a decent animated avatar.

Pivot by Peter Bone. A stick-figure animator. There is a sample on the homepage. Another very simple program to create small anigifs and and avatars. Click the software link to go to the download page.

GRAPHICS & PHOTO Editing

PaintStar – supports 30+ file formats, image morphing, full editing/graphic tools, supports layers and multiple paths. Freeware.

GimPhoto & GimPad
GimPhoto is a GIMP modification with a new menu layout, a great selection of plugins, and many additional resources for a more professional look and feel in a digital photo retouching and image editing application package. It more closely resembles the look of Photoshop.

Portable Gimp You can run this version of GimpShop from a thumb drive, or cd/dvd instead of installing it. Be sure to read the installation info – you will need to download at least one other file if you want the interface to look like Photoshop. There is a third file that gives you the PS background window, however, I did not download this since it is buggy.

I recently got this Portable Gimp for my new laptop (already own two versions of CS (2 & 3) for different computers, so I can’t afford another version for a travel computer (particularly when I don’t plan to do much editing on it). The laptop has Vista Home Premium on it, and this portable version with PS GUI file installed seems to work just fine.

New Photobie and Photobie Studio Both versions are free. There are also helpful forums and tutorials on the site.

NOTE

For anyone interested in other “portable” applications, the “PortableApps”: site has a goodly number. You can find the page here

These are all freeware or open source, and it includes the Mac OS (an older version – see Mac-on-a-stick).

Ivy Generator – not really an editing program, but it generates fairly realistic ivy for use in your collages or other imaging.

Artrage2 (free version & paid version is only $25 – freeware version is somewhat limited but good for basic art)

Artweaver (decent simple painting program with variety of drawing styles and supports layers and transparency – good for creating patterns and texture)

Cenon for mac or linux (haven’t used this since it won’t work on PC, but it looks interesting and I’d love to try it)

Gimp (one of the most powerful open source image editors with an interface and functions similar to Photoshop)

ImageMagick

Inkscape Vector Graphics program (a bit of a learning curve with this; similar in function to Adobe Illustrator)

Paint.net (drawing and paint program; supports layers)

Pixarra’s Twisted Brush Free Edition

Pixia Drawing & Painting)

Photofiltre – this version is free and does not support layers, the studio version is 29 euros (the studio version supports layers and transparency and has many functions similar to Photoshop)

Project Dogwaffle Free Version

Serif DrawPlus

Skencil Vector Graphics

Smooth Draw Nx

MobaPhoto – not an image editor or paint program, but useful to create image galleries for websites.

PANORAMA MAKERS

Open Source Panorama Tools

Autostitch

Canon Panorama Stitch

PanoGuide

FRACTAL PROGRAMS

Fyre – random image generator. This is pretty cool.

Apophysis

Chaoscope

Double Fractal

Endlos

Fractal Explorer

Fractal Forge

Fractal Studio

Fractint

Gnu Xaos

Mandala Explorer

Tierazon

Specifically for Mac – fractals

Spangfract
Spanky’s Fractals for Mac Listing

SCREENCAPTURE SOFTWARE

Cam Studio (records video screen captures to avi or swf)

MWSnap (I used this one for years – pretty good, very easy)

Easy-Capture (very similar to the “CaptureIt” software)

ScreenHunter

FastStone

IMAGE CATALOGUES/ORGANIZERS

Lightbox

Picasa

Windows Live Photo Gallery

WEB-BASED IMAGE EDITORS

(thanks to Jo Obrien for this link – there’s ten image editors here that are web-based)

10 Web Editors

3D SOFTWARE

Amabilis 3D Canvas

Anim8or

Art of Illusion

Blender

Bryce 5.5

Daz3D Studio

POV-Ray

Serif 3D Plus

SketchUp

sPatch

Terragen

trueSpace from Caligari

Wings 3d

World Creator and Buttonmaker by Inet

3d Add-ons, Utilities and Models (listed on Verchi forums)

General Use

For Bryce and Blender

For Daz3D, Poser and Others

The above links are to 3 forum threads (stickies) elsewhere – the lists were compiled by me for that forum (which is now defunct, but still accessible), and includes plugins, add-ons and utilities, and links to sites where you can obtain things like free models for 3D and free textures.

Please be sure to check the model downloads for licensing terms. If you are unsure about using a model in a sellable product, email the modeler – they are usually very good about responding. Mostly they don’t want you sell or give away the model/mesh, but will usually allow it’s use in a rendered image for sale. If the license doesn’t state that it is available for commercial use, please don’t use it without contacting the owner first. A simple email from them will act as a license for your renders. If they don’t allow it, please don’t do it.

Other Useful Utilities

Revo Uninstaller – very good program to help in uninstalling programs that don’t come with their own uninstaller. Yes, windows has an uninstall function, but sometimes there are bits left behind. Revo can help with that. Freeware

CCleaner A cookie cleaner that cleans out a lot more than cookies. It can also do a registry check and remove unnecessary entries. Freeware

PC Inspector Smart Recovery – recover image files from memory cards

Startup Control Panel For those who want to control what programs load on startup, but aren’t sure how to do it, this small control panel applet is a useful tool.

(I’ve loaded this onto both my daughters’ computers because they don’t understand how to stop the unnecessary programs from loading. This little program was easy to explain to them.) Those who understand computer maintenance and techs won’t need or want this, since you can do the same from your control panel.

Startup Monitor A small program that monitors your startups and notifies you when any program/file registers itself to run at startup.

RunAlyzer, FileAlyzer, RegAlyzer – from the makers of Spybot S&D

RunAlyzer
Gives an overview over many relevant system settings, intended to replace the Tools section currently integrated into Spybot-S&D.

FileAlyzer
FileAlyzer allows a basic analysis of files (showing file properties and file contents in hex dump form) and is able to interpret common file contents like resources structures (like text, graphics, HTML, media and PE).

RegAlyzer
RegAlyzer is a tool to browse and change the registry.

Office Software

Open Office.org (comparable to MS Office)

Floppy Office (a software package containing a dozen applications. The entire thing will run from a thumb drive, a floppy, or your computer. A very small download for those with connection issues. Contains a useful ftp client.)

Computer Security & Antivirus Software

How to Remove Antivirus XP, Antivirus XP2008, Antivirus XP2009 (there have been a spate of infections of this nasty, so it seems helpful to include this link, which also includes appropriate software downloads).

How to Remove VIRUS ALERT (ditto the above)

Spybot Search & Destroy – variety of functions including cleanup of malware, adware, browser protection, system internals and other uses.

HijackThis – helps remove browser hijacks, homepage hijacks, identify & remove malware, adware, trojans etc. NOTE: do not use this on your own if you don’t know anything about computers.

If you need help to identify and clean up computer infections go to What The Tech (formerly TomCoyote forums) and post your problem in the appropriate forums. If you need help or explanations, bmail me.

A-squared – very good anti-trojan. They also have pro versions of the anti-trojan, as well as anti-malware.

Malwarebytes – a variety of useful anti-malware tools. Tried and true; I’ve used some of these quite often to clean up other computers.

Adaware Free – adware removal tool (other tools available, though not necessarily free) – I don’t use this one personally.

AVG Free Antivirus – Free antivirus & browser protection. I’ve read some minor complaints about false-positives with this, but I’ve been using this for about five years with no complaint. I also install this on every computer I clean.

One thing to note about some OEM software installed on new computers – products like Norton & MacAffee: the subscription for free virus signature updates will often run out after a year or two – be sure to check yours if this is what you use. This happened to both of my daughters – thinking they had antivirus software.

Avast Free Antivirus – another decent freeware antivirus I’ve used.

ThreatFire (formeryly known as Cyberhawk): “ThreatFire is different. It does not rely on signatures, but instead constantly analyzes your computer’s behavior to detect and block any malicious activity. ThreatFire protects immediately so you know your PC and your valuable data is always secure.”

Rather than listing all of these available products (which there are many – but be careful, because some will cause more harm than good to your computer) here’s a trusted site where there’s a decent listing of helpful programs:

Freebytes Guide to Free Anti-virus/Anti-malware

Pacs Portal A fairly large listing of computer start-up programs (.exe files) and what they do, or what they are used for, and whether or not your computer needs them to load on start-up. It also lists start-ups for trojans and malware which makes this site extremely helpful in identifying the files that are loading in your process list.

CHILDREN

There are also some drawing & paint programs in the free/open source category available specifically geared to children in age ranges from 4 or 5 to 10 or 12. Encourage the artist in your children from a young age.

Tux Paint

Drawing for Children

Smooth Teddy

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Here’s a site that I check every day. I’ve gotten a couple of pretty decent programs from here. They offer a licensed software download for free, every day. To get it licensed you must download and install it on the day it’s given away – and you need to follow the activation instructions in the downloaded zip file.

Give-away-of-the-day

There are two drawbacks here: most of the time the software offered is of no use or interest to me personally (that doesn’t make it bad, it could be that stuff offered is very useful to someone else), and secondly…if your computer crashes or you buy a new one, the software license can’t be recovered or transferred to another computer. There are, however, times where the software will be offered again at a later date.

NOTE: you can’t always trust the thumbs up/thumbs down ratings. A lot of people will give the software a thumbs down because it’s of no interest to them.

I’ve been following this site for about six months, and I have a number of programs I use (including Business Cards MX3.9, Wondershare’s WebVideo Author, Sound Editor Deluxe, A2 Antiwaremalware, Moyea Flash Video MX, Acoolsoft Powerpoint to Video Converter, Photo Story Gold, iSpring Pro, Wondershare’s Photoo Collage Studio and their Flash Slideshow Builder, and Dogwaffle’s “PD Particles”), Dogwaffle Project (not the free one), and like from them, along with 3 games. You can scroll through some of the previous give-aways on the main page to see the variety of stuff they offer.

On the weekends, they offer a free game give away on their sister site Game-give-away-of-the-day

This is not a complete listing of all freeware available, but it is fairly representational of what’s available, from the simple to the more complex.

If anyone has links that fit these categories, please feel free to add them in the comments section, or bmail them to me and I’ll add them into the body with a notation of who submitted them.
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One of the reason’s for this compiled list is that I find myself frequently pointing people to links for software of this nature. I just thought it would be easier to keep it one place.