26 replies to this topic

[switch]

hey guys

i was basically wondering if anyone knew any good graphics editing software for use making sigs, web page graphics, textures for computer games etc.

at the moment i'm using a combination of Microsoft Photo Editor, Paint, IrfanView, ImageXYZ (a text watermarking tool) Winamp's Advanced Visualization Studio and Excessive Use of the Print Screen Key

anyone know of any software that could suit my needs? much appreciated.

peace out

[tajimd]

Why are you not trying Photoshop or Imeageready. You can even check fireworks. All of them are great

[samma]

photoshop would be my suggestion... if you cant afford it, i would go for fireworks or paint shop pro... GIMP is free but the features arn't as good as photoshop and etc.

[cse-icons]

yeah Photoshop would be the best but it is not free and as far as I know even fireworks or paint shop pro are also not free.
GIMP is the best u can get free and use it in the combination u r now and undoubtedly u would get a lot better results.

Cheers.

[Spectre]

Allow to bring one thing to your attention: the title. You know, the first thing you see before reading a post?

Anyone Know Any Good Legal Free Graphics Software?, well Photoshop costs ~$800!

To me, this suggests the poster is looking for good, legally free graphics-related programs. So you might consider ceasing to post recommendations of Photoshop and the like.

Anyway, GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is, as has been mentioned, a reasonably good free imaging application. The problem is that decent programs of this sort usually take a lot of time and money to develop, so there isn't many floating around that the developers are willing to part with without a fee. There are certainly alternatives to Photoshop, but not many.

There are quite a few free WYSIWYG HTML editors on the web. I use Dreamweaver myself, which obviously isn't free, so I wouldn't know of any to personally recommend, but I have heard good things about the open source editor NVU.

[Becca]

use SERIF software. It's awesome and I think it's free. There's serif draw which is like filtered down drawing program. And theres paint and other cool things (3d etc..) It's only the older versions though. But it's still fairly useful.

Quote

http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/

[dodgerblue]

GIMP isn't as good as Photoshop? Nonsense.

It isn't n00b-friendly, if that's what you mean. *sniffs in disdain*

There are ALOT of features that take some discovering. It is an amazing graphics tool. I couldn't live without it. I make ALL my work with GIMP. Yeah, because why pay $1000 for what you can get free?

All I have to say is: Go download it now.

[fffanatics]

Woo who ever said GIMP was not that good has never really used it. Yes, if you are used to photoshop it might seem a tad bit strange and hard to use but once u start using it and get used to the way it does things, it is as good as Photoshop. Plus, since it is free many people use it and there are great tutorials online just search google. For a free image software, use GIMP since who actually can afford Adobe CS 2?

[Lyon2]

Photoshop and paint-shop-pro are the best, and between the two, paint-shop-pro is by far the best, even though tons of people say the other way.

If you don't want to pay, you have the "photoshop" of the open source, named "GIMP".

Gimp is almost as good as photoshop, so, i'll recommend it if you don't want to pay.

[Becca]

Why an earth is everyone either suggesting photoshop or paint shop pro...or even mentioning it? The dude already said it was expensive..

And like i said serif is good. I used the draw one as it came in a free cd from a computer mag and found it was really useful..a tiny bit like corel draw...obviously not as good but good enough. Oh and MS Paint can be good for some things as well. I use it A LOT and there might be some tutorials out there that most people didn't know how to before.. It still amazes me.but i guess it is a bit too basic.

All terragen is FREE and good for creating realistic, cool landscapes that CAN be used a texture. It's really good you should try it out. I think it's called terragen anyways.

[sandbox]

I've used XNview before with good success. Their website seems to be having responsiveness issues right now, but hopfully it will come back for you.

Notice from BuffaloHELP:

Edited as reported.

Edited by BuffaloHELP, 20 October 2005 - 09:33 PM.

[TiKiRoKhaN]

Also, if you dont have a animation program. Go get "UNFREEZE". Its a great animation program 100% free and not glitchy. I think its a good program if your just animating. But if you want, go try a free trial of photoshop. u'll love it

[ZeroHawk]

Get the Gimp. It's a lot like Photoshop but free. It's what I use. Adobe must be making a REALLY good profit silling photoshop for 600$+. And so many people are buying...

[TiKiRoKhaN]

Zero, I have to say.... Photoshop is so amazing, manipulation, 3d, and pixel. I've seen people make human beings! I have to say, its worth the money.

PS: GO FOR PHOTOSHOP 7! It rocks!

[Becca]

TiKiRoKhaN, on Oct 20 2005, 11:35 PM, said:

Zero, I have to say.... Photoshop is so amazing, manipulation, 3d, and pixel. I've seen people make human beings! I have to say, its worth the money.

PS: GO FOR PHOTOSHOP 7! It rocks!

do you guys even read the first topic or what? I think he's trying to find ALTERNATIVE solutions to photoshop..not the actual thing..I mean it isn't free...and even if you do download the trial- it'll be gone after a month...argh!
- and yeah we all know it's amazing, but that isn't the point of this topic.

Anyways. UNFREEZ is cool i use to use that but it got annoying after i kept clicking and draggign each and every image i had to SAVE in order to make it animate..and it sometimes loses quality...

i searched in google - which is probably the best thing to do and found this very interesting website. Not only does it list free programs for paint but also for other types of things aswell..

You can find it HERE

I hope it is useful to everyone...because it was to me

[amhso]

I agree with the earlier posts, get the GIMP. It's pretty much photoshop, just has a little steeper learning curve because the tools are all over the place. But other than that, anything you can do in photoshop, is almost always do-able in the GIMP. Or else, believe it or not, if you have windows, paint can do lots of things, just takes the most skill to make that piece of crap program to do much

[dodgerblue]

Paint is good for pixel art... Um. That's about all. It's too basic.

[broflovski]

Try PhotoPlus, GIMP, GIFFY... yeah. those'll get you started.
PhotoPlus works much like Photoshop and ImageReady, (but on a basic scale). It's really handy. It got me started when Photoshop didn't arrive in my mailbox yet =p

[AmandaB78]

I'm definetly not the only one who is going to say this but Photoshop is the best. I use to use irfanview but then I got photoshop. You can do a lot with photoshop you just need to know how. I suggest going to a bookstore and getting a quick reader quide. I have one of those on web design. They are really helpful.

[shigajet]

I would recommend the GIMP, Serif Photo Plus or Image Forge. These are among the best free graphics software available. If you can afford to spend some money or know of some "resources", Photoshop and Fireworks are also great. If not, go for oneof the three I mentioned above.

[switch]

yeah i know how good photoshop is.... i've used it and it's brilliant. done some cool stuff with it.

and y'know, i really think most copies of photoshop out there are probably burnt.

thanks for all the suggestions guys, i'm gunna check out GIMP and see what i can do

and don't let me catch anyone dissing MSPaint ever again - Elftor vs Photoshop (Comic) haha so good. although i don't think the website is functioning correctly at the moment. take a look if it goes back up.

lol ok thanks heaps guys.

peace out

[zehredness]

Some people have mentioned freeserifsoftware.com, which offers many good programs. If you go there, download PhotoPlus. It supports layers. A free program I adore is called Photofiltre: http://www.photofiltre.com . It offers an English version and has some plugins right there on the site. Plus a lot of plugins are compatible with it. I highly recommend it.

[haxored]

GIMP is the best free Photoshop like editor in the world. If you think its no good, then you are no good. Its not just user friendly but trust me.. almost every cool graphics in Linux Desktops you see, including great icons with alpha channels are done with GIMP. So use and discover before you say its no good. With GIMP Plugins it can work like photoshop and to sum it all, best things are free!

[shadowdemon]

photoshop has a 30 day free trial so if you c an get the most use out of it in the month then get it

[BrknDreamer]

Becca, on Oct 20 2005, 02:17 PM, said:

Why an earth is everyone either suggesting photoshop or paint shop pro...or even mentioning it? The dude already said it was expensive..

And like i said serif is good. I used the draw one as it came in a free cd from a computer mag and found it was really useful..a tiny bit like corel draw...obviously not as good but good enough. Oh and MS Paint can be good for some things as well. I use it A LOT and there might be some tutorials out there that most people didn't know how to before.. It still amazes me.but i guess it is a bit too basic.

All terragen is FREE and good for creating realistic, cool landscapes that CAN be used a texture. It's really good you should try it out. I think it's called terragen anyways.

OK, just a thought here-
since everyone keeps suggessting PS & stuff, and we need not to spend any $$ here...
What about using the trial version for a bit? Maybe while you save up? Almost every program for sale offers a trial version. Not a good fix for the long haul, unless maybe you could reinstall or something, that might be against the rules, Im not sure about all that, and of course some features may not be available - but for a free prog, GIMP is definitely the best available, also if you need a free 3d prog for anything you might want to check out blend... its also open source like gimp