Edit photographs online and more

I had heard about Adobe's Photoshop Express sometime back but only signed up for it today.

It has the same function as Flickr in that it allows us to store images online and create slideshows. However, the similarities end there. Photoshop Express allows you to store up to a maximum of 2Gb space. You can also edit your images online, create a slide show which you can then post up on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and more.

Flickr users should be happy to learn that Photoshop Express allows you to download images from their Flickr albums, edit them on PE and upload them back up again on Flickr.

And of course, it's totally free of charge.

Create huge panoramas with Hugin

As an amateur photographer, I absolutely love this program.

I am sure you have come across the situation whereby you wanted to take the picture of a beautiful landscape or building but it just didn't fit in. Well just take loads of pictures and use "hugin" - the Free downloadable Panorama photo sticker to join up all your photographs into one whole complete panorama.

The latest version is version 0.7 beta 4 and is available for Linux, OS X and Windows.

Download Hugin here.



Here is a screenshot of the software in action from the Hugin site.

Gimpshop free alternative to photoshop

My favourite photo editing software happen to be open source. I use the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) for photo retouching most of the time, though it can used for image composition and image authoring. However, after having been using Photoshop for a long time, it took me quite sometime to used to it.

Today I learnt about another open source photoeditor called Gimpshop (8154KB). This powerful tool looks a lot like Photoshop with several effects and filters. As the name suggest, it is based on GIMP, but has more features plus that Photoshop feel. Don't forget its' totally free.

Irfanview Plugins

One of my all-time favourite free photo editor is Irfanview (pronounce "EarfanView"). The current version ihas a better improved Vista compatibility.

Irfan Skiljan, the creator of Irfanview has released the new set of PlugIns 4.00 for the software. Several of the previous PlugIns are changed/updated. This includes fixes to the IFF loading bug.

New version of Irfanview out

One of my favourite image viewer and minor editing is Irfanview (pronounced Earfanview). It is free for non-commercial use. The latest version irfanView 4.00 was released on the 23rd last month.

Here are some of the improvements:
- Improved Vista compatibility
- New display option: Center image in window (Menu: View->Display options)
- Toolbar skin option added (Properties->Toolbar)
- New Properties->Video option: Use DirectShow for playing (good for MJPG AVIs)
- New advanced batch option: Auto adjust colors
- New EXIF dialog button: Show in Google Earth (if GPS data available)
- The EXIF dialog can stay displayed on screen
- Several new plugIns are changed/updated.
- The bug fixes: Start folder, RLE BMPs and ANI loading

Simple photo editing tool

Sometime you just want to retouch your photos a little bit, maybe crop it or resize it. Buying Photoshop for that, is simply not worth it.

Take a look at Paint.NET 3. This is a free image editing and photo manipulation software. Sorry Mac users, this software is for Windows computers only.

Image from their site. I really liked this software because besides it has some editing tools seen only (till now) in higher-end commercial photo editing software. This includes a Curve tool, Gradient tool, Clone stamp and Magic wand. It also supports layers.

For those who would like to further tweak this tool, they are in luck because is open source.

Tags: freeware open source Paint.NET 3 photo editor