Over the past several years, I have maintained a list of freeware image editing tools which I have posted on several forums. Altjough the programs in the list each had their particular pluses and minuses, none were really a complete image editor along the lines of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro...until now. MAGIX has released their Photo Clinic software as full freeware. With this program, you get the functionality of working with layers, cloning tools, and paint tools. Plus it also accepts Photoshop compatible plugins. A big bonus for web designers is that you can also edit PSD files with this program; making it ideal for someone on a limited budget, or who just cannot afford one of the more pricey editors, to be able to edit a PSD template they got for free. The download is about 10Mb As the forum will not allow me to post a link, I can just tell you that the program can be found at Download.com and Tucows, or just do a Google search for 'magix photo clinic 4.5' and those will be the top results.
The link on download.com is here http://www.download.com/MAGIX-Photo-Clinic/3000-2191_4-10576632.html
For those wanting to expand even further upon the capabilities, or ease of use, of this free editor, here are some links to free Photoshop Plugins you can use with the editor (sorry that I can't make them live yet): http://photoshop.pluginsworld.com/plugin.php?directory=adobe&software=photoshop&license=1 (present count is 126 free plugins) http://www.flamingpear.com/download.html (scroll down the page to 'free plugins'; primarily filter effects) http://www.mways.co.uk/prog/plugin.php (a bundle of 8 plugins including cool lightning and warp effects) http://www.xero-graphics.co.uk/freeware.htm (40 cool plugins) Any search on Google for 'free photoshop plugins' will turn up some more, as there are hundreds of free plugins out there. These plugins will work in the free Photo Clinic, but they won't work in Gimp. For those with Gimp, you can find plugins for it here: http://registry.gimp.org/index.jsp For those who do not have Gimp, I do not recommend it, and I'll tell you exactly why; because in order to run Gimp on your Windows machine, you have to install the GTK+ library which requires you to rename two of Windows' dlls. If you don't mind playing the rename game when you want to run a program which requires those dlls, more power to you. A better option for Windows users who want to run Gimp on their machines in to get Gimp Portable, which is completely self contained (does not require the renaming of any dlls), and will run off of a flash drive or from your hard drive (you will need to manually place a shortcut on your desktop if you are running it from your hard drive). You can download Gimp Portable here: http://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/gimp_portable That's it for now. As I come across more cool stuff I'll update you. Please share any plugins you find as well.
cool ill give a go at it, was looking for a good image editor from long time.. which would be small in size and quick to work with
Around 2002, AlienSkin released their Eye Candy 3 Photoshop compatible plugin package as a freebie. This was circulated on various magazine coverdisks and made available for download for a limited time. This plugin contains 21 different effects. Searching around the web, I found a download for it that is still working. If anybody wants the plugin, you can get it here: http://www.geocities.com/why2kspace/
Thanks Menar I'll try it.I hope it will be useful for use.Photoshop includes a lot of features but it needs very good system (Ram,Cpu) I hope it doesn't need like Photoshop.
I personally love to use Amazifier. It is a nice and simple photo editor.It's a free one like Paint.net and PhotoScape but Amazifier is far more simple and a has real cool look and feel. You can't do professional stuff like Adobe's PhotoShop with it but its good for 99% of the photo editing I do. It has some nice photo effects, photo frames, stickers, etc.. You can get it from their website at amazifier.com