Thursday, December 15, 2011

Cheap Alternatives to Photoshop

Photoshop is a fantastic photo editor that you can download from Adobe, but it costs a lot of money to buy. Assuming you don't have a lot of money to spare from your business administrator salary, you may want to find some alternative programs to use in place of Photoshop. Luckily there are several free programs out there that may be enough to at least do what minimal work you may need to do. Here are a few of them you may want to use for your photo editing.

GIMP

GIMP is a free program that you can download from the web. It isn't the easiest program out there to use, but it is definitely cheaper than Photoshop. GIMP will allow you to add text to an image or create buttons to use on a website. You can do a lot more with GIMP than you can with most free photo editors, but you may have to spend some time getting used to it to truly make it work for you. There are tons of little options for image editing, including adding layers and color matching a shade to use in a picture. You will just have to download it to see what you can do.

Paint

Paint will most likely be on your computer already, so all you have to do is look for it. This program has come a long way over the years, and there is no telling how far it may go in the future. You can't do a whole lot with Paint, but you can at least use it to resize an image or crop something out of a picture. You can also use it to add text or symbols to an image if you want to. There are tons of little borders you can play around with if you just want something for basic photo editing. Of all the products I will mention here, Paint is by far the easiest to use.

IrfanView

IrfanView is somewhat of a happy medium between Paint and GIMP. It does more than Paint, but it doesn't do quite as much as GIMP. You can use IrfanView to change the look of an image or resize something that is too large. You could also use it to tilt an image in one direction or remove red-eye from a picture. You will just have to explore some of the options you have to see what you can do. IrfanView, like GIMP, is free to download any time you want to use it.

Microsoft Word

If you already have a copy of MS Word on your computer, you may be able to use it to edit images. Simply insert an image into a document and look for a little "Format" option to come up in the tabs on top. You can then go to that tab for unique borders and photo effects you can put on the image. I have done this on numerous occasions when I wanted to add a shadow to something that I just couldn't do on the other programs. It saved me from having to figure out a different look for the image I had in mind.

Conclusion

You don't have to spend a fortune on Photoshop to be able to edit the images you have on your computer. You just have to take the time to find a program that will work for you. Check out all the little tabs you have in the photo editors you already have installed on the computer, and you might be surprised by what your programs can do. All you have to do is explore your options to find something you can benefit from.

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