After 5 years of loyal use, I switch opinions on graphics programs

When I first started this blog, one of the first products I investigated was Photofilter. I was truly amazed by how robust this graphics software was. I had experience working with Paintshop Pro from a job I held years before and Photofilter did nearly everything that Paintshop Pro did and it did it for free. I am still a big fan of Photofilter but sadly, there will be no more development directed towards the freeware version of that product. They have decided to start charging for the latest version of the product but you can still download the old version of the software for free from the site I will list below.

The good news is that freeware users don't need to take a step down on graphics capabilities because there is an even more powerful graphics freeware product available. Gimp has been around for some time now and when I originally looked at it I thought it was too complex for the average user. The complexity is still an issue but it has become user friendly enough for everyone to look at and become proficient with if they spend an afternoon tinkering with it. GIMP is a very robust environment that offers a multitude of textures, layer controls, and editing tools. Gimp runs on both the UNIX and the Windows platform so we get the benefit of both the resources in the development community but we also get a file structure in the GUI that is a little confusing for a Windows user but don't let that scare you off. It is entirely possible to get good at using GIMP within a day or two and it is deep enough to keep you busy for years before you master everything in GIMP. Therefore, everyone's got to check it out and experiment.



http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

You'll have to download both the application and the run-time environment and then install both packages. Then you'll be able to do everything from simple photo edits to advanced graphic environments.

If you've looked at Gimp and you'd rather work with something easier then check out photofilter at the link below.

http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm

Fast, Easy to Navigate, Photo Viewer

IrfranView - Photo Viewing

Everything you ever wanted in a viewer, it's fast, efficient, and functional. There are 2 interfaces that work together to bring you the ultimate viewing ability; a thumbnail view and a single pain view. Put the thumbnail view in your program launcher. IrfranView allows you to assign it as the "default" program for your image files during the install and I recommend that you do this. I did not select IrfranView as my multimedia player of choice. I'm looking into this...

For future reference... to select what programs open what file types you can do it by going to your control panel--> select "folder options" --> select the tab "file types".

Download IrfranView and you'll be amazed at how much easier it is for you to browse your images.

http://www.irfanview.com/