In the old days, say 10-15 years ago, people would take pictures with standard film cameras, scan the images into a computer using expensive software and equipment and use them for either brochures or the internet (when it was in its infancy).
With the explosion and advancements in digital imaging technology, excellent and inexpensive digital cameras have revolutionized photography allowing amateurs to produce professional-like rustles with digital cameras they may have purchased in the mall. How best to edit those images is a question that many who have purchased digital cameras ought to consider.
Picasa, Photoshop, Image Editors, et al
Photoshop, produced by Adobe Software, is the professional standard by which image editing software is measured. It has virtually every feature a professional (or an amateur) requires to modify and ultimate print or upload images to the net. However, for an amateur, even a business person getting his feet wet in terms of producing images for his website, would be like rabbit hunting with a howitzer. A software program of this class is too complex and unnecessary for the average person or even someone operating a web site to use.
Most of the digital cameras that are being retailed nowadays obviously provide a way to download the images to somebody's computer. Additionally, the camera manufacturers provide some image editing and often, image organizational software, as well. Sometimes they are listed with names, such as Photoshop Lite, etc. While they are useful, they are typically limited to a single application. Google produces an excellent free image modification, optimization and organizational tool called Picasa. There are numerous free software packages, like Picasa for these and other applications.
Google's Picasa, Photo Editing & Organization Software
The Picasa suite is a free application offered by Google that performs a wide variety of image modification capabilities. It is suitable for both the amateur digital photographer, as well as the web site owner. It also categorizes images on user's computer for easy retrieval. Its photo and image editing capabilities are fairly robust offering many different useful and creative effects.
Picasa also offers users the ability to share their images on line with family or friends. In a business application, this functionality can also be used, particularly if the number of images are fairly extensive. There are some other rather interesting side applications supported by Picasa such as a poster maker where images can be pasted together to form an image collage. While perhaps intriguing for an individual, this application is probably not overly suitable for businesses.
There are numerous other free image editing programs that should be noted:
- Photobie
- Photo! Editor
- Image Analyzer
- Phantasmagoria
- Artweaver
- Photoscape
- VicMan's Photo Editor
- PaintStar
- Helicon Filter
- Free Image Editor
These are all freeware versions that are quite suitable for beginner. Additional details and descriptions may be found on the internet.
Other Digital Image Programs
There are some very specialized image modification and management programs available free of charge, such as photowipe which is an image processing tool that removes unwanted objects or features or even facial imperfections from photos. Another useful tool is Visipics. This eliminates duplicate pictures on a user's hard drive.Another interesting application is the Anvsoft Photo Flash Maker which creates animated photo slide shows into a Macromedia Flash file format. from still images. This can be used for both personal and business applications.
There are numerous new image modification applications hitting the internet every day. Most of them offer a free, "low octane" version for home or small business use. The digital image modification and image management field remains a treasure trove of free software programs for low end personal or business use. This probably will not change in the foreseeable future.
Nick Schklair - Nick Schklair, author, writer and business consultant has published a work on business startups in today's economy.
