- You do not need any paid software to edit photos and/or post them on the internet.
- Most paid software (if you decided to go that route) will have professional features that you will never use.
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When most people think of image editing software, they think of a software title such as Adobe Photoshop. This software costs hundreds of dollars, takes a long time to learn and is far more than anyone not an digital image professional needs.
There are several software titles available on the internet that are 100% free to download and use.
I will mention two titles here and a few web sites to get you started.
GIMP
GIMP is an abbreviation for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is freely available from www.gimp.org for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. For Windows users specifically, GIMP is available for Windows 2000, Windows XP and Vista (and future versions of Windows once they are available).
GIMP is not an easy program to master, however it is powerful. Said honestly, you can do just about anything in GIMP that you can do in Photoshop.
The only major drawback is that GIMP is an image editor only. It will not organize your photos nor will it post any photos to the internet. It is literally only an editor – but a darn good one.
Picasa
Picasa is for all intents and purposes a true one-for-all when it comes to photos and the internet. It’s very easy to use. It will organize your photos. It’s very simple to edit photos with. Combined with a Picasa Web Album, you can post photos to the internet easily.
Picasa is freely available from picasa.google.com (no need for the WWW in front of that web address).
Flickr
Flickr is a web site, not an application. You can check out Flickr (pronounced “flicker”) at www.flickr.com. Although you don’t get the editing power of Picasa or GIMP with your images, some people do prefer this method of sharing photos on the internet over Picasa.
Like Picasa, Flickr is free to register with and free to use.
Zooomr
Zooomr (yes with three o’s and pronounced “zoomer”) is like Flickr in the fact that it’s free but operates a bit differently. The web site is www.zooomr.com. You can post and share photos easily, but bear in mind that the Zooomr interface is slightly different compared to Flickr. Also bear in mind that Flickr and Zooomr are not the same company – they are different.
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