Week 4 - Image Editing Software

The topic of digital photography and image editing is very fascinating especially in today’s digital world. This week, I’d like to tell about several great free software programs to help you with all your digital imaging needs. In educational settings, these programs can help you prepare your worksheets for class. For example, if you need to copy pages and images from workbooks, instead of using the old-fashioned scissors and glue method, you can scan the pages and then manipulate them in a mess-free way with the following programs. 1) Fast Stone Image Viewer – this is an unbelievable program! This program is especially helpful if you need to edit multiple images (otherwise known as batch processing). For example, it allows you to convert and rename entire folders into multiple formats. It also allows you to crop multiple images and to create Pdf’s and slideshows from multiple images. I use this program mostly for manipulating scanned images. For my research, I scan many articles and I need a way or organizing, renaming, cropping, changing the contrast, and making a PDF out of these images. This is a great tool for this kind of work. 2) The Gimp – the Gimp is basically a freeware alternative to Adobe Photoshop! I use Fast Stone Image Viewer mainly for processing multiple files, but the Gimp is far better for manipulating individual images. (For example, using the paint brush, adding effects etc.). 3) Ifran View – this is a great alternative to Fast Stone Image Viewer. I hope you enjoy experimenting with these programs!