Free Graphics Software
Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites
Photo Manipulation - the big guns!
Picture Viewers & Editors - viewers with some editing capability
Flash - make Flash presentations
3D Modelling & Animation Programs - includes simples modelling programs to raytracing and also an architectural modelling program
Vector Graphics Freeware - make vector graphics that will resize perfectly
Paint & Drawing - from wonderfully sophisticated paint programs to more simple ones including some nice paint programs for children
Panorama Stitchers - two excellent programs
Landscape Generator - an open source landscape generator
Miscellaneous Graphics Programs - includes screen capture software, reflection effects, an icon editor, plant creator, photo album generator, mosaic image software, morphing software and a wonderfull little colour picker and the Rasterblaster!
Free Panorama Stitchers
Autostitch 
• www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch
Program Type: Panorama Photo Stitcher
Wow!!! I looked at this program after using Hugin (see below) - which is great - but this is so easy and does a brilliant job. It's completely automatic. All you do is load in the pictures you want to stitch together and in no time at all you have a perfectly stitched together panorama without any input (other than selecting the images) on your part at all! It's an amazing piece of software. See how Autostitch dealt with 5 images taken from Crickley Hill near Cheltenham - the result of about 2 minutes work - and then have a look at what we produced with Hugin after considerably more effort.
Although on the website you download a "demo" of Autostitch this is actually the full strength program. What companies can pay extra for is the chance to develop further products using Autostitch. Otherwise it is free to use - if your demo expires just download the lastest version from the website. We are not sure if this means that in the future we may have to pay for Autostitch, but if that day comes then we will definitely be getting out our credit cards!
Hugin
• http://hugin.sourceforge.net
Program Type: Panorama Photo Stitcher
By far the easiest way to get going with this program is to follow the beginner's tutorial which can be found on the website.
The only problem I had was when asked to save the file as a tiff - it didn't work! Heaven knows why. However I did manage to save the file as a jpeg. Take a look here at five photos taken from the top of Crickley Hill (nr Cheltenham) that I was able to stitch together - after only the one tutorial! This really is a very easy program to get to grips with straight away but has more than enough capability for the kind of tweaking that advanced users will want. Excellent.
Platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX and many Unix systems.
Free Landscape Generator
Terragen 
• www.planetside.co.uk/terragen
Program Type: Scenery Generator
Some years ago I installed a paid for landscape generator called Vue D'Esprit 3.0 that was free with a computer magazine (the new version was due out and this was by way of advertising - they now have version 6 out I believe). I spent a few happy hours generating landscapes to my hearts content. I was intrigued therefore when I saw that there was a free landscape generator out there. However, although I managed to get this program to work (just - it still won't save my rendered images), compared to Vue D'Esprit 3.0 it is pretty basic, even after I downloaded the free plugins available on the website - see resources. In view of the fantastic quality of some free programs out there, all in all I find this one disappointing. However, I am prepared to admit that maybe I don't have the skills to get the best out of this program. The version I downloaded is v0.9.43. There are many tutorials available for Terragen - just do a Google search.
Platforms: Windows and Mac
Terragen 2 
• www.planetside.co.uk/terragen
Program Type: Scenery Generator
Much better! I actually managed to produce this image in bitmap form in about half an hour with no tutorial help - OK it's not very good but it's better than nothing at all which is what I achieved with Terragen 0.9!
There are many tutorials available for Terragen - just do a Google search.
Platforms: Windows and Mac
Landscape Studio
• www.planetside.co.uk/terragen
Program Type: Heightmap Generator
This program will produce terrain maps for use in other landscape program such as Terragen. (See above).
Platforms: Windows and Mac
Free Miscellaneous Graphics Programs
Reflet
• www.photofiltre.com
Program Type: Reflection Effects
Small program but incredibly effective - see here to see what we achieved in about 10 seconds flat with no tutorial help! Wonderful! You can find Reflet, along with other programs, under freeware in the main lefthand window on the Photofiltre website (note that Photofiltre Studio itself is shareware and not freeware).
Platform: Windows
Plant Studio
• www.kurtz-fernhout.com
Program Type: Plant Creator
Another small program but quite delightfull. With this program you can make plant models. Here is one we made just using the basic plant wizard and the "breed" option. The program will, however, do more than we have attempted so far. The program is completely free and has a help screen plus there is additional support on the website.
Platform: Windows
IcoFX
• http://icofx.ro/
Program Type: Icon Maker/Editor
Great program and 100% free. Create your own icons from scratch or convert (and edit it you like) an existing image. For a full list of the many features plus tutorials, see the website.
Platform: Windows
Icona 5
• http://jansfreeware.com
Program Type: Icon Editor
Small simple and easy to use program. Its a zip file that extracts the program - you should therefore extract it to the folder you want the program to be in.
JAlbum
• http://jalbum.net
Program Type: Photo Album Generator
Excellent program. Make web albums of your images and view the albums in your web browser. Use the templates provided or customise it to your own specs. There are dozens of different "skins" you can download from the website.
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (and others)
Web Album Maker
• www.web-album-maker.com
Program Type: Photo Album Generator
Another excellent free photo album maker using Flash or html templates (no Flash experience necessary). In fact it couldn't be easier to use. Just add images from your computer, click next, choose a template and then click make! You can just view or upload it straight to your website. Probably not quite so versatile as JAlbum.
Platforms: Windows
Web Photo Album
• http://vicman.net/webalbum
Program Type: Photo Album Generator
A small program that easily allows you to create and publish albums for the web. Choose from about 30 templates.
Platforms: Windows
The Rasterbator
• http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator
Program Type: Image Rasterisation
This free program creates huge rasterised images from any picture. You can upload your image and have it rasterised online or download the program - probably better as there is then no size or resolution limits. Very easy to use but you will need a pdf viewer as the program uses this to output the rasterised images.
Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux (not tested).
Color Cop
• http://colorcop.net
Program Type: Colour Picker
Love it! You can use the colour picker (eyedropper) on any part of your screen irrespective of what program is open. And it will also 'stay on top' when you click onto another program, unless you minimize it. Features include a magnifier, auto-copy to the clipboard, multiple output options, colour options, mouse wheel support and more. Click top left to bring up all the available options.
Platform: Windows
Cam Studio
• http://camstudio.org
Program Type: Streaming Video Software
Free open source streaming video software that will enable you to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files. It also has a built-in SWF Producer that can turn the AVIs into streaming Flash videos (SWFs).
Use it to create video demos and tutorials or to record problems you might be having with your computer (for the tech support people who, lets face it, think the rest of us are complete idiots and don't believe a word we say!)
Wink
• www.debugmode.com/wink
Program Type: Tutorial & Presentation Creation
Freeware program that allows you to create tutorials and presentations using screenshots.
Features:
Audio: Record voice as you create the tutorial for explaining better.
Input formats: Capture screenshots from your PC, or use images in BMP/JPG/PNG/TIFF/GIF formats.
Output formats: Macromedia Flash, Standalone EXE, PDF, PostScript, HTML or any of the above image formats. Use Flash/html for the web, EXE for distributing to PC users and PDF for printable manuals.
Multilingual support: Works in English, French, German, Italian, Danish, Spanish, Serbian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified/Traditional Chinese.
Smart Capture Tools: Capture screenshots automatically as you use your PC, based on mouse and keyboard input
Performance/Quality: Creates highly compressed Flash presentations (few kbs to few hundreds of kbs, much smaller than competing commercial products) ideal for using on the web.
Platforms: Windows and various versions of Linux (x86 only).
AndreaMosaic
• www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic
Program Type: Photo Mosaic Creator
This makes those pictures that are themselves made up of other tiny little pictures. Very easy to use. Just specify the picture you want to have a mosaic of and then the folder containing the images you want the program to use. You can even extract images from video files.
Free for personal or commercial use.
Platforms: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and various versions of Linux (x86 only).
WinMorph
• www.debugmode.com/winmorph
Program Type: Morphing and Warping Software
Very professional feel to this freeware morphing/warping program, plus you can get some great results! It can process images and videos. You can also use the program as a plug in for Adobe Premiere Vegas Video and Wax. Output file formats include JPEG,BMP,PNG,TGA,TIFF,AVI,MPEG and SWF.
Platforms: Windows
Squirlz Morph
• www.xiberpix.net/SqirlzMorph.html
Program Type: Multi-Morphing Software
I found this freeware program pretty easy to get to grips with. See the results below (you can choose how fast the morph takes). My effort is pretty basic - to see some really great morphs go to the website. You can also use more than two photographs. It can process images and AVIs. Morph animations can be saved as Macromedia Flash (SWF) files, AVI video clips, and bitmap and JPEG files.
Like it.
Platforms: Windows
Free Morphing
• www.filesguard.com/index.php
Program Type: Morphing Software
A simpler program than the above 2. You can morph 2 images and save as gif, avi, pdf, multi page tiff or multi page pcx. Fairly simple to use. Note that when you install the program it will also install a trial version of another (paid for) program called RasterVect. You can just uninstall this if you are not interested.
Platforms: Windows
Back To Free Software Main Index
