Professional-looking graphics and artwork can send a lot of positive messages to potential clients without having to say a word. High-quality visuals will instill a sense of confidence in your clients, making them more likely to choose you over the competition. However, the price of enterprise image editing programs can be outrageously out of reach for the small business or one man show.
To level the playing field and provide everybody with the tools needed to get the job done, here are some alternatives that won’t cost you any money – and that can still get the job done.
PhotoScape
Those who work with a mass of photos know the importance of efficient and powerful software tools in making management a little easier. PhotoScape offers the ability to view and manipulate your photos – on the fly – all within the same package. You can resize, apply color correction, and crop all at once, and can do the same in batches to cut down on a repetitive workload.
To really make use of all the power PhotoScape has to offer, be sure to pair it with a monitor of superb quality; if you’re unsure of what tech offers the best color fidelity, Gpunerd.com has great reviews for monitors.
GIMP
Though options like Adobe Creative Cloud have been developed to meet the needs of companies that can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on software, there is a subscription fee – not to mention the fact that if Adobe’s servers cannot be reached, like in the event of an internet outage, you can’t use the software to work. For those who have strict deadlines to meet, though, tools have to be reliable and functioning all the time.
GIMP is a very powerful open source image editing program that has a large following and is completely free of charge. Though a lot of image editing software is locked to either Windows or Mac, GIMP has been developed to work for Linux as well. Though the standard plugins and effects installed with the base package are few, widespread community support and open source practices have culminated in a very large pool of user-made scripts to use in your own work.
Paint.NET
Paint.NET had humble beginnings, originally meant as a lightweight replacement for the standard Paint program that comes with every Windows PC. Over the years, Paint.NET has evolved into a fully featured and powerful tool, easily meeting the functionality of premium software in the right hands. The intentionally minimalist user interface and a wealth of knowledge available through the greater online community make learning and using Paint.NET a breeze.
Inkscape
If your line of work requires high-quality vector imagery, you have very few options from which to choose. However, the go-to program for working with vectors, Adobe Illustrator, is going to cost you. Complaints from those who use Illustrator have gone up significantly as well; they started the same time Adobe moved to an exclusively subscription-based service.
Fortunately, there are other options that exist for creating and manipulating vector graphics. Inkscape is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Illustrator available today, at absolutely no cost to you. This open source software is usable on all operating system platforms, so you aren’t forced to use an OS you’re not comfortable with.
There are many resources and software packages available free of charge that can closely enough mimic the results of much more expensive programs. You don’t have to empty your wallet to get access to the tools you need to do your job, so consider using one or more of these four solutions for your professional image editing.
