Computersight -

If you publish content online you probably know about some image editing programs, but many users still don’t know how many options there are and what do they offer to you.

Adobe Photoshop is the most popular software in this field, but you have to buy it (the last version is US$ 699). I use different tools but all of them are free and very easy to manage.

I made the following list thinking about the most frequent and basic needs and what can you do in every case.

Resize

I’ve seen there are still Triond users publishing pictures too big in the middle of the text. Resizing a picture to fit the space you have is a basic thing to learn if you want to publish them in a website or a blog (some websites do this automatically for you, but it’s not the case of Triond).

Any image editor include this option clearly presented. You just have to pick the size you want, choosing the width and high or the percentage of the original you want to reduce.

The Picture Manager that comes with Microsoft Office has this feature and others and you can use it without installing any additional software.

Crop

Cut the part of the picture you don’t need by cropping. This is also a very basic feature that even the Paint software (included in Windows) brings.

Photo by author

Correct errors or imperfections

Image editors usually have the option “Automatic fix” to enhance the color and fix errors. Personally, I prefer to choose the modifications I want to do by myself. Sometimes you don’t need to correct anything but the “red eye” effect or just add more light. And when it’s about pictures of people, you maybe want to make them look better as magazine editors do with the celebrities.

A useful and free tool I found for this is the Photo! Editor software, that comes with clear directions to follow. One of them is called “Make up” and it’s very good to fix face imperfections in a portrait!

You can download this software from here.

Copy a picture that you cannot save by clicking

A screen capture is a copy of the image as you can see it on your screen. Sometimes you need to show that in order to make a tutorial or explain a subject related to the use of some program. Or maybe you need to save a picture but this is not allowed by clicking with the right button of your mouse. The solution is the screen capture. How do you make it? Just press Alt + Prt Sc and then go to your favorite image editor, where you will be able to “paste” it in a blank page.

Add text to your images

Picnik is a free online tool recommended by Triond. It has most of the features that I mentioned above but also offers the chance to add text to the images. Then you can turn your domestic pictures in a greeting card, for example. The difference here is that you need to upload the file and you work with it online. When you’re done, you save it to your computer modified.

Original photo credit

Play!

Today you can turn your pictures easily in a work of art. I can tell you it can be fun when you try different changes to your images. You can make collages, give them the “old” sepia effect, turn them into a comic cartoon and much more.