SOFTWARE SPECIAL 5 free graphic tools online to unleash your creativity
Buying
a new computer for most us means scrimping and saving. And that's
only just the beginning.
Purchasing licensed software - more often than not - breaks the bank. But if you look hard enough, you might just hit the jackpot.
Graphics company Serif has a whole software suite that lets you edit photos, stitch panoramas, create vector graphics, design brochures, print layouts and visiting cards, and even personal web pages..
Purchasing licensed software - more often than not - breaks the bank. But if you look hard enough, you might just hit the jackpot.
Graphics company Serif has a whole software suite that lets you edit photos, stitch panoramas, create vector graphics, design brochures, print layouts and visiting cards, and even personal web pages..
PhotoPlus Starter edition
Instead
of paying a hefty price for photo-editing software, you could install
PhotoPlus Starter and get pro features at zero cost.
Like other advanced image editing tools, it lets you work with 'layers'.
You can use its built-in filters and effects, adjust brightness and contrast, tweak hue and saturation, straighten and crop pictures, remove red eye and blemishes, and more.
You can save your process as a custom pre set and quickly apply it to other images as well.
PhotoPlus includes a 'how to', which is a neat documentation of the software's capabilities. Beginners can use the simple instructions or click 'Do this for me' to allow the software to carry out the step automatically .
However, there are a few tools and effects - like line, shape, warp and HDR - that are available only after an upgrade. That said, its Help file has workarounds that help beginners get by without an upgrade.
Like other advanced image editing tools, it lets you work with 'layers'.
You can use its built-in filters and effects, adjust brightness and contrast, tweak hue and saturation, straighten and crop pictures, remove red eye and blemishes, and more.
You can save your process as a custom pre set and quickly apply it to other images as well.
PhotoPlus includes a 'how to', which is a neat documentation of the software's capabilities. Beginners can use the simple instructions or click 'Do this for me' to allow the software to carry out the step automatically .
However, there are a few tools and effects - like line, shape, warp and HDR - that are available only after an upgrade. That said, its Help file has workarounds that help beginners get by without an upgrade.
PanoramaPlus Starter edition
PanoramaPlus
is meant for the landscape photographs you've wanted to stitch
together, but haven't figured out how to.
Well, with this software, simply select the images you want to piece together and let it do all the hard work. Finally, save the newly created panorama, which can have a maximum resolution of 3000x3000px, as a JPEG file. Saving in other formats requires a paid upgrade.
Note: You will need an image editor like PhotoPlus to straighten and crop the panoramic landscapes to remove the empty spaces created by the stitching process.
Well, with this software, simply select the images you want to piece together and let it do all the hard work. Finally, save the newly created panorama, which can have a maximum resolution of 3000x3000px, as a JPEG file. Saving in other formats requires a paid upgrade.
Note: You will need an image editor like PhotoPlus to straighten and crop the panoramic landscapes to remove the empty spaces created by the stitching process.
DrawPlus Starter edition
DrawPlus
Starter is a superb illustration software that caters to budding
artists who are keen on learning about - and working with - vector
graphics. You can begin by using the Startup Wizard that's packed
with tutorial texts and videos. After which, you can explore
DrawPlus' exhaustive vector tools to create logos, technical
drawings, and even art.
The software can be calibrated to be used with any pressure-sensitive drawing tablet, allowing you to use its brush tool and effects to create professional-quality graphics. You can insert images from your PC to trace over, and you can even drag and drop shapes and cliparts from the software gallery directly into your design.
In this free version, some features like the Connector tool, the Freeform Paint tool, Instant 3D, the Blend tool, Publish as PDF, Preview in Browser, and Export for CADCAM are disabled. What you get, however, is still enough to create detailed illustrations. You can save your files in the proprietary DrawPlus Drawing format (.dpp), or export your work to formats such as GIF, JPG, PNG, TARGA, TIFF, Win Bitmap and SVG.
The software can be calibrated to be used with any pressure-sensitive drawing tablet, allowing you to use its brush tool and effects to create professional-quality graphics. You can insert images from your PC to trace over, and you can even drag and drop shapes and cliparts from the software gallery directly into your design.
In this free version, some features like the Connector tool, the Freeform Paint tool, Instant 3D, the Blend tool, Publish as PDF, Preview in Browser, and Export for CADCAM are disabled. What you get, however, is still enough to create detailed illustrations. You can save your files in the proprietary DrawPlus Drawing format (.dpp), or export your work to formats such as GIF, JPG, PNG, TARGA, TIFF, Win Bitmap and SVG.
PagePlus Starter edition
PagePlus
lets you create professional-looking bro chures, flyers, letterheads,
busi ness cards, resumes and more.
You get greater control over the elements in a page than you would in a Word document, making it ideal for students, designers, as well as the office executive.
The learning curve is not steep because of its numerous templates for various page sizes, including CD labels and envelopes. Moreover, PagePlus Starter is accompanied with detailed documentation and walk-throughs that make page-making simple.
We recommend watching the 'starting from scratch' video before moving on to the Tutorials section. The software also includes an exhaustive list of 'assets' like clipart, badges, backgrounds, logos, themes, stock photographs and symbols that can be selected and dragged on to the page whenever required.
While you are doing all this, PagePlus will continue to help you along the way with tips and tricks.
All projects are saved as a PP Publication file and exporting to a PDF file requires a paid upgrade. However, you can work around this by printing your work to an XPS Document (.xps), which is a PDF-like open document format.
You get greater control over the elements in a page than you would in a Word document, making it ideal for students, designers, as well as the office executive.
The learning curve is not steep because of its numerous templates for various page sizes, including CD labels and envelopes. Moreover, PagePlus Starter is accompanied with detailed documentation and walk-throughs that make page-making simple.
We recommend watching the 'starting from scratch' video before moving on to the Tutorials section. The software also includes an exhaustive list of 'assets' like clipart, badges, backgrounds, logos, themes, stock photographs and symbols that can be selected and dragged on to the page whenever required.
While you are doing all this, PagePlus will continue to help you along the way with tips and tricks.
All projects are saved as a PP Publication file and exporting to a PDF file requires a paid upgrade. However, you can work around this by printing your work to an XPS Document (.xps), which is a PDF-like open document format.
Savio
D'Souza & Ashutosh Desai, TNN
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