Here is what I cam up with:
Basic image viewing and manipulation
IrfanView - www.irfanview.com
[Windows][Freeware][Small Download]
- Can handle pretty much all image formats, and change simplistic things like colour, brightness, emboss, engrave and convert. New release just recently too!
Kuickshow - http://kuickshow.sourceforge.net
[Open Source GPL][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Can handle pretty much all image formats, and change simplistic things like colour, brightness, emboss, engrave and convert, just like Irfanview, but open source. Also features a slideshow mode, which is very nifty.
PhotoXplorer - www.lennkvist.com/Xplorer
[Freeware][Windows][Small Download]
- PhotoXplorer is an image manager and a converter for Canon digital RAW images. One particular feature is that PhotXploerer allows you to view Rawthumbs from canon images using IE. Note that there is no documentation yet. PhotoXplorer emulates MS Explorer in a way that documentation for the most part is unnecessary, however, it is known to be unstable, like IE, since it uses the core of it (I wonder how they did that, considering how MSFT's laws are...).
Anyhoo, screenshot right here.
BreezeBrowser - www.breezesys.com
[Freeware for unregistered, but otherwise propriety software for $$][Windows][Small Download]
- Described as the "Swiss army knife forraw files". The BreezeBrowser helps the professional photographer with:
* Selecting images for presentation
* Generating attractive, captioned web pages with watermarking and online ordering (optional)
* Producing contact sheets and proofs
* Batch renaming images and managing folders
* Captioning and editing comments and IPTC data
BreezeBrowser also enables photographers to:
* Convert, resize, sharpen and level raw images from Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Minolta and Olympus cameras
* Rotate JPEG's with no loss of quality
* Display images and shooting data from most major formats and makes of camera(including RAW, JPEG, TIFF)
* Display sharp preview images using the unique 'HQ mode'
* Present slideshows on laptop or pc
* Adjust date and time for batches or single images
XnView & nConvert - www.xnview.com
[Freeware - non commercial - or register][Windows][Mac Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Great tool. Supports different languages under Windows (Mac, Linux and UNIX yet to come), and can open almost all of the many file formats, and export into about a quarter of them. Take screen shots, manipulate. Quite nice to work with.
A screen shot of the Windows version:
PixiePlus - www.mosfet.org/pixie
[Open Source GPL][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Pixie is pretty much your ultimate image browser. Circumnavigate every image on your HD, with ease and clicks of your mouse. Play slide shows, zoom, convert and create hotlists, etc. Created by mofset, who also created the Linux Live CD called Freeduc which is essentially all educational Open Source programs on one live CD. Pixie kicks ass. You can also create thumbnails and a html file in your albums which you can choose to automatically open whne entering folders. You get a thumbail view, with inbedded thumbs and links to your actual full size pics. Here is the logo, done with Gimp:
And some additional screen shots, which I just made using Pixie.
And another screen shot I fished out somewhere on the net:
Medium graphic creation and manipulation
ImageMagick - www.imagemagick.org
[Open Source GPL][Windows][Mac][Linux][UNIX][Web based][Small Download]
- You can resize, rotate, sharpen, color reduce, or add special effects to an image or image sequence and save in almost all formats. Image processing operations are available from the command line, or from the C, C++, Perl, Java, PHP, Python, or Ruby programming languages. This measn you can use less than 50 characters to create an image based by using the konsole command line. A high-quality 2D renderer is also included.
Images like this had all the effects added with ImagMagick using just simple coding.
Some more examples.
Photofiltre - www.photofiltre.com
[Freeware - non commercial - or register][Windows]
- "PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to do simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look." Somewhat true. Some effects are to be quite nifty. Better off with something more professional like Gimp, that is if you want more, but for it does, it does it reasonably well. You can also choose to download in different languages (about 4 apart from English).
Here is a screenshot.
Major 2D Image Editing
Paint Shop Pro - www.jasc.com
[$$$][Windows][Mac][Propriety Software]
- Handy for quick, and effective web graphics. can make nifty looking web buttons, and is also used to design skins for programs. Quite easy to use, but costs more than does.
Adobe Photoshop - www.adobe.com/photoshop
[$$$ - almost $,$$$][Windows][Mac][Propriety Software]
- Very powerful editing and creating tool, but very expensive. Render, warp, dilute and edit all your graphics
Gimp - www.gimp.org
[Open Source GPL][Windows][Mac][Linux][UNIX]
- Also very powerful, and considered second to PS9, but most certainly makes up for it in open source aspect. Do all you do in PS9, except of course the features are given different names and there might be one that PS9 only has, and 4 that PS9 doesn't have.
If you see below, I give a screenshot of me using Sodipodi. This is what my creation looks like now, touched up with Gimp. Mind you, you could have done that with almost all programs, except for the nifty layering:
And to see some other creations in Gimp (done by me), have a look below. In this image, I only used blur, sharpen, the paint brush, smudge, dodge, border function and the text funtion. It was originally a sketch, which was flipped also in Gimp. I also included the sketch as a comparison:
- Also notive how the original sketch is smaller in dimension, but larger in file size, while the final copy is larger in dimension and smaller in file size.
Krita - www.koffice.org/krita
[Open Source GPL][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Krita is a painting and image editing application for KOffice. It is to be released with KOffice. Krita was formerly known as KImageShop. It is intended to be suitable for all your image creation and editing needs, such as creating original art, making images for websites, touching up scanned photographs or anything else you might need to do with bitmapped images. This program will almost be as powerful as Gimp, since it is to include many of it's plugins as well as a layering functions - in an office package...
2D Illustration/Drawing - vector graphics
Macromedia Designer - www.macromedia.com
[$$$][Windows][Propriety Software]
- Illustration tool by Macromedia - reasonably powerful. Handy for many small buttons, and icons.
Adobe Illustrator - www.adobe.com/illustrator
[$$$][Windows][Mac][Propriety Software]
- One of the many professional illustrators on the market. Hard to use, since of complexity, and also quite expensive.
OpenOffice Drawer - www.openoffice.org
[Open Source GPL][Windows][Mac][Linux][UNIX]
- Comes with the popular favourite office package along with the spreadsheat, master documents, text docus, and presentation creator. Great for home projects and some logo designing. Good to make your basics, and then add effects in something like Gimp or PS. Also includes some features which aren't available in Gimp, or PS.
Kontour - ?
[Open Source GPL][Mac][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Drawing tool component of the KDE office suite. Formerly Killustrator until Adobe sued for trademark infringement. Features almost the same as Open Office's Drawer.
Sodipodi - ?
[Open Source GPL][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Coolest, smallest and most powerful program for web button and logo creation I have ever come across. This thing rocks so much, you can go about making professional web buttons within 2 minutes.
Here is an example (btw, that takes about 3 minutes):
And here is a screenshot what I just made within 5 minutes. Love the translucent feel it gives you. Take a peak at the Gimp above to see what I did with it in Gimp:
Karbon14 - www.koffice.org/karbon
[Open Source GPL][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Karbon14 is the vector drawing application in KDE.
3D Rendering
POV-Ray - www.povray.org
[Open Source available but restricted][Windows][Mac][Linux][UNIX]
- One of the most commonly used free redndering programs on the surface of the earth. It is script based and quite flexable, however, it can be difficult to use by people who have had no experience with scripts. Creation of complex shapes generally requires the use of another modeler, however for what it is, and what you get, it is enough to build professional graphics. Touch ups are recommended upon finish with POV-Ray.
Wings3D - www.wings3d.com
[Open Source][Windows][Mac][Linux][UNIX]
- Extrusion box modeler most useful in conjunction with POV-Ray. Considered to be rather easy to use, and recommended to be used in conjunction with POV-Ray since it is purely a modeler, and since it has no rendering support.
Blender - www.blender.org
[Open Source][Windows][Mac][Linux][UNIX][Small Download]
- Quite powerful, especially since it comes as a complete package. You get the modeler, rendering, and some other nifty extras. Used to be $$$, but then turned to freeware, and now Open Source. USed often, and can produce stunning results. Touch ups are often not required. Want to see what it can do? Here, take a peak at Andreas <@ndy> Goralczyk's awesome creations.
@ndy's site, and two thumbs:
Maya - www.aliaswavefront.com
[$$,$$$][Windows][Linux][Mac]
- Most certainly professional grade, however only at full version which incidentally sells for $17,000 USD (yes, that is correct). Uncomplete versions, which are worse than programs like Blender can be bought for ~$2000 USD. Considered state of the art, but it comes with the biggest price tag in the industry.
Lightwave 3D - www.newtek.com
[$,$$][Windows][Mac][?]
- This thing produces professional, quality 3D models. Comes with the modeler, renderer. USed primarily by Hollywood for the VFX movies. Expensive as hell but very powerful and fairly easy to use. Fast renderer, which requires a state of the art machine. Not good character animation support. Some student discounts are available. You can get a free, restricted-use 'educational edition' demo, but if you want that, you might as well get something good, like Blender.
3DStudio MAX - www.discreet.com
[$,$$$][Windows][?]
- Quite professional, and used often by the gaming industry. Generates reasonably good quality 3D models, animations. Not used for VFX, since it is not good enough for it, unless you get the $,$$$ upgrade. Known to be a complete resource hog, and lagging monster. Other common descriptions include bad file format compatability, quite unstable, expensive, and equally difficult to use.
Terragen - www.planetside.co.uk/terragen
[Freeware - but registerable for just over 90 USD][Windows][Mac][Small Download]
- Terragen? is a work-in-progress scenery generator for Windows and the Mac OS. At this stage of its development, Terragen is free for personal non-commercial use, however a registered version can be bought, which features more functions etc. It is capable of photorealistic results for professional landscape visualisation, special effects, art and recreation. Despite the fact that Terragen can be used for professional landscape visualisation projects, it is accessible and easy to get started with. You could be rendering your first landscape image in as little as 15 minutes after installation.
Here is an example of what can be achieved using the registered version:
And here are some screen shots of Windows XP, Mac 9 and OSX:
