Artweaver - Free alternative to Photoshop

[Charan]

Update:Changed the title and added Paint.NET, GIMP and GIMPshop to the content.

Artweaver
Artweaver is a simple Freeware program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers you all artistic effects which you need for your work.

You can create sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is thereby so realistic as possible.

Advantages of Artweaver:
· Support of many different digital brushes e.g. chalk, charcoal, pencils...
· A wide variety of adjustment settings to customize the default brushes or to create new brushes.
· Standard image editing tools like gradient, crop, fill and selection tools.
· Support for the most common file formats like AWD (Artweaver), BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, TGA, TIFF, PNG, and PSD (no layer support).
· Transparency and Layers support.
· Effect filters like sharpen, blur, emboss and mosaic.
· Editable text layers.
· Pen Tablet support for a realistic feeling.
· History function to und/redo last editing steps.
· Expandable by Plug-In modules (Artweaver Standard).
· Support for many languages through language files.
· And much more...

I tried out a bit by creating some text effects, looks very good application. though we have opensource GIMP , its some times difficult to get used to it for Photoshop pro's. With the download size of just 8.5MB this one is superb application. I am just a noob when it comes to Photoshop but this one looks good. give it a try :)

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8764/2944eca9a749cffbef795c0vo5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/8368/19d167f12b9e6d298eba31ahr6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5271/e7584cf21e266de1edd3323md3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Artweaver Home Page (http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?artweaver_en)
Download Page (http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?id=68,151,0,0,1,0)



Paint.NET


About
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features (http://www.getpaint.net/features.html) an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe® Photoshop®, Corel® Paint Shop Pro®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.
The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with a small amount of C++ for installation and shell-integration related functionality. The source code is available under the terms of the MIT License.


http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/6089/pdn310carthumbbk1.th.jpg (http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pdn310carthumbbk1.jpg)http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/2593/pdn30m2shot1yj4.th.jpg (http://img156.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pdn30m2shot1yj4.jpg)

Paint.NET Home Page (http://www.getpaint.net/)
Download Page (http://www.getpaint.net/download.html)
Paint.NET Tutorials (http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=15)

The GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or GIMP, is a raster graphics editor application with some support for vector graphics.

GIMP is used to process digital graphics and photographs. Typical uses include creating graphics and logos, resizing and cropping photos, altering colors, combining multiple images, removing unwanted image features, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated images in GIF format. It is often used as a free software replacement for Adobe Photoshop, the most widely used bitmap editor in the printing and graphics industries; however, it is not designed to be a Photoshop clone

Home Page (http://www.gimp.org/)
Download Page for all Supported OS (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)


GIMPShop

GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

It shares all GIMP's advantages, including the long feature list and customisability, while addressing some common criticisms regarding the program's interface: GIMPshop modifies the menu structure to closely match Photoshop's, adjusts the program's terminology to match Adobe's, and, in the Windows version, uses a plugin called 'Deweirdifier' to combine the application's numerous windows in a similar manner to the MDI system used by most Windows graphics packages. While GIMPshop does not support Photoshop plugins, all GIMP's own plugins, filters, brushes, etc. remain available.

Due to the changes to the interface, many Photoshop tutorials can be followed in GIMPshop unchanged, and most others can be adapted for GIMPshop users with minimal effort.


Home Page (http://www.gimpshop.com/index.shtml)
Downloads Page (http://www.gimpshop.com/download.shtml)

Thanks Anirudh (infra_red_dude) for the links.

[ravi_9793]

Thanks for sharing.........:)
Actually I was in need of photoshop free+easy alternative.Let me try this

[gx_saurav]

Its good for casual users & pirates who install photoshop even for resizing images. Like the customers in India who buy a new computer & need Photoshop for no reason, this is better.

For those who wanna "work", Photoshop is teh sh1t

[Kiran_tech_mania]

Looks good. Let me try. Especially I am surprised by such low system requirements and just 8MB of download. Thanks charan for sharing.

Photoshop is a fully bloated software. I prefer Ulead Photoimpact. Easy to handle GUI interface and awesome features.

[gx_saurav]

Photoshop is a fully bloated software.

U can manually unbloat it. The defination of bloat depends on what u use it for, like for me Photoshop CS3 is just perfect

[infra_red_dude]

This is a nice alternative. Thanks for posting, Charan :) 8MB is jus too good. Its a great package for casual users. I hope by spreading the awareness we can help curb piracy, no matter how small the percentage it is!

For those of you who need the more powerful GIMP but are used to Photoshop's interface, I'd suggest you to install GIMP first then install the package GIMPShop. It brings Photoshop's menus, options and almost the whole interface. Photoshop users will feel at home (almost).

More info here: http://www.gimpshop.com/
Download gimpshop: http://www.gimpshop.com/download.shtml
Its available for all platforms: Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS.

[Charan]

You are welcome guys :) , ANi thanks for posting the links for gimpshop :)

[blackpearl]

Its good for casual users & pirates who install photoshop even for resizing images. Like the customers in India who buy a new computer & need Photoshop for no reason, this is better.



Yeah, every new computer comes with Photoshop. I use Compupic for minor image editing like cropping, resizing, converting etc. It's an image viewer too. Very good.

[Vishal Gupta]

Thanks. But the best free alternative is "Paint.NET". ;)

[ArZuNeOs]

thanks charan for the bringing sware to our knowledge

[Charan]

Thanks. But the best free alternative is "Paint.NET". ;)

Holly @#$% , I didnt see that Paint.NET has so much, I has installed Paint.NET long ago, but never bothered to look at the features :p

[infra_red_dude]

Paint.NET is really a worthy software! :)

[anand1]

One more alternative is PhotoFilter Studio.
Download (http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3822-photofiltre-studio.html)

[Charan]

^^ Good one Anand but its shareware with 30 days trial :(

Updated first thread to include Paint.NET :)

[Kiran_tech_mania]

One more alternative is PhotoFilter Studio.
Download (http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3822-photofiltre-studio.html)

We are talking of freeware alternatives to Photoshop. PhotoFiltre Studio is a shareware. :)

[infra_red_dude]

Hey Charan, add GIMP + GIMPShop too!

[The_Devil_Himself]

Hmm gimp+gimpshop combo looks cool.

[anand1]

After 30 days u can have the serial key by registering it.

[Charan]

Hey Charan, add GIMP + GIMPShop too!

Done :) sorry for the delay .. "Power Cut" :(

[Gigacore]

thanks bro

[Vishal Gupta]

Holly @#$% , I didnt see that Paint.NET has so much, I has installed Paint.NET long ago, but never bothered to look at the features :p
There is a rumor that Microsoft will replace its "MSPaint" in Windows with "Paint.NET" in upcoming versions of Windows coz initially Paint.NET project was started in guidance of MS. ;)

[Charan]

^^ thats good news :D . But will they provide the source code also on default installation?

[Gigacore]

^ nice :) can we expect more features?

[casanova]

Thanks for these softies.

[anandk]

Nice useful links. thanx.

[infra_red_dude]

I think its better MS don't bundle Paint.NET. Once acquired I doubt if its development will be as fast as it is now. I don't want it to become a neglected product. Let MS provide support/help to it from outside (like the Left parties do to the Govt. most of the times! :D )

GIMP tutorials can be found here: http://www.upstateforums.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4464

[ax3]

bt NONE softwares matches PHOTOSHOP ............

[sakumar79]

I personally prefer Photofiltre... Easy to use and more than enough for the casual photo editing tasks...

Arun

[Charan]

bt NONE softwares matches PHOTOSHOP ............
Ofcourse none match Photoshop. the point we are discussing here is "Free" alternate applications. :)