Free Photo Editing Software

Can anyone point me to a good photo editing program so that I can do caps on this site?

Thanks

The hyperlink is visible to registered members only! its free compact and fast or if you really want top quality use the gimp The hyperlink is visible to registered members only! be warned the gimp takes a lot of getting used to.

or try The hyperlink is visible to registered members only!
its free on the linux distribution of your choice ;)

Doing captions in GIMP is actually pretty easy.
Things can seem complicated in GIMP because there are so many options for altering the image, but you don't often need those for captioning.
I'll reprint my intro to GIMP and IrfanView here. This should get you up-and-captioning fast. Let me know if you have any questions.

---------------------

GIMP 2.6 is the best software I know of for captions and image editing. It's FREE and open-sourced.
(If any of you have tried GIMP in the past and noticed that the caption text wouldn't auto-wrap, please note that they've added the auto-wrap feature in v2.6.)
The Windows installer for GIMP can be found here
The hyperlink is visible to registered members only!
and the FAQ and documentation are here.
The hyperlink is visible to registered members only!

Here's a quick HOW TO for adding captions in GIMP.
- Open an image file. (Click Open on the File menu.)
- Press T to select the Text tool (or click Text on the Tools menu).
- Drag your mouse across your image to draw a rectangle where the text will appear. (You can easily resize this rectangle later by dragging its edges.)
- Type your caption in the Text Editor box.
- You can change the font, size, color, and justification in the Toolbox.
- To save your changes, choose Save or Save As from the File menu.
If you choose Save As, you can change the file extension to .xcf.
This will preserve your caption in a separate layer, so you have the option to re-edit it later.
But of course, saving a copy of the image with the .jpg (JPEG)
extension is usually best for viewing and sharing.

Another free captioning alternative Irfanview The hyperlink is visible to registered members only! It's not as useful as GIMP for editing and it isn't open-sourced, but it's a good image viewer. To add a caption to an image, you select an area by drawing a rectangle (same as GIMP) and use Ctrl+T to add text.

Good luck and happy captioning!

As said above, the best free software for your purposes and many others is GIMP...

Thank you, iadjust. Finally got me off my butt and started me doing some captions. Now I can give back to all those cappers who have given me such pleasure with their work.

.

Wow! Who would have thought that there
are so many Gimp users.

I also use Gimp but there are other free
programs out there. I have used a program
called "Paint.net" it's open source but unlike
gimp that has a user interface that seems
to have been invented by martians the ".net"
interface is much like what you'd see with
photo shop.

There has been another thread with this
subject. Maybe if you looked/searched
for it you will be able to find it. As I recall
some people were using power point to
do captions so I guess the lesmister here
is that your ideas are more important than
than your tools.

I did a few posts about editing images and
it's at URL.

Good luck.

try tucows freeware

Lord, I'm backwards. I'm almost ashamed to admit that I've been using MS paint. I'll give GIMP a look-see.

Thanks for steering me to GIMP!

I have one question which I can't figure out. How do you add blank space to the top or side of a picture for caption room? The "Canvas Size" command adds space at both the side AND bottom and I can't figure out how to add text even with that. Of course, I'd rather add space either at the top or the side (but not both).

Thanks for the help.

If you have room, you can add your caption right on the image itself.

But back to your question, ... Yeah, the Canvas Size feature isn't as intuitive as it should be.

On the Canvas Size dialog box, there is an icon next to the Width and the Height that looks like a chain link. Click on it to "disconnect" the link; and you can then extend the Width independently of the Height. Also, it seems to be important to change the "Resize layers" field from "None" to "All layers" before you click Resize.

FYI: I you set a Background Color before you change the Canvas Size, the blank parts of the expanded canvas will be automatically filled in with the Background Color.

Let me know if these instructions aren't clear enough.

Good luck with your captions!