The BestFree Graphics Programs

Knotter

I've been making graphics for Free Craft Downloads / Craftville for many years now and before that I was involved with graphics in websites etc. During that time I've used a whole range of graphics programs, many of the them free, in fact I think I've only ever used one paid for program on a regular basis and that was 10 years old before I stopped using it!

Anyway I've decided to share my "finds" with others who may find them useful. These are real free programs, they are legal, full versions and made as free. I have downloaded and installed each of these programs and haven't had any issues with the installing unwanted extras, viruses etc.

Lots Open Source / Free software is still going strong but it is getting harder to find. When you search for free software the rubbish you get in the search results is amazing, programs which aren't free at all. programs which are free for a limited time or have some of their functions disabled until you pay. There are even versions of the open source free software with added viruses!

Many of the programs I use / review have a long history and are either made by a community or by one or two individuals with the support of a community. Some of the bigger ones like GIMP and Paint.net have active forums and a multitude of people creating add ons.

Image Manipulation

So if you can actually find these programs there is some really good stuff out there. I've review 17 of the best programs I have found (after sifting through 100s) on 4um8.com .

Graphics Editors

Image Viewers / Organisers

Painting Software

Photo Manipulation

Others.

I can't stress strongly enough how good some of these programs are, far paid than spome of the paid software available!

So if you want to organise your images, make or edit some graphics for card making or even correct / edit your photographs then there is a bit of software for you. There is even a really nice/simple bit of software for making Celtic Knots.

You will find all of my reviews, download links and recommendations on my site

4um8.com

I have even started to add a few tutorials and will be adding more. I would be very interested to hear how anyone else gets on with these programs , or indeed , if you have found any good free programs yourself. Please do let me know.

Bob

Big Changes

OK I know I haven't been posting here as much as I should but my excuse is that things have been a bit busy.

Firstly I moved which took up a LOT of time. After that I started having a major sort out of the sites and servers.

You may not be aware that we had lots of mini sites which sent traffic to our larger sites. This worked well in the "old days" but now Google will  penalise you for what it sees as "gateway" sites and pages. So I've been closing  all of those down. At some time in the not too distant future I will probable by selling some of the domain names associated with them. I will put them on here and let folk know when I do, there may be some of interest.

The Sites I will be concentrating on now will be:
freecraftdownloads.co.uk
freecraftstuff.co.uk
craftcalendar.co.uk and
glasspaiting.co.uk.

Basically just about everything else is going and any useful content moved onto one of these four.

I haven't sorted any space for glass painting here yet so that site may have to be put on the back burner for a while.

As I've been busy deleting old sites I thought I would clear up the servers as well :-) This again has turned out to be a much bigger job than I imagined (don't they always).

I'm hoping that, when all of this is finished, I will be spending my time doing what I've wanted to for ages, actually designing some great sheets for Free Craft Downloads. The ones I do at the moment are "OK" but I time, given the time, I could produce some much better ones. We'll have to wait and see :-)

Just a moan about "Change"

Firstly let me just say the Craft4Charity has now raised over £2,000 so a huge thanks to everyone involved.

The rest of the blog is just going to be a bit of a moan.

I've never considered myself as a "conservative" (notice the small c) but two things have happened this weekend which may make me rethink.

Firstly they've destroyed one of my favourite websites, BBC Radio 7, obviously still love the station, who couldn't love all that SiFi, Sherlock Holmes, Hancocks Half hour etc etc ( if you've never listened then do give it a go) I even love some of literature they have on there. However they have managed to completely destroy the web site associated with it, they taken a nice, functional qwerky site and changed it to fit in the the corporate BBC look, worse still they have removed some of the best functionality and hidden the rest of it where it's difficult to find. Why change something which is working and people like. A quick glance at their message board (if yo can find it) shows you exactly what the users think.

To make matters worse I sat down with my youngest son today to watch the "Famous Five" on the Disney channel, we were looking forward to this as for the last couple of months we've been working through the first three of the Adventures for his bedtime story.... if you haven't seen this TV offering yet please don't, if you have the slightest memory of the books this TV series will make you cry. Dick has been renamed "Dylan", Ann is a cheer leader, Julian is "daft" and George, well george isn't a tomboy any more.... there's no sign of Uncle Quinton or unsurprisingly Aunte Fanny. The "HOUMOUR" (and there are lots of attempts at it) is along the lines of Scooby Doo, mostly based on the daft Julian, the air head Ann and, forgot to say,Dick (sorry Dylan) a money orientated nerd. Please give it a miss if you have fond memories of the books. I'm sure if it hadn't been named the Famous Five it would just have disappeared in to the mire of childrens TV... unfortunately some idiot decided to sell them the rights, you would have hopped that more care was taken with the legacy :-(

Well thats enough of my ramblings...nothing to do with crafts I know but the title of the blog does include the "and more" :-)