Digital Images

Image Formats

JPEG

GIF - Graphics Interchange Format

Until 2006, there was patents (Unisys and IBM) covering the LZW compression algorithm which is used in making GIF, restricting free use of GIF format. The Unisys patent expired on 20 June 2003 in the USA, in Europe it expired on 18 June 2004, in Japan the patent expired on 20 June 2004 and in Canada it expired on 7 July 2004. The U.S. IBM patent expired 11 August 2006, The Software Freedom Law Center says that after 1 October 2006, there will be no significant patent claims interfering with employment of the GIF format.

PNG

Image Processing

  • Adobe - Adobe Creative Suite (CS) tools: See also the sites: EyeWire, Auto FX Adobe Plug-in Software, Free Web Design.
  • Macromedia - Fireworks
    The best image processing software for the web.
  • JASC, Inc.: PaintShop Pro is one of the best software (shareware) in image edition, composition and touch-up, including powerful and efficient tools and features. Jasc develops other image utilities.
  • Corel:
  • Gimp
    The GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program. Gimp is a freely distributed image processing software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms, with ports to Windows, MacOS X and OS/2. Features: Full suite of painting tools, flexible selection and transformation tools, alpha channel support, sub-pixel sampling for high quality anti-aliasing, layers and channels, advanced scripting capabilities, extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool, many file formats supported, extensible by plug-ins and custom brushes and patterns, unlimited image size (thanks to tile based memory managent), multiple undo/redo (limited only by disk space), and unlimited number of images open at time.
    Installers of GIMP for Windows.
  • PhotoPlus 5.5
    FREE image edition software by Serif. Free Serif Downloads.
  • BitEdit, PalEdit and (since V4) Palette Optimizer are tools that come with ToolBook, simple but useful to obtain optimized palettes.
  • Plugin Head Site by i/us
    Plugins, Filter Factory, Photoshop and general graphics information.
  • Impulse, Inc. - Computer Graphics Software and Hardware.
  • Digimarc Watermark - image watermarks.
  • Digital Designer (link UOL)
    Site in Portuguese, of the Digital Designer Magazine Online. CorelDraw, CAD, Painter, Photoshop, and other topics.
  • The Web Developer's Virtual Library - Graphics Tools Tutorials:
  • Image Software Freeware
    Graphics and video software directory by ImagesPro.com.

Image Viewers & Managers

  • IrfanView
    For Windows. By Irfan Skiljan, Áustria.
    One of the most popular media viewers worldwide (Tucows Top 1), IrfanView is free, compact, complete and efficient to view (individual, thumbnails, slide-show, .exe, .scr, CD), convert (from/to a bunch of image formats), adjust (color, palette, size, rotation, red-eye reduction, effects) and screen capture. Other powerful features: batch processing, save slide-show as .exe (auto-viewer), .scr (screen saver) or burn it into CD (Nero plugin). Available in dozens of laguages.
    Tucows Download: IrfanView.
  • XnView
    XnView is a utility for viewing and converting graphic files. Import about 400 graphic file formats. Export about 50 formats. XnView exists for Windows, MacOS X, Linux, BSD, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, AIX. Support for dozens of languages.
    NConvert is a batch utility to convert graphic files. Support of more than 400 graphics formats and exports to about 40 formats. NConvert exists for Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, AIX.
    XnView & NConvert are provided as Freeware for private non-commercial, educational use and non-profit organization. By Pierre-Emmanuel Gougelet.
  • Ashampoo Photo Commander (Commercial)
    Ashampoo Photo Commander is the control centre for all your media files - photos, videos and audio. In addition to managing, viewing and listening to all these files it can also perform all the most common editing tasks, so that nearly all the time you can do everything you want without ever switching to another program.
  • ACDSee (Shareware)
    Popular shareware digital photo manager and picture viewer. Import and see pictures and video, correct and enhance photos, find and organize images, share prints, slideshows, web albums and photos on CD/DVD, batch processing, database and plug-ins.
  • Brenning's - SlowView
    Fast image, video and audio viewer/player. Brennig's is free for private, non-commercial use.
  • DeBabelizer, by Equilibrium
    DeBabelizer is an excellent multi-image processing tool with palette optimizer.
  • Image Alchemy, by Handmade Software, Inc.
    image processing utility, highlight to conversion among a wide variety of image formats and palette handling, including generation of a common palette to multiple images.
  • AutoImager
    AutoImager is a full-featured batch image processing/conversion software. AutoImager supports over 70 different graphic image formats, and gives you a wide variety of ways to enhance, alter and convert images. All operations, with numerous options, can be performed in a easy-to-use interactive interface, or in batch mode, for an entire list of images. Image lists can be saved and loaded again at a later time. AutoImager also offers extensive command-line support.
    Commercial product (USD$60), by Mystik Media.
  • Image Robot, by Jasc Software
  • OptiVerter, by Spinwave
  • Palette Express, by Rhode Island (RI) Soft Systems, common super palette generator for images.

Screen Capture


Stock Image and Photography Banks/Agencies