Free Web Tools for Artists
There are loads of free tools on the internet that are immensely useful to artists, crafters & creatives.
This is my ever growing library of favourite & most useful creative tools. All are free unless otherwise stated.
Photo editing & manipulation tools
GIMP
Photo editing & retouching. Who needs Photoshop?
Pixlr.com
Upload and edit images in your browser. Great for image manipulation on the move.
Paint.net
Paint.net is a brilliant little bit of photo editing software that is fairly easy to learn and has a lot of the capabilities of expensive image editing software.
{When you go to download, make sure you click on the right link about halfway down the page and not the big flashing download link, which is actually an advertisement for something totally unrelated!}
Aviary.com
Extremely powerful suite of online creation tools.
Includes: Image editor: Screen Capture : Vector Editor: Effects Editor: Music Creator: Audio Editor: Image Markup: Color Editor.
Amazingly useful photo indexing software from Google. Picasa enables you to find and index all the images on your computer, then index, improve and share them easily on your website or elsewhere.
Video
Animoto.com
Make a video from your still images & music. Great for embedding on your site or YouTube. 30 sec videos are free or subscribe for $30 a year to be able to create longer videos.
Publishing
Issuu.com
Create gorgeous sexy little flip book publications of your work that you can embed on your site.
Colour
Colorpic
Desktop colour picker software. Sample a colour from anywhere on screen. Dead handy if you are trying to match a colour.
Colourlovers.com
A website that allows you to browse zillions of wonderful colour palettes and combinations to find the perfect one, or create your own. Invaluable inspiration.
Kuler
Adobe Kuler – Explore, create and share colour schemes.
Photo Libraries
MorgueFile
Morgue File is a photo library of all those old shots that have “retired” from the commercial stock libraries, hence you can use the pics for nowt/nada/zilch. Brilliant for finding random pics of things for photo reference or to brighten up a blog.
Stuff for musicians
Streampad
Streampad allows you to add a bottom bar to your site that streams your music. See it in action here.
Please comment below with any great tools that you just can’t live without.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello there,
A new website for a young visual artist is now open to everyone,
have a look, this work is beautifull, surrealistic. Love, and share.
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Most interesting site and useful list. The link to Your e-book sample however took me to a 404 page, so I thought You might want to fix it.
Thanks for sharing.
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Thanks Voigt. Fixed
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The free web utility http://www.ze38.com/digital_image_mat_designer.htm allows you to upload an image and create a single or double digital mat around the image. You can then download and print or use for your online gallery.
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