Paint Shop Pro version 4.12 freeware circa 1991 - 1996 (Image editing examples further down) This ancient image-editing software (which is not software that I authored -- I wouldn't know how) from the early 1990s is far more intelligently designed than any other such software that has since been produced. I've processed somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000 images (counting re-processing in a separate session) with this software over the decades. I've been using it since 1995 for all of the following image-processing techniques: clone tool (touch up / portion replacement) free-hand portion selection rectilinear portion selection skewing sharpening softening hue change color saturation adjustment brightness adjustment contrast adjustment gamma correction collage creation border fogging drawing (such as routes on mountain images) text insertion resizing cropping rotation and much more. I have no need for any other such software. And it is freeware -- widely available for download on the Internet. It is simple to use -- completely intuitive. Here are just nine extremely simple examples of what you can do with this software. It really doesn't scratch the surface of the deep restore/rebuild tasks I've done with this software: 1. A type of task that comes up frequently: My sister Kay was not present for our sibling portrait, so she sent me a recent photo of herself which I free-handed into our portrait. She is on the far right. (We had purposely left that spot open for her.) Notice that I even included her feet! I also free-handed myself a cap to hide my bald head: 1b. Conversely, you can subtract someone from a photo, as Kay and I decided should be done on the following photograph. (Big brother Donald was a distraction in this portrait of Mom holding Kay.) I also adjusted the hue: 2. The following two images are an example of touching up a damaged photograph. It is a photo of Kay which she sent me for our family website. The "before" image followed by the "after" image: Note that in the following four examples the corrected photos are not "crops". Rather, the entire photograph has been preserved. 3. Kay, before and after: 4. Kay, before and after: 5. Kay, before and after: 6. Kay, before and after: 7. My sister Pam was sitting on a boulder, and I inserted her favorite and very beloved teacher (from the second grade) into that boulder for a metaphorical effect. Truly a beginner's exercise: 8. A collage of my mom: I also routinely clone in foilage or other types of earth surfaces to obliterate junk items that distract from an otherwise great photo. I created or edited all the images and diagrams for my book (Relativity Trail) using the same software. home |