Good free image editors.

[racer-x]

Everyone knows PhotoShop is king, no disputing that. There are however some very good free image editors out there. Gimp and Paint.net are my favorite. Recently I learned how to make nice shinny metallic objects in Paint.net. I may even post some tutorials If I'm in the mood...

Here are some cool things I made so far while experimenting with layers:

[poisondeathray]

gimp is probably the most comprehensive free one. Lots of 3rd party plugins

paint.net is more lightweight but still very powerful. Another decent one for basic edits is irfanview

[bendixG15]

The learning curves are steep.

[racer-x]

I think there are more plugins for paint.net than Gimp. I currently have 203 plugins installed and there are probably twice that many out in the wild. All are free....

[poisondeathray]

I think there are more plugins for paint.net than Gimp. I currently have 203 plugins installed and there are probably twice that many out in the wild. All are free....

Interesting, I thought gimp had more...

Just a suggestion , but those images above could use some anti-aliasing.

Blender can be used for these types of images as well. But there is a steep learning curve. And the interface just sucks.

[racer-x]

Yes, I agree, I should have applied more AA filter passes. If this was production work, I would've done that. These results were achieved on my 1st or 2nd try while testing various things.

[transporterfan]

racer-x: take a look at http://www.jpchacha.com/chasysdraw/
Has some really nice photo manipulation tools. See what you think.

[racer-x]

I downloaded it. Maybe I'll install, or maybe not. I seriously doubt it has anything more advanced than Gimp or Paint.net......

[racer-x]

Sorry, I just love Timing Gears.....it takes me back to when I used to degree-in the lobe centers on my race cams.............

[racer-x]

Another cool image I made with Paint.NET. This one was a bit difficult to say the least....

[poisondeathray]

Not a gear fan, but I like the last one. Snow in the crevices is a nice touch

[racer-x]

If anyone wants to know how to make that, here is the tutorial I followed more or less. http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/25416-make-3d-stone-text/

[racer-x]

Using the gear maker plugin, I made a nice little working clock....

[racer-x]

I think I've finally settled on my clock look.

[joeandmarg0]

You can get Photoshop CS2 free at techspot.com.I got it from there and it works.

[TreeTops]

It says trial version.

[Baldrick]

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

Testing it...

and it seems to work fine. It's from 2005 but it might still be very useful. Thanks.

[smrpix]

Adobe released CS2 into the wild -- sort of unintentionally at first. As long as your OS supports it there's no reason not to use it. There's no Adobe support for it, but no one's going to come after you. Eventually the mismatch between modern systems, modern delivery requirements and older software will cause it to die off peacefully.

[racer-x]

I'm still using Photoshop 7 from 2001. It runs great on my i7 on Win 8.1 64-bit. No reason to ever upgrade as far as I'm concerned....

[Cornucopia]

Yeah, I've got v7 on 3 of my PCs, and love it, but primarily use CS3 on my workstation (and expect to get CC2014 on upgraded workstation next month for my B-day). Being able to work in non-square pixels, using 32bit (particularly for HDR), being able to stitch Panoramas and merge-to-HDR, ability to work with DNG & CameraRAW files, ability to do more editing parametrically (aka non-destructive), and tons more/newer format options moves me more and more away from 7 and even beyond CS3 as my needs have expanded. Not for every job (many are quite run-in-the-mill), but for lots.

Scott