need a small free photo editor

[hayaku]

any one have suggestions?

all i need it for is to draw on the pics i use in diy's. nothing fancy. just arrows, basic color and text. i like for it to be as small and simple to use as possible.

i rather not use photoshop for something this simple.

thanks!

[broknlgs24]

why not use mspaint?

[R8DX5]

Yep. Good ol' Paint.

[asawadude]

Adam -

Here are two photo editors - both small and free. I use GIMP at work since the cheap bastards won't pay for Photoshop - it does all of the rudimentary PS tasks. Getpaint is higher rated in some of the freebie software websites. There are free plugin filters also. Either one will do the job you need.

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
http://www.gimp.org/

Good luck.

[hayaku]

thanks mike! i'll give it a shot

[hayaku]

oh well.. i ended up using visio. it had arrows with tips and much easier to use then true graphic artists tools...

the other programs didn't do arrows and i would need to draw them out each time... so that didn't work too well for me.

[Quicksilver]

This appeared in the NY Times

Multimedia Tools

On Windows

Q. Is there a set of programs in Windows XP to make movies and photo slide shows the way the iLife programs do on the Mac?

A. Apple Computer includes its own iLife suite of programs on the Macintosh computers it sells, and this multimedia toolbox currently includes iPhoto (for making slide shows, editing photos, ordering prints and other picture-related tasks) and iMovie HD (for importing and editing video and making your own movies). Windows XP includes basic software for working with pictures and video.

The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, which is usually the default program in Windows XP for looking at images, lets you do simple things like rotating a photo’s orientation or making a minimal slide show from all the pictures in a folder. The Windows XP Task Pane that appears when the My Pictures folder is opened also lists several options for your photos, like ordering prints online or burning them to a CD.

If you want to move beyond these basic tools to more full-featured programs for making musical slide shows and slickly produced movies, there is no shortage of software for Windows. For example, Google’s free Picasa program (picasa.google.com) lets you make slide shows and save them to a CD, and has other photo editing and organization tools.

Adobe’s Photoshop Elements program for Windows ($90 at www.adobe.com/products; a free 30-day tryout is available) lets you create, edit, organize and customize slide shows. The company also makes a $100 movie-editing program, Adobe Premiere Elements; both programs can be bought together for $150.

Photo slide show programs like PhotoParade (www.photoparade.com/index.asp) and PhotoShow (www.simplestar.com) are other options designed for home users, and each costs less than $40. As for editing and producing your own home video, consumer-oriented (and priced) software like Pinnacle Studio (www.pinnaclesys.com) and Ulead VideoStudio (www.ulead.com) let you make movies for less than $100.

Questions about computer-based technology may be sent to QandA @nytimes.com. This weekly column will address questions of general interest, but e-mail and letters cannot be answered individually.
More Articles in Technology »

[asawadude]

Adam - Try this one. It's called Diagram Designer. It's a vector based program like Visio. It's only a 1.2 MB download.

http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/