You dont need photoshop..

Ive seen alot of people saying 'i cant make good signitures because i dont have photoshop", well, heres your solution.

There are many free image manipulation programs around, but i have found the best, its pretty well known, but some people dont know about it, ill post some more free programs soon.

| GIMP |​

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

GIMP is a versatile graphics manipulation package. This page should help you get a taste of what GIMP is capable of. You can also have a look at our introduction page or browse through the tutorials.
Customizable Interface
#

Each task requires a different environment and GIMP allows you to customize the view and behavior the way you like it. Starting from the widget theme, allowing you to change colors, widget spacings and icon sizes to custom tool sets in the toolbox. The interface is modulized into so called docks, allowing you to stack them into tabs or keep them open in their own window. Pressing the tab key will toggle them hidden.

GIMP features a great fullscreen mode allowing you to not only preview your artwork but also do editing work while using the most of your screen estate.
Photo Enhancement

Numerous digital photo imperfections can be easily compensated for using GIMP. Fix perspective distortion caused by lens tilt simply choosing the corrective mode in the transform tools. Eliminate lens' barrel distortion and vignetting with a powerful filter but a simple interface.
#

The included channel mixer gives you the flexibility and power to get your B/W photography stand out the way you need.
#
Digital Retouching

GIMP is ideal for advanced photo retouching techniques. Get rid of unneeded details using the clone tool, or touch up minor details easily with the new healing tool. With the perspective clone tool, it's not difficult to clone objects with perspective in mind just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.
Hardware Support

GIMP includes a very unique support for various input devices out of the box. Pressure and tilt sensitive tablets, but also a wide range of USB or MIDI controllers. You can bind often-used actions to device events such as rotating a USB wheel or moving a MIDI controller's slider. Change the size, angle or opacity of a brush while you paint, bind your favorite scripts to buttons. Speed up your workflow!
#
File Formats
#

The file format support ranges from the common likes of JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF to special use formats such as the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files. The architecture allows to extend GIMP's format capabilities with a plug-in. You can find some rare format support in the GIMP plugin registry.

Thanks to the transparent virtual file system, it is possible to load and save files to from remote locations using protocols such as FTP, HTTP or even SMB (MS Windows shares) and SFTP/SSH.

To save disk space, any format can be saved with an archive extension such as ZIP, GZ or BZ2 and GIMP will transparently compress the file without you needing to do any extra steps.
Supported Platforms

* GNU/Linux (i386, PPC)
* Microsoft Windows (XP, Vista)
* Mac OS X
* Sun OpenSolaris
* FreeBSD


Gimp may be downloaded here

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

PHOTOSCAPE​

PhotoScape is an all-in-one style photo editor with fun and ease of use. Major capabilities are: viewer, editor, batch editor, page, combine, animated GIF, print, splitter, screen capture, color picker, rename, raw converter, resizing, brightness/color/white-balance adjustment, backlight correction, frames, balloons, text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal and blooming. PhotoScape has been used for two years and is expanding its features continuously.

Version 3.2 adds save options : Backup, Save Exif, File date; supports 19 languages; adds reflection filter and film effect dialog (Hotkey Ctrl-F).

Photoscape can be downloaded from here -
http://www.download.com/PhotoScape/3000-2192_4-10703122.html?tag=mncol;pop&cdlPid=10893886

IRFANVIEW​

fanView is a fast and compact image viewer/converter. It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals. Many supported file formats and features. Features include: multi-language support, Thumbnail option, Painting, slideshow, toolbar skins, fast directory browsing, batch conversion/editing, multipage editing, file search, change color depth, scanning, cut/crop, IPTC edit, capturing, lossless JPG operations, effects, ICC support, EXE/SCR creating, many hotkeys, command line options and plugins.

Numerous changes in version 4.22 include: Added History list for Random slideshow; New multipage images menu: Create Multipage PDF; Option to save changes on exit; Options to set start parameters for external editors; New Thumbnail option: Use full file path for sorting (if subfolders loaded).

IRfanview can be downloaded from here -

http://www.download.com/IrfanView/3000-2192_4-10021962.html?cdlPid=10991791

 

Very interesting.

 

Nice

Although none of these softwares compare to PS on any level...

 

quite true, although for someone who makes GfX on a mediocre level, they are good

 

Indeed, i started with GIMP to learn the basics. Then i moved on to Photoshop CS3, now i have CS4

 

I started with gimp aswell, its great for beginners

 

Kyouki thanks for this.
For your own signature what did you use?

 

I've been telling people this for years...

 

Phoyoshop Cs4 extended

Shoudlve made a thread i guess :laugh:

 

Just about everyone who's made a post in the GFX forums know what GIMP is.

In my opinion, PS is so much better then GIMP.

GIMP is so complicated as well, and couldn't they of had the toolbar in the same window as the canvas?

 

it's nice. but in the end, it's still not photoshop. not industry standard.

 

thanks for the links,i have a small laptop which cant run photoshop well, and ive been looking for a good software that i can use to make signatures

 

This is for people that dont post in this section.

It isnt, but for the mediocre maker, its perfect.

No problems