image editing - adding text to photos etc....

[jastheace]

i've searched the forum and can not find an answer, so if it's been asked before, sorry.

all i want to do is edit some images, crop them, reduce file size, add basic text, and store them on my PC for use in uploading to sites such as TV for example.

i do not want to do fancy animations or slideshow presentations. i also would like to avoid any MS office products for the time being on my current PC. as i'm looking at doing about 1 image a week, free would be good. i have tried one online service but it doesn't meet my needs. saving the edited file on my PC is important rather than it being 'stored ' somewhere else.

any one here know of a site with free software or recommend an online tool to do the basic image /photo editing that can be saved?

[Peterw42]

The photos or paint app that comes with windows 10 can do all the things you want, 

Right click on any image file and select either "edit with photos" or "edit with Paint"

 

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by Peterw42

[BigStar]

Faststone Image Viewer (free) is great for doing all that and more.

[ukrules]

There's a very nice image system that's free, it's named 'inkscape' and available from http://www.inkscape.org - this program has reached pretty good levels of functionality recently. and it's fully open source.

 

It's a vector drawing package but as such it's very easy to open an image from the hard drive, add whatever you want over the top then save it back to the disk using the 'File / Export' menu option :

 

Here's an example :

 

This

 

becomes this :

 

 

There's also another commercial one called 'SnagIt' which allows you to create screenshots, open files from disk and then add arrows, annotations, highlighted areas, etc.

 

I use that as well. It's very quick and easy to use - $50 from techsmith.com - SnagIt allows you to capture what you do on your screen as a video clip as well so it has some nice uses.

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by ukrules

[jastheace]

22 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

The photos or paint app that comes with windows 10 can do all the things you want, 

Right click on any image file and select either "edit with photos" or "edit with Paint"

 

 

although i was aware they existed, didn't know it could do that much. just had a quick play and looked around some features and seems to be all I need. resizing the file size is the only thing not on it, but i have used an online editor for that in the past ( passport and ID photos etc....) which works well, so i just need to do that first, then play around with the new smaller size image. a 18M pixel is just too much to upload when 100K serves well enough. thanks.

[Andrew Dwyer]

As the op seems to be sorted i’ll just add this as it is notin plain view and might be helpful to some :
 

There is also a good ( if basic ) video editor in Windows 10.

Right click on any video and open in photos, you can then edit/trim ( other options also available ) your videos and save on your pc.

[jastheace]

1 hour ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

As the op seems to be sorted i’ll just add this as it is notin plain view and might be helpful to some :
 

There is also a good ( if basic ) video editor in Windows 10.

Right click on any video and open in photos, you can then edit/trim ( other options also available ) your videos and save on your pc.

Just tried that and used it to update my avatar! handy to know, thanks !????

[Iannisa]

Hi,

Try this  https://www.getpaint.net/

Amazing and free

[bendejo]

https://www.irfanview.com/

 

Been using it for eons.

 

[Peterw42]

9 hours ago, jastheace said:

although i was aware they existed, didn't know it could do that much. just had a quick play and looked around some features and seems to be all I need. resizing the file size is the only thing not on it, but i have used an online editor for that in the past ( passport and ID photos etc....) which works well, so i just need to do that first, then play around with the new smaller size image. a 18M pixel is just too much to upload when 100K serves well enough. thanks.

Resize is also in Photos app

 

[ben2talk]

I can't imagine how it can be difficult - maybe because I don't use Windows.

For a quick edit I generally right click/open in gimp, then it's an easy (Shift+C) crop, etc... it's just so easy it's not even conceivable that it can be made hard.

 

For more fancy editing, Darktable is my favourite photo editing tool.

 

This took maybe 15 seconds all in... hardly rocket science, and proper free and open source software - why use proprietory stuff?

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by ben2talk

[Andrew Dwyer]

58 minutes ago, ben2talk said:

I can't imagine how it can be difficult - maybe because I don't use Windows.

For a quick edit I generally right click/open in gimp, then it's an easy (Shift+C) crop, etc... it's just so easy it's not even conceivable that it can be made hard.

 

For more fancy editing, Darktable is my favourite photo editing tool.

 

This took maybe 15 seconds all in... hardly rocket science, and proper free and open source software - why use proprietory stuff?

 

 

 

The winner of the most condescending post in 2020 goes to ............

[ben2talk]

35 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

The winner of the most condescending post in 2020 goes to ............

Well I'm constantly amazed how hard it is for folks to do stuff I take for granted to be available in a quick right click... nor how they can open a picture in an application that can't resize or crop... so the only thing we need to add here is text, for which I'd use GIMP.

 

Has ANYONE in the world not heard of Gimp? Open image, select 'tools-text'...  I mean really???

Edited June 29, 2020 by ben2talk

[Andrew Dwyer]

36 minutes ago, ben2talk said:

Well I'm constantly amazed how hard it is for folks to do stuff I take for granted to be available in a quick right click... nor how they can open a picture in an application that can't resize or crop... so the only thing we need to add here is text, for which I'd use GIMP.

 

Has ANYONE in the world not heard of Gimp? Open image, select 'tools-text'...  I mean really???

Going for gold and silver now !!

[kekalot]

can have a go at this site

https://www.photopea.com/

quite advanced really

[MJKT2014]

18 hours ago, jastheace said:

free would be good.

Suprised no one mentioned GIMP yet? It's the free open source option for those who don't want to buy Photoshop.

[KhunBENQ]

15 hours ago, Iannisa said:

Hi,

Try this  https://www.getpaint.net/

Amazing and free

That's what I use.

Has the basic functions that I need and not overly complicated.

But even has layers which allow to separate image and labels e.g.

I had installed the often praised GIMP but just too much for an occasional user.

And the operation/handling is so different from what I am used with Windows SW.

 

[KhunBENQ]

18 hours ago, ukrules said:

Here's an example :

With PaintNET.

Enlarged.

Added 3 layers to the image.

All in one file.

For uploading saved as jpg (combined single layer).

 

Cropped 16:9 ratio.

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by KhunBENQ

[HazelDavis]

You can add text to image using inshot pro at techbigs. This is the best photo and video editing application available today.

Edited January 14, 2021 by HazelDavis