Free Photo Editing Software

Created background using Photo Pos pro

I was in need of baby and pregnant mother graphics for new candy wrappers I was designing for my web site, Miller's Wrapped Expression. Naturally, I headed toward the Internet to search for royalty free clip art. Thing is, I don't trust most of those web sites especially considering my computer got a "cooty" from one.

I found a site that offers sets for a minimal price; $1 or $2, I believe they were. They were great and oh so cute. But I was nagged by the fact my wrappers would look so much like so many others' home designed candy wrappers you can find on the Internet.

So I set to dreaming of drawing my own clip art, scanning it into the computer and editing it to the point it would be useful as an image for my candy wrappers. This led me to search for a suitable and FREE image editing software. By golly, I found it!



Photo Pos pro (http://www.photopos.com/index.asp) was once sold but became freeware at some point. I have to say it does everything I need it to do. It took a while to learn as is the case for most new software and it has taken me a few months to become efficient at it but to say at the very least, I am extremely pleased with the program.



Created background using Photo Pos Pro



For novices, you can manually brighten, manipulate contrast or adjust the luminosity of an image which generally is about all an image needs. Or, you can adjust an image by the program's Auto Adjust features. If you want to get further into editing like removing backgrounds, cropping, rotating, flipping and color adjustment, there are tools for that too. Just head to Help, type in what you're looking to do and you'll be taken to a short description of the tool and its location in the tool bar. Photo Pos pro also has tutorials that are easy to follow.

I have used the heck out of this program. In fact, my mother had an old negative from the 1930s she wanted a print from. I scanned the negative, opened it in Photo Pos pro and turned it into a positive print just so I could see what sort of shape the image was in and if it needed fixing.

When Photo Pos pro suddenly quit working properly, I emailed the error log to customer support who answered in three days. They suggested I remove the program from my hard drive and re-download. I was disappointed at first with their - what I thought to be - lack of detailed support but I did as they suggested. I'm pleased the program works just as it did when I first downloaded it.

Hand drawn clip art using Photo Pos pro

By the way, the web site offers lots of freebies like frames, backgrounds and other graphics but I am left wanting more from them by way of usable pieces.

So, if you're looking for a program to do more than basic adjustments of your pictures, head over to Photo Pos pro's web site and take a look. Once you click Download, you'll be taken to Cnet.com that is a very trusted web site.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affilated with Photo Pos pro nor the owners of the software and web site.