Caffeine

In my travels I constantly hear "but I can't afford Photoshop, what can I do?". Honestly that depends a lot on what you are trying to do and why you think you need to have Photoshop.

Let's get this out of the way first, Photoshop is a professional image editing program it is not meant for the home user.

Sure it's great to have all those features and maybe some day you'll sit down and try to learn to use them. In the meantime it just sits there and taunts you with its multitude of tool bars, palettes and options.

If you don't know the difference between CMYK, RGB, HSL or Lab colour modes you don't need Photoshop!

Okay so you want to fix up your digital photos, well if you are passionate about photography then check out Photoshop Lightroom if you are an average user then check out Photoshop Elements

Are you a student or a teacher? Then get the student pricing at your college or university. It's usually an 80% discount.

No money in the pocket? Not a problem, there are many free image editing applications available for downloading and there's a couple of very promising and interesting online editors as well. To check out some of the many free editors available visit Download.com

This little post of mine isn't about those downloaded pieces of software though. This is about some of the online tools that are available now!

Picnik is one of those online tools and its free! There is a paid version, but why bother when you can fix your photos and with advanced controls fine-tune your results.
Works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.



Pixlr is an online cloud-based image tool.

There are two applications Pixlr Editor, which will allow you to open images with layers and create layers; and Pixlr Express which opens a flat image. Either will correct a digital photo easily.

Pixlr Editor includes a great set of tools, including brushes, stamps, image adjustments and filters.






Aviary is an online set of tools that all work in your browser. Phoenix is the basic layer-based image editor; Peacock, is a visual laboratory for creating amazing effects and visualizations and Toucan is their color palette coordinator.

While not as intuitive as other web based tools, they are still remarkably easy to use.



I know I said I wasn't going to mention downloadable software but here goes anyhow.

Artweaver is easy to use through a clear and simple program window .

The individual palettes can be displayed or hidden, to make a optimal organization of the work environment possible. You get a simple selection of pre-defined brushes, and custom brushes can be added.

Artweaver is Freeware and therefore it is usable without restrictions but I'd like to suggest you give them a donation.

There you have it, 4 programs that are completely free, easy to use and worth checking out.

Love 'em or hate 'em - cel phones are everywhere!

Personally I fall into the "hate 'em" category, but recently I had no choice in the matter and had to go buy another one. Another one? if I hate the things why would I buy another one and what do you mean another one; isn't one good enough?

This is my fourth necessary evil ringy thing. I've tossed two of them in the river already the last one was still ringing while it was sinking and I've given one away. I'm definitely not a fan of cel phones.

So then what's this post about?

Opera Mini, that's what this post is all about. If you haven't tried it - you don't know what you are missing and remember I'm not a cel phone fan. The standard browser that was on the phone, I quickly discovered was so useless that I was thinking of hauling myself and laptop off to a Starbucks just to use their wifi.

Then I got smart. (I also don't like Starbucks coffee) and downloaded Opera Mini to the phone.

What can I say other than WOW!

I should have known it would be a completely easy to use, slick and fast browser; Opera 10 is pretty amazing; what i wasn't prepared for was seeing a web page that actually looked like a web page.

Seriously, if you haven't seen or used Opera Mini yet I highly suggest you give it a try. You won't be disappointed. Want to see what it looks like? Check out the Opera Mini demo for yourself.

Feature loaded, this little browser will sync your bookmarks, super fast scrolling shortcuts, there's even a little mouse pointer on the screen. I should have known - the folks at Opera don't mess around when it comes to browsers and this is a great addition to my tools.