There are many free graphics editors. You can find most by going to Google.Com and search for FREE GRAPHICS EDITOR.

I recommend Irfanview's Free Graphic Editor which can be DOWNLOADED HERE! Irfanview recently updated their home page. The current version of their free graphics editor is 3.80. The discussion below shows their previous version, 3.30, so some functions may be slightly different in the latest version.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD & INSTALL IRFANVIEW

Here are a few of the things you can do with this editor. Click on the link to read a full description. For a complete description of the editor, please see their home page.

1. New Image
2. Rotate Image
3. Re-size A Graphic's Dimensions - Thumbnails - change the size of a graphic while maintaining the aspect ratio, e.g. if the original graphic is 800X600 and you change the width to 200, then the height will automatically be changed to 150.
4. Add Text To A Graphic
5. Saving Your Graphics
6. View Your Graphics As Thumbnails - view all the graphics in any folder on any drive on your PC , as thumbnails. Double click on any thumbnail image to edit it.
7. Edit Graphics In A Wide Variety Of Formats, e.g GIF, JPG, BMP.
8. Screen Capture - capture a full screen, from which you can cut out a portion.
9. Change Formats - e.g. open a BMP graphic and SAVE AS a GIF.
10. UnDo While Editing - back up to the previous image but you can only go back one image.
11. New Graphic - text can be added and/or another graphic copied into the new image.
12. JPG Compression - Save in .jpg format and compress to make the file size smaller.

PAGE BUILDER USERS!

Do not upload a graphic and then re-size it with PAGE BUILDER! The graphic will look smaller on your page but it will still be the original file size! You can re-size it with PAGE BUILDER so it is less then a postage stamp on the screen but it will still be the same size in KB. Use the method below.

New Image

Start Irfanview to see this screen:

Now click on image as shown below.

This will bring up the screen where you can set the size.

Once you have a new image you can add text to it (see next section).

ROTATE IMAGE

You can rotate an image by first, clicking on

Add Text To A Graphic

Text can be added to any graphic but it will probably take several trials and errors to get it exactly as you wish. Using the left mouse button, draw a rectangle on the graphic where you want the text to be placed.

Now click on EDIT > INSERT TEXT INTO SECTION

which will bring up the Add Overlay Text To Image screen.

Click the Choose Font (RED RECTANGLE) to bring up the Font screen. The font screen should show sizes 8 - 72. You can type in any size you wish, e.g. 16, 20, 30, etc. Be careful as if the font size is too large for the text area it will not fit there.

After selecting the font, style, size, color, etc., type in the text in the text box and press OK. If you don't like how the text looks on the graphic you can back up, i.e. Re-Do to get back to the graphic you had before you added the text. Whatever text you originally put in the text box will still be there even the next time you use Irfanview.

ROTATE AN IMAGE

SAVING YOUR GRAPHICS

When you SAVE AS any graphic with Irfanview you should use the OPTIONS button. This is important when saving as .jpg as the graphic will not "look right" if the compression is set too low. For other types of graphic formats you can experiment with various setting to check the quality of the saved graphic.

Thumbnails

By using the FILE > THUMBNAILS you can get a full split screen that shows all the folders on your PC on the left side and thumbnails of all your graphics in the select folder on the right side. Double click on any of the thumbnails to edit the graphic.

Edit Graphics In A Wide Variety Of Formats

Edit, i.e. open, many types of graphic formats with Irfanview, including .bmp, .jpg, .gif.

Screen Capture

Screen capture is where you want to grab an image of the web or from a document that is displayed in another window. Irfanview can do this but only by capturing the Full Screen. Use the OPTIONS > CAPTURE.

You can set the capture to be:

• Whole Screen - the entire window including window tool bar, etc.
• Foreground Window - If you have two windows open this captures the one in the foreground.
• Foreground Window, Client Area - in the foreground screen, capture only the small window opened.

RE-SIZING A GRAPHIC'S DIMENSIONS

There probably will be times when you want to make a small image of a graphic as a link to the full size graphic or scale down a graphic. The small image, called a Thumbnail, is just a re-sized copy of the original.

Re-sizing a Graphic's Dimension is very simple with the Free Graphic Editor, Irfanview . Open the graphic and then click on IMAGE > RESIZE/RESAMPLE. Normally, you will want to maintain the aspect ratio, i.e. width to height, of the original graphic so be sure to check the Preserve Aspect Ratio box (RED RECTANGLE). Then set either the new width or height, in pixels or percent of the original size, to the value you wish. The other dimension will automatically be computed. Then SAVE AS with a new file name.

This is an excellent program to use to make thumbnails if you don't have a graphics editor as the program as free! When making thumbnails leave the radio buttons in Filter For Resample alone as they are only used in enlarging a graphic.

Important Note: When SAVE AS a resized .jpg graphic you must click on the OPTIONS button.

Then, set the JPEG Quality to BEST. If you don't, the graphics will come out with very large looking pixels, i.e. you probably won't be able to recognize the graphic as illustrated by the two graphics below.

LOWEST QUALITY HIGHEST QUALITY

Once you have the thumbnail of the original graphic, use it as a link to the full size graphic. If you are not sure how to do this, then please see either HTML Links or Page Builder Links.

Change Format

Changing the format of a graphic is easy as all you have to do is SAVE AS and select the new format from the list presented and fill in the new file name.

UNDO

Undo the image, i.e. back up to the previous image, using the undo icon in the toolbar.

A New Image

A New Image can be created by they are limited to copy and pasting other images in the new graphic or add text. To create a new image click on IMAGE > CREATE NEW IMAGE. Set the

• Background Color button to select the background color
• Width & Height
• Colors - normally leave colors set to 16 million

JPG COMPRESSION

If you are using photographs then you can save your original file in the .jpg format (which is already is) and compress the image to reduce the size. For example, if you have a .jpg photograph that takes up 250KB and compress it, the size can be greatly reduce, e.g. to 34KB. To compress the .jpg file, click on FILE > SAVE AS > OPTIONS.

Select the degree of compression by sliding the indicator on the bar. The more the indicator is towards the lowest the poorer the quality of the image. Compression a .jpg file will decrease the quality of the photograph. Irfanview, however, will not show you what the compressed image looks like when you select the compression. You have to save the file, with a different name, and then open the saved file and see how it looks.