Alternatives for Photoshop

By downloading softwares given below you can do everything without spending a penny.

Photoshop has let down many students and low budget designers, who were unable to make investment for the license fee of the software. One cannot deny that Photoshop is having a huge fan following across the globe but there are many alternatives that you can give you everything without spending a single penny.

 By using these tools, you can do 'almost' every thing that Adobe's software can. The only constraint might be the PSD format, the Photoshop file format which is has become more of an industry standard to exchange layered designs. Though few tools like GIMP do provide options to convert your layered file into PSD format but i would suggest you to consider this point before choosing your free Open Source Alternatives.

#1 GIMP



Gimp is by far the most feature rich and popular open source alternative to Adobe's Photoshop. And it will definitely not let you down. It is a cross-platform software and is supported by a large group of people. However the GIMP team does not officially offer any Windows installation, but is can easily be installed using the Windows installers by Jernej Simon.

GIMP provides a complete suite of tools including paint tools, colour correction, cloning, selection, and enhancement etc.

Price: Free

Platforms: Linux, Mac, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris, AmigaOS 4

#2 Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free image and photo editing tool for computers. IT runs on Windows. The software features a creative and innovative user interface that supports layering, unlimited undo, special effects etc. Its active and increasing online community can help you with friendly tutorials and plugins.

Price: Free

Platform: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

#3 GIMPshop

GIMPshop is popularly known as a software with GIMP's powers and Photoshop's look and feel. It is an altered version of the free software GIMP, which intents to make the Photoshop users feel at home. It includes all GIMP’s advantages like the long feature list and customisations, together with a modified the menu to closely match with Photoshop’s. It has also adjusted its terminologies to match with Adobe’s version.

Price: Free

Platforms: Mac, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Solaris

#4 Pixlr Editor

Pixlr is a powerful web-based photo editor which works at a similar layout like Photoshop CS do. It has a good interface and a whole lot of features like layers, filters, magic wand, styling, texting et al. The best part is that you do not even need a signup or installation, just open the website and get started. And because it is web based you can use it on PCs, smartphones, tablets or any other gadget with internet!

Price: Free

Platforms: All (web based)

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Posted at Monday, October 14, 2013 |  by Rajat Khandelwal

Open-source alternative for Coke!

Have you ever had a can of Coke and thought that it would taste better if it was open source? No? Well, some people have and they have created the world's first "open source" cola. And it's on version 1.1.3

Anybody can make the drink, modify and improve on it as they see fit, as long as the recipe is made public under the GNU General Public License. However, recipes are not copyrightable, so the legal basis for that premise is untested.

Originally released as a promotional tool to explain open source software, the drink became a success and the company that made it sold 150,000 cans, and the creators became better known for the cola than for the software they were trying to promote!

Source-Wikipedia

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Posted at Sunday, June 02, 2013 |  by Rajat Khandelwal

All That You Need To Know About Rooting

What is "Rooting?"

The Android phone that you have learned to love and enjoy is running an operating system that was designed for commercial and private use. Like most any operating system, several features have been disabled, either for future use or to prevent the casual user from causing permanent damage to the operating system. "Rooting" is the process in which the limitations are removed and full-access is allowed. Once rooted, the Android phone owner will have more control over many settings, features and performance of their phone. Basically, "rooting" means to get to the root of the operating system and to have the ability to make global changes. it is possible to ruin the performance of the phone, and/or brick the device altogether. So here are some reasons why it may, or may not be worth it to root and customize your phone. Keep in mind, be careful what software you flash, and make sure its the right software for your phone.

So read the para below for ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES of ROOTING

ADVANTAGES of ROOTING:

1. Unlock Bootloader: First and foremost, with root access and an unlocked bootloader, you now have an infinite amount of customization options, from launchers, ROMs, themes to custom kernels.


2. Freeing up memory: When you install an app on your phone, it is stored on the phone's memory. "Rooting" allows you to move installed applications to your SD card, thus freeing up system memory for additional files or apps.


3. Custom ROM's-This is the most powerful feature of "rooted" phones. There are hundreds of custom ROM's that can do anything from speeding up the processing speed of your phone to changing the entire look and feel of your phone. The software and hardware on custom ROMs are also usually better optimized, leading to more fluidity, which is always a plus. This is also due to the fact that custom ROMs get updated on a daily to weekly basis, compared to stock software.

DISADVANTAGES of ROOTING:

1. Rooting immediately voids your phone's warranty: Once rooted, don't try to take your phone to service center for warranty


2. Rooting involves the risk of "bricking" your phone:  if the wrong software gets flashed there are chances that your phone gets brucked, a "bricked" phone is no better than carrying around a brick in your pocket. The phone is dead when it has been "bricked."


3. Poor performance: Though the intention of "rooting" a phone is to give the phone more performance, several users have found that, in their attempts to speed up the phone or add additional features, that their phones lost both performance speed and features. Remember that when you "root" your Android phone, you are making changes to the stock operating system.


4. Viruses: Yes, even phones can get viruses. A common practice that people do with "rooted" phones is to flash their ROM's with custom programs. Whenever you make changes to the code of a software, you run the risk of introducing a virus.

CONCLUSION:

Rooting and customization isn’t for a lot of people, but I would suggest everyone try it at least once, its worth the experience to see what you can really do with an open source OS. It gives  you the option to do whatever you want with the software, because its open, and you can change it to suit your needs.

If you are not a techie guy then dont go for it- In my opinion as long as you’re cautious and obtain the knowledge needed to root, unlock and customize your specific device(s), then you should go give it a try! It’s really a mind blowing experience to realize what you can really do with the mini computer in your pocket.

NOTE: this articles does not motivate to root your phone. In case of any damage techieCode will not be held liable.

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Posted at Friday, May 17, 2013 |  by Rajat Khandelwal