Freeware Utilities

Graphics, Images, Photographs Freeware Utilities

Convert images into various formats

XnView is an efficient multimedia viewer, browser and converter.
Convert images into various formats: Xnview

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touch the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats.
Convert images into various formats: FastStone Image Viewer

Create a flash-based animated how-to/tutorial

Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.
Create a flash-based animated how-to/tutorial: Wink

Create a web photo album and slideshow from my photographs.

iGal is a Perl program that can generate and publish an entire online picture show (static HTML slides, thumbnails and index page) with just one command line invocation in a Linux or Unix environment. If you've got a directory (or several) full of image files that are waiting to be put online and shared with friends, then iGal is for you.
Create a web photo album and slideshow from my photographs: iGal

Create web photo albums with slideshows of your image folders.
Create a web photo album and slideshow from my photographs: JAlbum

Did you know that free web space is usually provided with your Internet service? Use it to share your digital photographs with friends and family! Web Album Generator is a software program that creates all the HTML, JPEG thumbnails, and CSS for your online photo albums-all you need is your digital pictures!
Create a web photo album and slideshow from my photographs: Web Album Generator

Create icons

Icon converter that supports the mask editor and the creation of Windows XP 32bit icons.
Create icons: Icon Sushi

Create thumbnails of images

Easy Thumbnails is a popular free utility for creating accurate thumbnail images and scaled-down/up copies from a wide range of popular picture formats. An elegant interface makes it a snap to find your images and select them for processing individually, in groups, or in whole folders, using a simple file selector and built-in image viewer. You can use slider controls to rotate images and adjust their contrast, brightness, sharpness and quality, and check out the results with the built-in viewer.
Create thumbnails of images: Easy Thumbnails by Fookes

Thumbnail Generator - An easy way to process thumbnails from a large amount of images. Thumbnail Generator application supporting a bunch of image file types (for both: source images and target thumbnails), fixed target image size as well as ratio calculation, and full internationalization.
Create thumbnails of images: Thumbnail Generator

Draw charts/graphs in 2D/3D from data

Gnuplot is a portable command-line driven interactive data and function plotting utility for UNIX, IBM OS/2, MS Windows, DOS, Macintosh, VMS, Atari and many other platforms. The software is copyrighted but freely distributed (i.e., you don't have to pay for it). It was originally intended as to allow scientists and students to visualize mathematical functions and data. It does this job pretty well, but has grown to support many non-interactive uses, including web scripting and integration as a plotting engine for third-party applications like Octave.
Draw charts/graphs in 2D/3D from data: Gnuplot

Draw diagrams

Dia is a program to draw diagrams. This website only provides the Dia for Windows version while the a Dia Project Page provides all other information.
Draw diagrams: Dia

Edit an image

CinePaint is a collection of free open source software tools for deep paint manipulation and image processing. CinePaint is used for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching, dirt removal, wire rig removal, render repair, background plates, and 3d model textures. It's been used on many feature films, including The Last Samurai where it was used to add flying arrows. It's also being used by pro photographers who need greater color fidelity than is available in other tools.
Edit an image: CinePaint

PhotoPlus 6 is incredible image editing software that enables you to create, manipulate, and enhance photographs, bitmap graphics, and web animations. All the tools you need are provided along with handy hints to enable you to achieve totally unique results.
Edit an image: PhotoPlus 6

Image viewer with thumbnail band for fast navigation. Provides EXIF information, RGB/I histogram and some basic image processing tools.
Edit an image: Photo View

Extract icon files from exe/library files

Icon extracting and managing tool. It has ability to extract icons from executables, libraries and other files. Also can save separate icons or icon pages to standalone icons or bitmaps.
Extract icon files from exe/library files: Icon Factory

Find the color of any pixel

What is CatchColor? It's a little Eyedropper. It's useful for to now the Hexa Value of a Pixel on the Screen. The Pixel Color is automaticly copied in the Clipboard.
Find the color of any pixel: CatchColor

Pixie is an extremely easy-to-use, small and effective colour picker designed especially to meet the needs of Webmasters and Designers.
Find the color of any pixel: Pixie by NattyWare

Xoomer is a fully resizable magnification program that displays current cursor location as well as RGB and HEX color information of the current pixel.
Find the color of any pixel: Xoomer

Magnify image to pixel level

Ever needed to see what's going on on the screen down to the pixel level? That's where the Magnifier comes in. Simple and easy to use, the Magnifier is always handy for when you need to see all the details.
Magnify image to pixel level: Magnifier

Manage galleries of photographs

Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. Picasa also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips.
Manage galleries of photographs: Picasa from Google

Paint creatively

ArtRage is easy to use, stylish painting package that lets you get painting from the moment you open it up. You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils, sprinkle glitter, and more. You can paint with gold leaf, silver foil, and other metallic colors. You can even load in your photos as Tracing Images to help you recreate them as paintings. For the professional user, ArtRage also offers multiple Layers for painting, and layered PSD document import and export so you can easily use it alongside your existing tools.
Paint creatively: ArtRage

Paint creatively (for kids)

Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (preschool and K-6). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program.
Paint creatively (for kids): Tux Paint

Pick a color from a palette

Ever tried using a color picker on a high resolution monitor? It's impossible. That's why this color picker has a magnifier attached. Grab palettes of up to 16 colors at once and use four advanced color mixers to select a spectrum of possibilities.
Pick a color from a pallette: ColorPic by Iconico

Right-click on an image and convert/print/thumbnail it

ShellExtension is a real handy freebie for Windows users. Install this tool and it will add three new options to your menu when you right click on a picture file: convert, print, and thumbnail preview. Converting supports most of the formats you will ever need: JPEG, TIFF, PSD, PNG, GIF, BMP, TGA, PCX, and a few others. The thumbnail option is particularly handy when you are in a file open dialog of the program that lacks the image preview functionality. Clicking on the thumbnail will open the image in the default program.
Right-click on an image and convert/print/thumbnail it: FirmTools ShellExtension

Remove unnecessary information from a jpeg file

PureJPEG is an easy to use, high performance utility to remove unnecessary data from images you email or post on the net, without affecting the image quality whatsoever (no decompression/recompression is performed in the filtration), removing such extraneous information as:
Digital camera technical data (EXIF)
Comment blocks
JPEG thumbnails
Application blocks.
Remove unnecessary information from a jpeg file: PureJPEG

Stitch together multiple photographs

Autostitch is the product of two years of research by Matthew Brown and David Lowe at the University of British Columbia. For details and research papers please see our panorama research page.
Stitch together multiple photographs: Autostitch

View images in an album folder

...one of the most popular viewers worldwide!
View images in an album folder: Irfanview

With the GL Image Browser, you can open a folder on your computer and look for all the pictures that are inside, even in subdirectories if you want. It is no iPhoto or Picasa clone, GL Image Browser is not meant as a tool to archive pictures, but as a tool to quickly browse through thousands of pictures to find a special one you are looking for. If you left-click on a picture, you enter the full-view mode where your whole display is used to display the pictures. You can then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to go a picture forward or backward. Click again and you are back in the thumbnail viewer. Right-click a thumbnail to see the file on your harddisk. GL Image Browser uses Apple Quicktime.
View images in an album folder: GL Image Browser