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I need graphics software to edit images. The requirements I'm interested in are:

  • very cheap license (< $25, free, or trial-usable forever)
  • not very old DLL dependency (VB6 or similar)
  • not very old UI (remember windows 3.11 software? I don't want something similar and ugly)
  • can "stitch" images together
  • can crop, resize, or otherwise change paper size
  • supports drawing lines, circles, squares on the image (very important)
  • Filters are not needed: marquees, layer and image adjustment are really more important
  • Vector graphic support would be an interesting add-on

You can refer to PicPick Editor as an example. It's similar to what I want but it's missing resize, canvas resize and image stitch.

The platform which I need it for is Windows.

GIMP is not a solution because I couldn't draw circles easily on the image. The learning curve seems steeper. It is more oriented on photographic retouch.

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There is Paint.NET. It is a free image editing software. It is easy to handle as MS Paint, but contains a lot of advanced features. It supports many different formats. I use it very often to edit images. It is easy to handle and available with translations for different languages. Paint.NET:

  • is free
  • has a modern interface
  • supports painting on the image
  • is able to change the size of the paper, the image and crop the image
  • has vector graphic support, made possible via a plugin
  • makes it possible to stitch images together How to stitch images in Paint.NET
  • has support for add-ons

enter image description here

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  • Thanks. I've downloaded it. It seems to me better than Pinta as graphic interface and they seem to allow for the same things to be done. Have you tried the other one? Do you know also some cheap software (not only freeware) better than Paint .NET? Pinta also requires for external libraries to be installed.
    – Revious
    Feb 13, 2014 at 11:42
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    Which one I have tried? I use several image software (IrfanView, Inkscape) for viewing and editing. So for small things Paint.NET was always enough for me. Gimp is to complex for me. I know that there is Photgraphix. But I never tried it. So I don't know if it is better than Paint.NET.
    – Irgendw Pointer
    Feb 13, 2014 at 11:50
  • I just know Adobe Photoshop, Visio, Corel Suite, Acdsee and now Paint.NET. I would like something more than Paint.Net. Now I'm going to try also Gimp. What about IrfanView, Inkscape?
    – Revious
    Feb 13, 2014 at 11:53
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    Visio is good for technical drawings, so I used it for that. Corel and ACDsee I've never really use and Photoshop is too complex. IrfanView is a small all in one graphics viewer. If you prefer an answer with IrfanView I can post one, because I cannot explain it here in a comment. But it doesn't fulfill your requirements, because it is a viewer with some editing functions like draw lines, circles and so on. Inkscape is a vector graphics drawing software. So for drawing and not really for image manipulating.
    – Irgendw Pointer
    Feb 13, 2014 at 11:59
  • I will try to open a question askying just for IrfanView
    – Revious
    Feb 13, 2014 at 12:03
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PicPick is an image editor available for Windows.

  • It has a free licence for personal use, or commercial licence available (currently US$25).
  • It has a reasonably modern interface in that it has a context sensitive "ribbon bar".
  • It supports canvas cropping and resizing
  • It supports selection resizing
  • It supports manual image stitching in that you can enlarge the canvas and paste another image in the new area.
  • It supports rudimentary drawing (pencil, brush, lines, shapes, etc).
  • Once created these shapes can be edited like vectors, but will they be need to be flattened when performing a raster operation.

enter image description here

Note that Ctrl+E will resize the canvas while Ctrl+R will resize selection. These are also available on the ribbon bar in the Image section.

WARNING: The installer for the free version will offer to install some unrelated products (currently a youtube downloader and a registry cleaner), it is possible to opt out.

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  • youtube downloader and a registry cleaner No malware? Lucky.
    – cat
    Apr 12, 2016 at 22:41

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