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Free and useful files and links: 

Fonts , Graphics , Clipart , Music & Sound , and Video 

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~ Alan's Programs ~ Internet ~  Mac Stuff ~ Primary ~ Intermediate ~ Secondary ~ Just for Teachers ~ Fonts ~Graphics  and Clipart ~ Music and Sound ~ Windows add-ons ~ Games ~ Misc~  Security
***= highly recommended!

Fonts

  • Microsoft Typography is a good starting point. They offer background information on fonts, tips on how to improve screen readability, and additional resources for downloading fonts.
  • *** Recommended free font sites: Vitaly Friedman's 25 Best Quality Fonts, Manfred Klein@typOasis, iDentifonts, Apostrophic Laboratories, Designer in Action, Acid Fonts
  • FontParadise  has a large, searchable library of downloadable PC and Mac fonts.  
  • Check out thousands of free fonts: 1001fonts.com,  The Font Pool , Pizzadude, or Larabie Fonts
  • 8000 (!) free fonts at Gimme Fonts
  • TypeNow.net has hundreds of free fonts
  • Goodfonts has 300+ free TrueType fonts for download, grouped into categories. TypeNow.net offers 6000+ free fonts.
  • Fonts & Things offers (among many of what the call 'the most unusual fonts online') a set of free Christmas-themed fonts.
  • *** Typetester is a web-based "font comparison utility. It provides three columns, each of which can have different specifications, and each of which displays a paragraph of text in a variety of different styles."

    • Graphics

    • Foto Sketcher: turns digital photos into beautiful pencil sketches or paintings in seconds. FotoSketcher can create images that look like they have been hand drawn by the best artists. FotoSketcher is fast, fun, easy and free.
    • PC World's Jan 2010 review of  10 Great Free Digital Photography Downloads
    • Be sure to check out Jake Ludington's List of  15 Free Eye-catching Image applications....
    • *** Irfanview : Funny name, but an invaluable freebie (Win)-- converts, resizes, changes colour depth of a wide range of graphics formats. Also includes a free slide-show feature. 
    • PhotoFiltre: lots of power with a nicer interface than Irfanview (but still free): 'almost as many features as commercial packages like Paintbrush Pro or Photoshop Elements'. French and other language versions available, too.
    • Seashore for Mac OS X "aims to serve basic image editing needs... It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing."
    • WildBit Viewer: image viewer that works well with large image collections.  Slideshow and editor modules included.
    • *** Serif Software nicely makes the previous versions of their various programs available for free; each is an approximately 20 MB download (Windows only). There's a desktop publishing program, photo editor, web page designer, 3D graphics program, and vector graphics program.
    • *** Picasa (now owned by Google) is a free photo organizer: create slideshows and web albums, print photos in multiple sizes, and more. Or try FastStone Image Viewer or PicaJet Photo Organizer or StudioLine PhotoBasic. 
    • *** Lockergnome describes Photofiltre as "just about the best freeware image editing and creating program out there today."
    • ToyViewer is an image viewer with simple editing functions for Mac OS X
    • PhotoRazor can be used to create high-quality smaller versions of your photos.
    • (Windows-only): Image Assistant
    • Another batch resizer is PIXresizer which can resize, rotate, and convert bunches of graphics files at a time.
    • *** Drawing for Children is a free KidPix-like paint program (Win 95÷850 kb download) or check out Palette, a free paint program for kids with versions for Windows, classic Mac OS, or Mac OS X. Poster Paint is a simple Mac OS X painting application, similar to Windows Paint. Or Tux Paint - a free paint program for kids ages 3 and up. Available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and more (but not Classic Mac OS)
    • ImageForge : PaintShop Pro or Photoshop are too complex for your needs, but KidPix and Windows Paint are too simplistic? ImageForge offers more power, and supports modern file formats, but still offers lots of ease of use and it's free! Or try another free image editor: VCW VicMan's Photo Editor  Paint.net "gives commercial photo editing software serious competition"
    • **You can make your own animated GIFs with the (older) free version of Ulead Gif Animator Mac (OS X) users can use Giftedmotion.
    • DrawSWF is a simple animation program, creating web-friendly Flash files.
    • Photoshop Speedup lets you reduce the time it takes Photoshop (versions 3- 8) to load.
    • The Gimp is an open-source (i.e. free) attempt to recreate all the power of graphics super-program PhotoShop. 
    • WinMorph  lets you morph-- create an animated blend of two different images. Turn your students into their ideal animals!  Or check out Free Morphing. OS X users can check out MorphX
    • Picture-Shark lets you add transparent text ('watermarks') on top of graphics, as captions, copyright notices, etc. Or try Image Watermarker
    • POV-Ray: Persistance of Vision Raytracer is incredibly powerful (but complex) tool for creating 3D graphics. Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux versions. 3D Canvas " is a real-time, 3D-modeling and -animation tool that incorporates a drag-and-drop approach. Complex models can be constructed from simple 3D primitives or created using 3D Canvas's object-building tools. Creating an animated scene is as simple as positioning the objects within your scene for each point in time in your animation."
    • Anim8or 3D Animation software... complex to use, like all 3D graphics products-- but powerful and free.
    • DAZ Studio is "a feature rich 3D figure posing and animation tool that enables users of any skill level to easily create stunning digital imagery. Whether youre a 3D newbie or an avid 3D artist, you'll find DAZ Studio is the perfect tool for designing unique digital art and animation with virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, backgrounds and more."
    • Maya Personal Learning Edition is a free version of this pro-level 3D-graphics and animation software. Mac OS X
    • *** WebAlbum Creator automates creating a web album from a bunch of digital photos-- resizing a folder-full, making thumbnails, and generating a web page, all automatically. Great! Alternatively, E-Mage for Web also does a nice job of building web pages of graphics thumbnails or try WebAlbum Generator or YoPoW (Your Photos on the Web). Mac (OS X only) users can use Apple's iPhoto or the free  jAlbum . Any computer platform with a recent browser can use the web-based Adversus Easy Gallery
    • David Blend Filters-- 13 free plug-in filters for Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Corel Photopaint, etc. ExtremeTech reviewed and links to 10+ favorite free plug-ins (for Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Photopaint, etc). 
    • Oscar's JPEG Thumb Maker lets you quickly and easily resize folders-full of files-- ideal for making thumbnail pages. 
    • PixelNhance is a free, Mac OS X image enhancement program
    • Windows icon plug-in is a donation-ware Photoshop (and compatibles like PaintShop Pro) plug-in to create Windows-format icons. Win and Mac versions.
    • AlbumDiY lets you create photo albums as EXE files that look like a virtual book and run without any other graphics software. A nice way to display your photos or students' pictures.
    • NeatImage cleans up 'noise' in digital photos. 
    • SimplyCapture is a screen capture tool with lots of options. Mac OS X users can check out the free Instant Shot and SnapNDrag screen capture applications
    • FreshView is an album to organize and view graphics and other multimedia files, including music and movies. 
    • Tales Animator creates AVI format animations.
    • Photo Story 3 is a free Microsoft program to make slideshows from digital photos. Include soundtracks, recorded narration, captions. Windows XP only. PhotoStage makes slideshows that can include music and be saved as video files or burned to CD or DVD.
    • MrPresent lets you turn a folder full of graphics into a presentation. Mac OS 9/OS X
    • Free older versions of Serif graphics and design programs: PagePlus 5 is a free page layout (desktop publishing) program... also free DrawPlus 4 and PhotoPlus 5.5
    • MacSpirographic 2.1.1 - Creates those spirographs that we grew up with. Images can be exported! (Mac classic and OS X)
    • Incrediface lets you replace the faces in digital images-- put your face into movie posters, add animation, speech bubbles, and more. Great fun!
    • Cartoonist " enables even a computer novice to create funny caricatures or realistic images applying creative warping effects in a matter of minutes".
    • FastStone Screen Capture is an image viewer, editor, and screen capture program in one with resize, rotating, cropping, and color adjustment tools.
    • Light Artist "allows adding multiple light sources to photographic images, which can be useful either for enhancing underexposed pictures, images taken in a dimly-lit environment or for producing different lighting effects."
    • Artweaver is a simple free program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver makes all artistic effects, which you need for your work. You can create sketches from photographies and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is realistic as possible. (Windows) Similarly, ArtRage simulates natural media like oils, pencils, and chalks, for Mac OS X. Another one (for Windows) is TwistedBrush with free and paid versions.
    • Hugin stitches multiple images into one large picture. For Windows , Linux, Mac OS X.
    • PicaJet Free is a photo organizer with red-eye removal, web catalog and slide show creation, CD burning, keyword categorizing, and more. Or check out Google's free Picasa.  (BC Schools note that there is a provincial license for ACD See photo organizer-- Windows and Mac versions).
    • virtualPhotographer includes over 50 presets that automatically apply combinations of film grain, color modification, B/W, soft focus, high contrast and many artistic effects to achieve the same professional-looking images that used to take hours of photo editing.
    • Inkscape is a free vector-drawing program (illustration program- think of Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw). Imports standard bitmap (paint) files for coversion to smooth vector art. Works well with a digital tablet.
    • Easy JPEG Printer lets you print photos (etc) 4 to a page (3"x5"), two to a page (4"x6") or one 8"x10" to a page.
    • ImagePlay (with versions for Mac OS X, Mac Classic, and Windows) lets you " Run a series of effects on an image; tweak them, rearrange them, remove them, all without messing up the source image."
    • The Seashore Project is an open source image editor for Mac OS X
    • ArtRage (for Mac OS X and Windows) "is a painting package designed to provide a realistic and fun simulation of using paint on a canvas, along with pens, pencils, crayons, and other tools."
    • ImageTricks (Mac OS X) "is a free image editing application that allows you using Mac OS X Tiger Core Image filters. With the program you can easily edit and apply various effects and filters to your photos and images." Includes 40 effects and filters.
    • QuarkXPress Mini Manual, Design Do's and Don'ts and more...
    • Anvsoft Flash Slideshow Maker can be used to convert a folder full of photos into a Flash slideshow for distribution or viewing online- complete with music in the background and transition effects.
    • Blender does modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, realtime interactive 3D and game creation and playback with cross-platform compatibility. Open source for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc.
    • Funny Photographer (Mac OS X): shoot a photo of you or your friends via iSight or other supported webcams, then add a lot of cool effects like Apple's Photo Booth
    • Photobie is free image editing software with multilayer support. Photobie is customized for photo editing. It is featured with advanced screen capture tools, simpliest gif animation tool and photo framing tool. Photobie also provides an image diectory browser with batch resize/rotate, full screen slide show features.
    • Image Tricks is a free application to edit and generate images. It uses Mac OS X Tiger Core Image filters that transform pictures to unimaginable extent. Various mathematical algorithms let you generate unique images. Created artwork can be used as a background, web-design illustration, for print materials and more.
    • ImageWell (Mac OS X) "is the easy way to edit, rotate, crop, and resize your image and upload it to your iDisk (.mac account), FTP server, or WebDAV server."
    • ImageJ is a free Java-based image editor with versions for Windows, Linux, Mac (classic) and Mac OS X. For more information on it, see: http://lowendmac.com/misc/04/1018.html
    • Seashore is an open source Mac OS X image editor
    • ToyViewer is not toy software- it's a fast and useful photo utility
    • Google SketchUp "is powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software. We think of it as "the pencil of digital design". This award-winning product combines a simple yet robust tool set that streamlines and simplifies 3D design. SketchUp is used by professionals and consumers alike. It contains a unique interface that allows 3D forms to be created, viewed, and modified quickly and easily. The core of its simplicity is that you draw the edges of the desired model in 3D space, just as you would using a pencil and paper. SketchUp infers your design intent and automatically determines the nature of the lines and fill shapes to create 3D geometry." Works with GoogleEarth. Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X versions.
    • ImageJ is an advanced image editor that supports many file formats and has versions of Mac OS (Classic), OS X, Windows, and Linux. See review.
    • XnView "is a fast multi-format graphics browser, viewer, and converter. It can read more than 400 file formats, e.g. gif, bmp, jpeg, png, targa, multipage tiff, camera RAW, jpeg 2000, mpeg, Avi, Quicktime. EXIF & IPTC metadata are also supported. The image viewer has an Explorer-like browser that allows quick and simple browsing of directory contents. XnView supports red eye correction, crops and transforms JPG images losslessly, generates HTML pages and contact sheets, and provides batch conversion and batch renaming. Slide shows with transitions effects, screen capturing, WIA & TWAIN support (scanner & digital cameras), image comparison, file operations."
    • *** MacEtegami is a watercolors simulation program. (Mac OS X)
    • Free online photo editors reviewed, with links to services
    • Remember MacPaint on your old Mac? Or miss Windows Paintbrush on your new Mac? Paintbrush is a simple paint program for Mac OS X that works with JPG, BMP
    • Beneton Movie GIF is a free program to make simple animations in GIF or AVI formats. For Windows 2000/XP/Vista

      Clipart

      Music and Sound

    • Be sure to check out Jake Ludington's List of 15 Great Free Audio Applications
    • Anvil Studio is a very nice free Midi music composition program... users can enter music from a Midi keyboard, and edit/multitrack it... or enter it using an on-screen keyboard, etc.
    • Le Pianographique turns your computer keyboard into a playable rap/techno synthesizer, online-- in English or French.
    • *** Treble and Bass Clef is a game that teaches reading music.
    • Play It By Ear is a game that teaches kids to recognize music notes. Note ID teaches reading music notation and key signatures (Windows). Chords & Keys (Mac) offers drills in music fundamentals
    • Advanced FretPro describes itself as "is the best fretboard training program in the world (our humble opinion!) and also has a massive chord and scale library showing exactly how to play chords and scales on a real guitar neck instead of from a chord or scale diagram".
    • Africmusic offers an introduction to African music, with samples of different styles and three African radio stations.
    • ***Audacity is a very nice, free sound recorder and editor... works with Wav, MP3, etc. Windows, Mac, Mac OSX and Linux versions. Wavosaur is another free sound recorder/editor (Win only)-- nicest feature is the vocal remover.
    • Harmony Central has tons of links for downloadable music and sound software... PC, Mac, Amiga, and more.
    • Battery is a virtual drum machine to create complex rhythm tracks. MrDrum is a free Mac OS X drum machine
    • Power Tab Editor lets you write music for guitar or bass with guitar tablature, and play it back on your computer's sound card. 
    • NoteID is a free program to learn pitch notation and keyboard note names.
    • Chords and Keys is a free Mac music theory program. 
    • AquaAllegro is free music theory teaching software for Mac OS X
    • Max is a high-quality CD ripper for Mac OS X that supports multiple output formats.
    • Happy Note! sing and learn treble clef ABCs
    • Buzzer is a Mac OS X synthesizer... Automat is its new version...
    • Perfect Pitch is a Mac OSX instrument tuner; SimpleChord is an OS X reference to musical chords, showing them on an on-screen keyboard.
    • ZeroBeat is a Windows guitar tuner
    • Apple's GarageBand is a great (OS X only) music application. Here are tutorials (in PDF format): 
    • GarageBand at a Glance
    • Building a Basic Arrangement
    • Working with Real Instruments
    • Working with Software Instruments
    • Bandmates Loop Pack offers free 'electronica' drum loops for Apple's GarageBand.
    • EvilLyrics goes online to display the lyrics of whatever song is playing in WinAmp, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, iTunes for Windows (etc). Very cool!
    • PlaySound is a simple music player (MP3, AIFF, etc) for Mac OS 9.1+ or OS X 10.2+
    • Video MP3 Extractor extracts the audio track from Video AVI, ASF, and WMV files, creating MP3 audio tracks.
    • All That Chords! will provide visually, the chord you want to play on your keyboard.
    • Freecorder records any sounds that play on your computer and saves the files as MP3-- good for capturing web radio, for instance. Or try Xstream Radio or Streamripper (for shoutcast/live365 streams) or for streaming MP3
    • Ninjam is designed to allow real-time jamming across the Internet-- at least after a fashion. Versions for Windows and Mac OS X.
    • Babya Logic is a 'powerful suite of pro-quality audio production software'
    • Rosoft Audio Recorder is free (Windows) recording software- if you are recording from an LP or tape, it can automatically find the silences between tracks and split the recording. (Note: the free version of this software automatically installs the Ask Jeeves 'My Search' toolbar into Internet Explorer-- which can be uninstalled using Add/Remove Software if unwanted).
    • Multitrack Studio Lite combines a multitrack recorder, a mixer, lots of effects and a MIDI sequencer in one package: everything that's needed to turn your computer into a digital multitrack sound recording studio.
    • Guitar Machine is an online site to play guitar online. It also has links to other online music games.
    • Reaper lets you record, edit, render and arrange multi-track waveform audio.
    • MuvAudio lets you record the audio from any item in Windows Media Player such as streaming radio, digital video clips, DVD movies, etc.
    • Media Player Classic is a small, low-resource media player with many functions: supports Quicktime, Real formats, plays DVDs, and more
    • Despite the name, Guitar and Drum Trainer is not just for guitar players or drummers; any musician can benefit from using it slow down digital recordings to help learn the parts, make transcriptions, etc.
    • VoxReducer reduces the amount of vocal in recorded music-- helpful for learning the instrumental parts. (Mac OS X)
    • LilyPond "makes beautiful sheet music" for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc)
    •  Music Assistant (Mac OS X or Windows) is a combination metronome and tuner
    • Music Math  (Mac OS X) "convertsvalues for musical use. You can calculate the time stretching to use on a sample if you change the tempo for another, or the number of semi-tone to transpose, the time stretching to apply if you transpose a sample and you don't want to change the duration, the delay in ms to synchronise with BPM, and a tap delay fonction."
    • *** Streamripper is a handy application "that lets you record streaming mp3 to your hardrive."
      • Video and DVD


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    Alan Zisman is a Vancouver educator, writer, and computer specialist. He can be reached at