Useful Image/Graphics Resources

There are quite a few good, free resources out there to help with your webmaster needs. Many are fully web-based. Some of the better ones I have come across include:

iconifier.net
This simple but useful site lets you upload a JPG, PNG or GIF image (up to 500KB) and then have it generate Apple and Favicon icons. This is one of my go-to sites, but another good one for the same purpose is ICO converter.com
ResizeImage.net
This is my go-to source when I need to crop, resize and/or optimize an image. Crop and resize any image to the exact pixels or proportion you specify and reduce the file size significantly without losing quality, without Photoshop.
Compressor.io
ResizeImage.net is great, but if all I want to do is compress an image size, this is my preferred choice. A nice UI with drag and drop ability and one click operation. Most importantly, the results always seem to satisfy Google’s PageSpeed testing service.
ezimba
ezimba is an online tool to do image manipulations, including conversion from one format to another, enhancing attributes (contrast, brightness, sharpness, saturation, hue), adding basic effects (orientation, labeling, border, size), and adding exotic features (combining and transforming).
Best4c (Best for chart)
Best4c (Best for chart) is a Web-based, online diagram tool that allows you to create, edit and share charts. Features include:
- Offers you a way to create and share charts online
- Desktop application feel in a web-based diagramming solution
- Provides an interactive drawing and diagramming solution within all popular internet browsers (FireFox,IE,Opera,Safari)
- Exports diagram as a PDF or PNG format, and quick paste to Word, Excel, Powerpoint
- Creates many types of diagrams such as Flowcharts, Floor plans, Network diagrams, UML diagrams or any other simple drawing or diagram.
Bradicon
Web app Bradicon is a super-simple tool to convert most of the major graphics formats – JPG, PNG, BMP, or GIF – into icon files.
Gadwin PrintScreen
Want to create a screenshot suitable for saving or printing? Then just hit a key on your keyboard. There are several hotkey combos to choose from (PrintScreen is the default). Once you’ve chosen your favorite combo, head to the Destination tab and have the screen print out instantly, copy the capture to the clipboard, save it to a specific folder, or even send it through e-mail. You can perform full screen captures, or only capture a specific window.
Image Editing: Resize Images without Sacrificing Content with GIMP or Rsizr
Ever have to crop or resize a picture to fit it better on a web site but end up disappointed with the content you have to lose from the photo? Using a method called liquid rescaling, your pics can be rescaled while retaining almost all of the pertinent content, so you can get the best of both worlds—a smaller image that retains everything you want. If it still sounds a little unclear, check out the video to see this brilliant idea in action.

If you’re a fan of the open source image editor GIMP, you can download and install the Liquid Rescale GIMP plug-in to get liquid rescaling results (after you install it by moving the downloaded files into your GIMP directory, you’ll see the Liquid Rescale option under the Layer menu). If you don’t feel like installing anything, you should try out the Rsizr webapp, which does the rescaling from the comfort of your browser. Both tools are a good deal slower than what you see in the very cool video above, and neither are implemented to the full extent of what you’re seeing in the video, but the results are still promising. [Lifehacker annotation]
Jing
Jing instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content on your clipboard ready for you to paste the URL into any of your conversations. Your content is hosted on Screencast.com, for which we are providing a complimentary account to all participants during this project. Users have 200MB of space for storing screenshots and screencasts and 1 GB of bandwidth that renews monthly.
Pearl Crescent Page Saver
Pearl Crescent Page Saver is an extension for Mozilla Firefox that lets you capture images of web pages. These images can be saved in PNG or JPEG format. Using Page Saver, you can capture an entire page or just the visible portion. Options let you control whether images are captured at full size (which is the default) or scaled down to a smaller size.
LovelyCharts
If you’ve ever looked for an easy, intuitive online diagram creation tool, you know how hard it is to find one. LovelyCharts is a brand new application poised to become the default online drawing tool for amazing flowcharts, sitemaps and wireframes.

Like Gliffy, Flowchart.com, and AutoDesk’s experimental Draw project, the app enables you to create diagrams and more in your browser with drag-and-drop functionality. The main dif-ferentiator between LovelyCharts and other online services is that it actually makes your complex processes look incredibly good. Better yet, it’s completely free (there’s also a pro-fessional version, for €29 a year, which allows users to maintain and collaborate on as many diagrams as they wish and features full history management, sharing functionality and a noti-fication setup). [TechCrunch Annotation]
SmartMorph
This fast, advanced-morphing program can morph one picture to another or make funny effects with one. It allows the user to resize and crop pictures to achieve the best results when morphing. The resulting animation can be computed and displayed in real time or saved to disk.
Splashup
Edit your images on the fly online with Splashup, a web-based image editor that integrates with Flickr, Facebook, and Picasa. Splashup offers up a surprising array of image editing tools, far beyond the usual crop of resize and contrast— you can also edit multiple images, play with filters and layers, use a variety of brushes, and more. [Lifehacker Annotation]
VectorMagic
Web site VectorMagic turns virtually any image into vector art that can be resized as much as you want without any nasty pixelation. The site is free and simple to use, but for a bit more detail check out their howto introductory video. Whether you are trying to perfect your scanned signature or you’ve got a logo or design you want to be able to resize indefinitely, VectorMagic will do the trick. [Hat Tip to Lifehacker]
Wink
Wink is free 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. (Note: for a more professional alternative, but one with a somewhat steep price tag, check out Macromedia Captivate and/or Camtasia Studio.)
WPClipart
Don’t embarrass yourself by busting out the same tired stock clip art for your next Power Point tour de force. WPClipart has a pile of royalty free images to share.

The archive currently has 23,872 images, covering thousands of subjects. A significant portion of them are in lossless formats. The site is organized into categories, but if casual browsing fails to find you the perfect gem you’ve been searching for there is always keyword based searches. You can even download the entire collection as a single archive, making it easier to use offline. [Lifehacker Annotation]
XnView
Freeware app XnView gives you incredible control over editing digital photographs in a lightweight package. Similar to IrfanView, XnView is fast and can import and export hundreds of image formats. It also features lossless rotate and crop, filters, color modifications, red-eye reduction, and slideshow view. Categorize images and easily access EXIF meta information. [Lifehacker annotation]
Lightscreen Portable
Lightscreen Portable is an easy to use screenshot app packaged as a portable app so you can take pictures of the current in-use desktop wherever you go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.
BeFunky
Digital image effects web application BeFunky adds seriously impressive effects to any photograph—turning boring pictures into digital art in a couple of mouse clicks. Using BeFunky to add digital effects couldn’t be easier—simply upload your files (or grab them from flickr, MySpace or Facebook), select your preferred effect from the list, and tweak the options to your liking. Once completed you can download your transformed photos without an account—a watermark is added, but it’s below the image and could be easily removed with a quick crop. [Lifehacker Annotation]
Aviary
Aviary is considered by many to be one of the best online image editors available. It used to be fee-based with a scaled-down free version but now the complete product is available for free use. Aviary competes with Adobe’s online version of Photoshop which is also free, but requires you to pay if you go over their 2GB limit.