Bloggers who have limited budgets must not only be careful with how they choose which company for their domain and hosting, but also with their time. The restriction is even more severe when they have to make their blog content ‘interesting’.
One of the ways to make the content look interesting is through images. Images can include photography and graphic design which includes data visualisation such as infographic and flowcharts.
Below are 11 sites to use for free for photo editing, graphic design, building flowcharts, etc.
Canva
Canva is an app you use online, it’s not the software you download to your laptop or PC but has an app you can download to your tablet or phone.
It has tons of professional photos, beautiful templates, unique fonts, and various elements to help you design whatever you want to design to make your content more captivating or simply easier to understand.
While many images, templates and fonts are free to use, you can’t download images with transparent background. If you want a transparent background, you’ll need to remove it manually (keep reading, I’ll list the sites and apps you can use) or you can upgrade to the Pro Account or Enterprise Account to get unlimited access to everything, including 100 gb cloud storage for Pro Account and unlimited cloud storage for Enterprise Account.
Gimp
Gimp is similar to Photoshop. There are so many things you can do with Gimp. The best part is that it’s free. Click here to download.
Like Photoshop, you can use Gimp to remove any background, adding or deleting certain elements in the pictures, adjusting the brightness, contrast, colours, shadows of an image, replacing a colour, making something or someone looks like they’re floating or flying. Or sinking.
If you don’t know how to use Gimp, head to Youtube and type “Gimp for beginners” or “How to remove the background using gimp”, or “how to isolate an object with Gimp”.
Darktable
Darktable is similar to Adobe Lightroom. It can develop raw files (if you shoot raw). It’s packed with functionality like noise reduction, white balance adjustment, haze removal, as well as all basic photo editing such as cropping, rotating, brightness-contrast-saturation adjustment. Click here to download Darktable.
Snapseed
If you don’t fancy working on a laptop or PC, Snapseed may be a good option. It’s a free photo-editing app by Google. It’s available for both Apple and Android users. This amazing app is packed with easy-to-use tools, from premade filters to manual adjustment for cropping, rotating, tuning, white balance, to adding texts. So far (as of June 2021), this app is still not capable of removing thebackground. It can, however, do some healing, like removing one annoying spot (a pimple, a stain, etc) from one particular surface.
Picsart
Picsart is also an app that you can use both in IOS and Android systems. This app is similar to Snapseed. While Snapseed is good for photo editing in general, Picsart is better for photo modification, like adding stickers, amazing effects like dispersion, stretching, zoom radial, cloning and much more.
Pixlr
If you’re in a hurry and have no space to download any software on your PC or laptop, Pixlr is a great option. It’s similar to Canva, and it can also be downloaded to your mobile phone or tablet. And just like Canva, it’s packed with numerous free, beautiful templates. It also has a paid version, US$7.99 per month, which gives you unlimited access to all templates.
Pixlr uses layers, so if you never work with Photoshop or Gimp, the layering function can be confusing. Therefore, I’d recommend Canva when modifying or designing your photo or image.
Google Slide
Google Slide can be used online with your PC or laptop, or downloaded as an app to use in your mobile phone or tablet. It’s great to make flowcharts, pie charts, and other infographics. If you don’t know how to build a pie chart, search in youtube “how to create a pie chart using Google Slide”.
Active Presenter
This powerful software is an all-in-one screen recorder, video editor, and eLearning authoring software.
Similar to Google Slide, Active presenter is great for creating flowcharts, pie charts, and other infographics.
You can use its free version with limited functionality, or pay $199 for the standard licence, or $399 for Pro licence.
Easelly
With hundreds of templates, icons and photos, this very easy-to-use online software can help you create beautiful infographics. The free version allows you to download without watermark, but you can only download the low resolution file. If you wish to download the full resolution, you have to upgrade to a paid account. Currently the paid account is $2 per month for student account, $4 per month for individuals (personal, teachers, non-profit) and $5 per month for business accounts. Click here for what is included for each account.
Miro Mindmap
Similar to Easelly, Miro is an online program that helps you create infographics, including timelines, mind maps, and various charts. The free account allows you to create a maximum of 3 infographics and download them without a watermark. However, you can only download the low resolution image. If you just use them for your blog content, you can keep using the free account. You only need a high resolution image if you want to print them out. The paid account is currently US$96 per member per annum for the Team account, US$192 per member per annum for the Business account, and custom pricing for the Enterprise account.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a free vector graphic maker/editor. This powerful software works similar to Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape can open Adobe Illustrator (AI) files, as well as CorelDRAW (CDR), Microsoft Visio Drawing (VSD), Portable Document Format (PDF), and all other common files including JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP.
With Inkscape, you can make your own graphics or simply tweak other’s files to your liking, like changing the shape of an element, adding or removing lines, colors, the sky’s the limit. You’re no longer limited to the premade templates.
