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One of the keys to building websites, is properly preparing images to help pages load as quickly as possible. Generally speaking, programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks are used, but they can be quite spendy, ranging in price from $300 – $1000.

If what you primarily need to do is crop, resize, and compress images for the web, all of those programs can be expensive overkill. You could use programs that come with your computer, like iPhoto on a Mac, or Microsoft Photo Editor on Windows, but there are other, and sometimes much better, options.

online tools

A free option available to Mac and Windows users, is Aviary’s suite of online tools for image editing, vector editing, audio editing, and more. The tools are pretty impressive, and are very similar to Photoshop and Illustrator.

Another online tool is Picnik, which has both free and premium account options. Picnik integrates with photo-hosting/sharing sites you already may be using, like Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, and Photobucket. Picnik is great for cropping, resizing, and doing simple image touch-ups like removing red-eye, and basic color-correction.

software applications

A free image editing option for Mac, Windows, and Linux users is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). If you’re looking for an Illustratoresque vector program, Inkscape is a great, free tool for Mac and Windows users. Both GIMP and Inkscape are pretty full-featured tools.

Windows users can also install the free program Paint.NET, which will handle basic editing needs, but also has support for layers and effects.

Mac users can get a small program called Image Well for basic editing and compression, but it’s not free. It’s well worth the $20 price, though, and it’s what I use when I need to resize and compress images.

Photoshop and Illustrator are fantastic tools, but if you’re not doing retouching, working with Raw images, doing color-correction, or batch-processing a lot of images, you can probably save a lot of money by using one or more of the free or low cost alternatives above.