Commons:Software

First steps tour

Tips & tricks

Third parties

Reuse of Commons’ media files

Creation on Commons
Image guidelines Photography terms Macro photography Image editing Software Graphic Lab(s)

This is a selection of programs designed to aid in media (graphics and audio) manipulation, as recommended by the Wikigraphists and Graphics Labs. These programs are considered very useful tools for the tasks of retouching, editing and in creation of images, illustrations, maps, photographs and animations. They also aid in the recording, editing and conversion of audio files.

Each program usually has its own dedicated forums and tutorials that can be found online. The search strings constructed from the name of the program, followed by the term 'forum' or 'tutorial' will usually present desirable results from your favourite search engine.

Recommended software

These free software products have been labeled by the Wikigraphists of the Graphic Lab the "five stars" of editing and creation of images, illustrations, maps, photograph and animations:

Name	Features	Operating System	Download	Example
Inkscape	Creator of SVG vector images. It can also be used to export PNG.	Linux; macOS; Windows	inkscape.org	(see more...)
GIMP	Similar to Photoshop, suite for image manipulation and creation of raster graphics, PNG, JPG, GIF, XCF). Can also be used to create animations when the GIMP Animation Package (GAP) is installed.	Linux; macOS; Windows; and others	gimp.org
hugin	Stitch panorama images and correct perspective	BSD; Linux; macOS; Windows	hugin.sourceforge.net
Blender	Creation and editing of 3D images.	Linux; macOS; Windows; and others	blender.org
Dia	Create and edit diagrams and graphics that only require basic shapes. Supports exporting to vector (SVG) and various raster file formats.	Linux; macOS; Windows	dia-installer.de

See also Commons:Created with ... templates for more.

Useful software

General software

These software packages have been recommended by the Commons community for use in image manipulation:

GIMP, home page at www.gimp.org - High quality open source image editing suite, similar to Photoshop (free, open-source - for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X). Opens and manipulates a lot of file formats including but not limited to JPEG, PNG and animated GIFs.
Inkscape, home page at www.inkscape.org - Vector graphics program, similar to Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw (free, open-source - for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
LibreOffice, handles all types of images (free, open-source - for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
ImageMagick, home page at www.imagemagick.org - Image conversion, effects, viewing... Particularly good for scripted and "batch" manipulation. (free, Open source - for Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS 9 or X, and others)
Geeqie, home page https://www.geeqie.org/ is an excellent image viewer. (Free software for Linux, MacOS X, and other unixoid systems).
Paint.NET, home page at www.getpaint.net - freeware, with a good user interface, but Windows-only. Supports PNG, GIF, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, PSD (with plugin) and NEF (Nikon Electronic Format) RAW format for Nikon as well as conversion between and manipulation of images in these formats.
darktable, www.darktable.org - non-destructive photo management and editing, especially when you work with RAW files - great for cropping, keystone correction, color correction, sharpening, etc.; free and open source and available for Linux/Unix-like, OS X, and Windows.
RawTherapee, create Images from RAW-Files, free, for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X
Krita, free painting and image editing software for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X

Shareware free for personal use

IrfanView, home page at www.irfanview.com (for Microsoft Windows. A multi-featured tool, supports many image formats. Good at viewing/converting images.)
XnView, home page at www.xnview.com (various platforms. A multi-featured tool, supports many image formats. Good at viewing/converting images, adding IPTC metadata and GPS coordinates).

Online

Zamzar, home page at zamzar.com - offers an online file conversion service for various formats, including Ogg video and audio.
FreeFileConvert, home page at freefileconvert.com - allows user to convert files in different formats, supports most popular video, audio, document and image formats.
http://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-ogg
FileViewer - an online tool for viewing many obscure graphics formats (PPM, TGA, PCX, etc.), and converting them to JPG or PNG.
MP4 to MP3 Converter - allows user to convert MP4 video file into MP3 audio files.

Panorama stitching / keystone correction

Hugin is a cross-platform free/open-source panorama photo stitching program. It can also be used for keystone correction and straightening wavy horizons in existing panoramas. Examples: Category:Created with Hugin.
MS Image Composite Editor is a Windows stitching program with advanced orientation adjustment view and supports planar, cylindrical, and spherical projections.
AutoStitch is a Windows stitching program which works fine with photos which were taken in regard of using them for stitching. Handling is very easy but there is no way of manual correction. Category:Created with Autostitch
ShiftN is a Windows freeware program for automatic keystone correction of photos by detecting converging lines. Examples: Category:Corrected with ShiftN.
GIMP is also able to process panorama images; for example, the Map > Panorama Projection and Map > Little Planet filters are able to work with (and convert between) 360° panoramas in equirectangular projection and polar coordinates.

JPEG

JPEG is a lossy image format; most image editing software can encode and decode it but it is also possible to perform certain transformations on a JPEG losslessly.

Jpegcrop and jpegtran: jpegtran is a command line app that can perform a variety of lossless transformations on JPEG files; it can be used with MaPiVi for a GUI (although the selection preview size seems to be limited?). Jpegcrop is a command line tool with similar functionality, there is also a windows version available with GUI.
There is an EXIF tag, “Orientation”, which tells viewer software that the image must be rotated before being displayed. Unfortunately, not all software supports the tag, so some images may have the wrong value in it unnoticed. The tag can be edited using exiftool (e.g. it can be neutralized with “exiftool -Orientation=Normal”). See Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2011/10#Autorotation_using_EXIF_tag_with_MW_1.18 and Commons:Exif for more details. Physical rotation of the image instead of editing the tag can be lossy, see Commons:Media for cleanup: Sideways pictures or pictures with noticeable camera tilt.
CropTool and Cropbot allow one to crop uploaded JPEGs losslessly, using jpegtran, so one does not need the software oneself.
JPEGsnoop. Free and open source tool to repair and analyse corrupted JPEGs. Windows-only, but works well under WINE.

GIF

GIF should only be used for animations here, the tool list keeps that in mind.

gifsicle: A command line tool for making, manipulating, and optimizing animated GIFs.
UnFREEz OSS GUI-tool for making animated GIFs.

PNG

PNG is a lossless format to be used for any kind of diagram or screenshot for which SVG is not convenient.

OptiPNG: a command line tool for optimising PNG images
AdvPNG: a command line tool for further recompression of PNG images. Should be used after OptiPNG.
PNG tools overview: comparison of various PNG tools incl. TruePNG, PNGOUT, and Zopfli
pngcrush

SVG

Main article: Help:SVG

SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, is an XML-based vector graphics format. It can be created and edited by hand as a text file, or edited through a specialized program. Bitmaps (raster graphics) can be converted to SVG (especially diagrams, maps and so on should be)

See Help:SVG for a software list.

Ogg Vorbis (audio)

Vorbis is a lossy audio codec. Video tools can also handle pure audio.

Audacity is an advanced audio editor with support for mixing and various effects. Can export projects in Ogg Vorbis format. The manual at its site contains advice on copying audio from tapes, LPs, minidiscs etc.
Mp3splt and oggz-chop (oggz-tools) each allow one to split Ogg Vorbis files without re-encoding.
Shtooka Recorder is a program for windows which allows automated recording of the pronunciations of many words, expressions from a text list. (you can record 500 words in 20 minutes). It can save files in Wav/Ogg/FLAC format (including Vorbis Comment tag).
Yazik Recorder is a cross-platform (Python) equivalent of Shtooka Recorder
OGG Converter allows you to convert OGG files to 11 other audio formats.

Ogg Theora and WebM (video)

See also: Help:Converting video

Theora is a lossy video codec. On Windows you can install the Xiph DirectShow filter for playing Ogg Vorbis and Theora in Windows Media Player and Winamp. You can use the native video editing software of your operating system for editing tasks on your local machine:

Openshot is an easy-to-use open source video editor for Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS.
Kdenlive is a powerful open-source video editor for Linux and Windows
Pitivi is an open-source video editor for Linux
iMovie for Mac (proprietary)
Windows Movie Maker for Windows (proprietary, discontinued)