StylePix is a free image editing software, an alternative for Photoshop or Fireworks, with numerous advanced features.

It has an intuitive user interface where all the controls can be selected easily.

The software works with layers & offers multi-layer/group editing support.

Some features of StylePix are:

• various selection types (auto-range, color-range & rectangular, circular, polygonal, lasso area selection)
• batch processing
• 30 different filters
• thumbnail, histogram & waveform view for current image
• & more..

StylePix works on Windows OS & consumes very few system resources, even the installer is ~800kb, which makes it an ideal solution for less-powerful computers or running from portable devices (a portable version exists).

Konigi, a must-bookmark resource for UI designers, is sharing a handy "do-it yourself wireframe magnets kit" for easy whiteboard prototyping.

They are based on the Konigi wireframe stencils and includes 3 sheets of elements (form elements, HTML editor, etc.).

How To Create Them?

Simply download and print the PDFs on to magnet sheets, optionally laminate them if you intend to use with dry-erase markers, and finally cut them out.

2 Things You May Consider Buying (from Amazon.com):

• Avery 3270 Printable Magnet Sheet for Inkjet Printer (White)
• 3M LS950 No-Heat Laminating System

Adobe AIR has clearly became the standard on creating desktop applications for web developers.

Besides the offline applications, it can combine the richness of web with the simplicity of desktop & offer very functional tools.

At WRD, there were 2 other posts that had shared web designer/developer focused Adobe AIR apps.:

• 27 Adobe AIR Applications – Handy For Web Designers
• 16 Fresh Adobe AIR Applications For Designers & Developers

Since then, various new tools are built & here are 15 new Adobe AIR applications for designers & developers:

colrful

colrful is a beautiful application that enables you to make color-based searches in Flickr. Any number of colors can be mentioned, they can be viewed as thumbnails/originals & downloaded.

Another feature is the ability to mention an image URL & get similar images from Flickr.

Polaris

The application is a desktop interface for Google Analytics (free version works with 1 website).

It offers most of the features of Google Analytics including visits, pageviews, reports, Google Maps report & more..

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Divine is a fresh & free Photoshop plug-in for converting Photoshop files into WordPress themes.

It works by selecting spots in design files & marking them as WordPress variables like:

• post title
• post text
• author link
• etc..

It produces valid XHTML-CSS code & themes are automatically widget-ready.

Divine has an integrated FTP-client & it is a very ideal plug-in for anyone who is not that into coding and/or WordPress theming.

For any designer with significant amount of Photoshop brushes installed, it is always a pain to navigate through the brushes & find the one you need.

ABRView is a free software that makes this process much easier. It allows you to define the folder(s) where brushes are installed & preview them.

Also, once you download a brush, although you have an opinion on how it looks, you can not be sure until installing it, running Photoshop & checking the look from the brush palette. As ABRView can display brushes from any folder, you simply save time on seeing how they look.

It has an .exe version for Windows & .jar version for Mac & Linux.

With the ease of development & multi-platform support, Adobe AIR is a getting-popular choice for creating desktop applications.

There are many beautiful applications built with it including the ones that are functional for the designer & developer community.

Months ago, a post published at WRD was sharing 27 Adobe AIR Applications – Handy For Web Designers. Since then, there are various great applications created.

And here they are, 16 Fresh Adobe AIR Applications For Designers & Developers:

ImageSizer

ImageSizer is a batch image processor tool which can resize, optimize and rename multiple JPG files.

Once the images are processes, they can be exported as a single .zip file.

JustResizeIt!

A batch image resizer that works with drag'n drops. It enables users to define different presets in advance & creates resized images instantly.

The application is great for anyone sending photos with e-mails, requires batch resizing & more.

Xe-IMG Editor

It supports multiple image types, image-from-URLs & SWF files as images to be edited.

With various effects like: zoom, image mask, sharpening, enhancing, embossing & more Xe-IMG Editor is a handy free desktop image editor.

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Mastering frequently used applications increases the productivity significantly.

Controlling these applications via keyboard is a part of this "mastering process" which helps you use an application with 2 hands = much faster.

Also, knowing the tricks of tools inside these products definitely opens new doors for creating.

Specifically for designers, here is a list of cheat sheets for the most popular applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, Gimp, Fireworks & more..

Photoshop CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are very well organized, both by menu & alphabetically.

Also, shortcut presets that add lots of extra shortcuts are provided too.

Keyboard shortcuts for previous Photoshop versions:

• Adobe Photoshop CS3
• Adobe Photoshop CS2
• Adobe Photoshop CS
• Adobe Photoshop 7
• Adobe Photoshop 6
• Adobe Photoshop 5

Photoshop Black And White Cheat Sheet

There are many different way & settings for converting images to black and white with Photoshop.

This is a Photoshop file presenting different filters/presets. Just update 1 file & see the various outputs.

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JPEGSnoop is a free application (Windows) that gives you details of JPEG and MotionJPEG AVI files.

It is for anyone who is curious in finding out the source of an image to test its authenticity.

The application can open various file types that contains an embedded JPEG image like: .JPG, .AVI, .MOV, .PDF & more.

Besides the authenticity, JPEGSnoop provides other detailed information about the images like:

• JPEG quality & resolution
• EXIF metadata
• Makernotes
• RGB histograms & more..

There are various web-based image editors that help a lot specially when you do not have the right image editing software with you.

AIE, an open source Ajax image editor, is one of them but with a difference: it can be installed under your websites.

So, besides using it as a standard image editor, it can be integrated with other applications you use (like image galleries, blogging apps., etc) by simply setting the "images folder" of these applications.

AIE has great features like:

• resizing images
• cropping images
• rotate/flip images
• apply filters
• add text with a text tool
• apply watermarks & more..

It is built with Ext JS & uses PHP+ImageMagick on the server-side. For a demo, click here.

Shape Collage is a free software for creating photo collages automatically.

The collages can be in any shape, including the ready to use templates or the ones that you can create from scratch.

Images used can be selected from the computer or web. And, they are totally customizable:

• Size & number of the photos, collage size, spacing between photos can be defined
• Background image/color & borders can be selected

The collage created can be in GIF, JPEG & PSD format (so you can edit the collage more).

The software has Windows, Mac, Linux & Java versions.