Looking for something beyond Paint.NET? Think Photoshop is a too complex application for your needs, or is there no budget for a subscription? Regardless of your situation, the web offers several free image editors, and one that was updated just a few hours ago is FireAlpaca, very useful for those who want to do basic edits or draw freehand.
The saying goes that a bad worker always blames his tools, but we also can't deny that those tools must be the right ones. In the world of image editing, Photoshop remains the number one option because it has consistently delivered everything professionals need over the years. Now, I want to emphasize the word "option".
Photoshop is not the only program with its features, and in many cases, the user doesn't even need all of them. That leads us to explore software that is a bit more "humble" in the eyes of an expert, but definitely complete for the rest of us. That said, let's make room for FireAlpaca.
FireAlpaca: Image Editing Focused on Painting
FireAlpaca is a free tool from Japan compatible with Windows and OS X, whose functions focus on the creation and painting of illustrations. Obviously, all options for cutting, pasting, adjusting brightness/contrast, editing layers, and modifying transparency levels are available.
The strong point of FireAlpaca resides in its brushes. Some are already predefined out of the box, but the user has the possibility to use them as a base to create a new one, or simply customize it. FireAlpaca's interface is not very intuitive at first and requires a few minutes of prior exploration.
Another detail is that FireAlpaca supports ten different languages, among which Spanish fortunately appears. Its developer highlights that FireAlpaca will be free forever (apparently the project has several sponsors), and its installer is clean, without strange modules or adware.
Other services provided by FireAlpaca's developers:
AlpacaDouga: A service for creating animated GIFs that lets you create an animation in GIF format not only from a GIF image, but also from JPG and PNG.
AlpacaGET: A file transfer service to send your images from your mobile or tablet to your PC in a simple and direct way. File hosting is temporary and can be configured from 3 minutes to 33 days. The best feature of this service, as it is designed for artists, is that it does not compress files, so there is no deterioration of the shared image.
In short, a perfect editor for digital artists, with services specific to their needs. Don't hesitate to try it. It is, as we said, free and contains no dangerous files.
