Creativity & productivity
39 Adobe Photoshop Express
The Express edition of Adobe’s worldfamous photo-editing software is a free-to-use lightweight version. If you don’t need the full version of Photoshop or don’t want to pay the monthly fees (like many of us), this offers the same Adobe quality in a smaller package. It gives you all the basic features you need to edit pictures quickly. www.microsoft. com
40 Blender
Fancy making 3D models for free? Then Blender has got you covered. With this incredible software, you can design and make models using a wide range of available tools. You can then go on to animate and motion-track the models you’ve created. The only real limit is your imagination. It can even act as a video editor or a 2D animation suite – combined with its amazing rendering engine, it all makes for a fabulous free tool. www.blender.org
41 DaVinci Resolve 17
For a while, this program has been one of the best color graders on the market, but it’s now a full-fledged video editing suite, too. It’s been used for many large commercial projects, and you can check them out for yourself on the DaVinci website. If you are just beginning to dip your toe into video editing, or perhaps you already use other programs, such as Adobe’s Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas, we recommend you take it for a spin – it’s free, after all. www.blackmagicdesign.com
42 LibreOffice
If you only use the basic features of Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is a great alternative that checks most of the boxes, but without the associated price tag. It’s certainly not as feature-rich as Microsoft’s flagship, but for creating most day-to-day documents, this suite should be able to produce what you need. It has alternatives for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more – not bad. www.libreoffice.org
43 HandBrake
A little different from your traditional hand-operated stopping device, HandBrake is an open-source, free-to-use video converter. It’s a must-have for video editors, because it’s both powerful and easy to use.
HandBrake converts video files into different formats, can be used for opening files of a random codec, or to make files more universally accessible. Free, easy, and obscurely named, we love it. It’s also a handy benchmark tool, too. www.handbrake.fr
44 Audacity
If you need to record your voice, whether that be from voiceover dubs, voice memos, video recording, or even if you want to kickstart a career in opera, Audacity is a superb free audio recording program. You can record, trim, add effects, re-organise, fade in and out, and much more. For audiophiles and microphone fanatics, this is an excellent choice, and a perfect alternative to Adobe Audition, albeit a little slimmed down. www. audacityteam.org
45 Fresh Paint
Microsoft’s Fresh Paint gives you a canvas on which to unleash your inner Picasso – well, you can attempt to, at least. It’s a painting app with plenty of great tools for all sorts of artists. You can even transform pictures into paintings. It’s the type of program where you can dabble a bit when the creative urge takes you, or spend hours using it to create a masterpiece. www. microsoft.com
46 GIMP
This community-driven and developed image editor was bound to make an appearance here. Although it will never reach the same heights as its heavyweight rival Adobe Photoshop, GIMP has a strong foothold in the photo manipulation market, and its free price tag has a big role to play in that. It provides you with the right tools to get the job done, whether that be for graphic design, illustration, photography, or just messing around. www.gimp.org
47 FocusWriter
One of the biggest issues faced when trying to get a new writing project of the ground is the distractions that come along when working on your PC. We can definitely vouch for this one. FocusWriter helps you to stay in the zone with your writing by eliminating all these distractions. Its writing environment is light, distraction-free, and simple. It utilises a hideaway interface that you access by moving your mouse to the edge of the screen. It’s very basic, but definitely gets the job done. https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/