Open source applications

[KWestos]

We use Serif applications and others to help with our multimedia, video editing and animation within ICT. Do people use any open source alternatives to perform these functions. Because we pay all this money for licenses, etc, but only about 5% of the application is used. I'm sure we could utilise some OS software to get the same result.

[cromertech]

I've just started looking into this myself. There are loads of good open source solutions out there. I run a lot of portable apps from a central sever which saves having to install applications on the individual comps. You could try looking into some of these.

Free Portable Software USB Flash Drive Applications | Pendriveapps

Seems to work very well in my set up here.

[Hightower]

The only one we use site wide (and I'm not even sure if it's open source or whether it's just free) is Paint.net.

[dhicks]

multimedia, video editing and animation

We've used GIMP for image editing, which works well (although PhotoShop is better if you can afford it), Windows Movie Maker for video editing (works okay for small clips, make sure your cameras are compatible before you start) and Scratch for animation. I also really like Inkscape (vector drawing), I prefer it to other applications, although the same can't be said for Scribus, a publisher-alike.

--
David Hicks

[linuxgirlie]

We use:

Gimp - for graphics and animation
Scratch/Alice - animation
Nvu/Kompozer - web editing
Scribus - dtp
Audacity/Rosegarden - podcasts/music composer

I'm sure there are more, but they are the ones that come to mind.

[Jamo]

Does anyone know any free equivalents to the Macromedia suite?

[enjay]

- Paint.net for photo editing
- Windows Movie Maker for general video editing, with a couple of copies of Premiere Elements for the more complex stuff
- MS Photo Story (free, but not standard part of Windows) is good for stop-frame animation
- Scratch is also used, but not sure how much
- Pivot Animator is good fun too, fairly easy to create quite complex stick-figure animations

[Jamo]

Find Open Source Alternatives to commercial software | Open Source Alternative - osalt.com

Interesting site, shows you open source alternatives to commercial products. Might be worth a look!