Image

Flickr

Flickr is a popular photo sharing site and one of the largest online image repositories. Flickr is very popular with a large number of professional and amateur photographers. It has many features which make it easy for you to present lots of images through tagging and arranging them in different groups or sets. You can also control how images are shared. You can keep keep some out of the public view, and allow others to be used freely. You can create groups of friends and share your photos only with them.

Pixlr

Pixlr is one of many online browser-based photo and image manipulation services. It stands out as the fastest and most flexible. Pixlr has three modes: 'express', 'advanced' and 'playful'. The 'advanced' mode can perform the same kind of alterations to an image as Photoshop and GIMP, and the layout is almost identical. Express mode is very fast and intuitive, and is suitable for first-time users. The 'playful' mode, which is also available as a phone app, allows you to easily add flashy or vintage effects and backgrounds to your pictures.

Synfig

Synfig Studio creates 2D animation.

It uses new techniques to allow you to create animations quickly, with a limited budget. It can be compared to the Flash animation application. It is a very stable tool with a lot of professional features. Photographs and other backgrounds can be integrated with icons and cartoon figures to create scenarios which can communicate a particular message.

The use of animation allows you to use the power of moving images cheaply to communicate your message.

Inkscape

Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editing application, with capabilities similar to Illustrator and CorelDraw.

Vector graphics are often used for illustrations, graphic design or advanced work with graphical text. Inkscape is a perfect tool for creating beautiful complex or simple images, flyers or posters where the more block-orientated layout of print applications is not appropirate. Some of more advanced uses of Photoshop – like applying effects to fonts and altering the shape of images – are best done in Inkscape rather than GIMP.

Xmind

XMind is software for mind mapping. Concept-mapping or mind-mapping software is used to create diagrams of relationships between concepts, ideas or other pieces of information. Many people find the mind mapping technique more effective for learning than conventional note-taking. While this process is often done on paper, it can be handy to have an electronic version for future editing and sharing.
Xmind – apart from some advanced features – is free and open source. It creates very attractive-looking diagrams and it is very easy to learn how to use.

Gimp

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) can do just about everything that Adobe Photoshop can do, and it's free for anyone to use.

You can use GIMP to re-size and crop photographs or other images, as well as adjust the brightness and contrast of images, add text to graphics, apply various effects and filters, work with layers, create animated GIFs and get images ready for print or the internet.

Grass-mud horse: Circumventing Censorship

In order to circumvent internet censorship in China, bloggers have created a lexicon which makes puns out of words and phrases in the Chinese language to talk about forbidden topics. It started with the 'grass-mud horse' – a mythical creature which sounds nearly the same as a dirty insult – as a tool to ridicule the government's blocking of vulgar content online. The grass-mud horse has achieved a personality, making its way into art, poetry and online videos, as well as inspiring an entire vocabulary of words.

Morsi Meter

Before the Egyptian presidential elections in May 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi, proposed a 100-day plan for reinvigorating the economy and social and political situation of the country post-revolution. After he was elected in June, Zabatak, an anti-corruption and transparency advocacy group struck on an innovative idea to publicly monitor Morsi's performance.

WordPress for audio and video distribution

WordPress is a system for creating websites and blogs.

You can have your own installation of WordPress if you have some webspace, or you can use the free service at wordpress.com.

It is easy to install WordPress and learn how to publish webpages, and it is a good vehicle for publishing and promoting your audio and video online.

If you are using wordpress.com, you either have to pay an upgrade fee to host media files, or you can include them from SoundCloud, YouTube or other audio and video sharing sites.

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