Why Pay When You Can Get Good Software For Free
Big name software often comes at a big price too. We’re not saying that you don’t get your money’s worth, but you can save a lot by going with these capable free options say Karan Bajaj & Hitesh Raj Bhagat.
Operating System
PAID - MICROSOFT
WINDOWS 6,000
This is the price
for the cheapest variant — Windows 7 Home Basic — which does not even include
the entire Aero interface. Other advanced features missing on this version
include multi-touch support, Windows Media Centre, Windows XP mode and multiple
language support. You can get all these features, but you’ll have to spend more
for Windows 7 Home Premium. If you want to go for the latest Windows 8
operating system, be ready to spend 12,999.
There are different variants of Linux based free operating systems
available for free. Ubuntu is one of the most popular free operating systems
because it is easy to use, has low hardware requirements and includes the
option to run from a USB drive or DVD. It comes with built-in document editing
software, a chat client, email client and multimedia player. Most popular apps
like Skype, Audacity, GIMP, Google Chrome and Steam are available for Ubuntu.
Image Editing PAID - ADOBE PHOTOSHOPCS6 51,597
For this huge price, you get the best image editing software
available today. It comes with advanced features like type styles, vector
layers, tilt shift effects, HDR editing and search layers. You can directly
import RAW images from a camera for editing into Photoshop — obviously a big
advantage for photographers. The user interface can be customised to suit your
working needs and offers quick access to various tools and settings.
FREE – GIMP
Nothing comes close to the features and controls that Photoshop
offers for image editing. However, as a free alternative, GIMP stands its
ground with a very similar interface. It also has support for layers, channel
mixer, clone and healing tools and works with majority of image formats such as
TIFF, PSD, PNG. Support for different RAW formats can be enabled with plugins.
A great thing about GIMP is that it is available for Windows, Linux as well as
MAC.
Video Editing PAID - ADOBE PREMIERE 6,390
Adobe’s Premiere Elements 12 is an affordable and capable solution
if you like to edit a lot of home movies. It has features designed for the
novice and home user, including built in video tutorials, intelligent
(automatic) video correction tools, various Hollywood-style effects and styles
(like motion tracking: graphics that can move along with your subject) and
finally, built in optimisation for upload to popular video sharing sites like
YouTube and Vimeo.
FREE – LIGHTWORKS
Lightworks is a step in a different direction. This is a
fullyfeatured, professional video editing program that you can download for
free (no catch). It supports HD video editing and all the other features you
need. There’s a steep learning curve but you can get started with the free
tutorial videos on the website. A paid Pro version is also available — it adds
greater codec support, 3D support and lifetime Pro membership to the Lightworks
community and more.
Documents PAID - MICROSOFT OFFICE 5,499
This is the price for the Home and Student edition of Office 2013
with a single PC license. You get Word, PowerPoint, Excel and One Note in the
package along with 7GB of Sky-Drive storage to store documents. It also
includes Office web apps sync for Skydrive which lets you view, edit and share
documents from a browser on any computer. If you also want Microsoft’s Outlook
client for email, you will have to pay 14,999 for Office Home & Business
edition.
FREE - OPEN OFFICE
This popular free office suite can be installed on any number of
computers — there is no license or registration required. It comes with
document, spreadsheet and presentation creators, a database editor, equation/formulae
editor and a graphics editor. You can read and save documents in most commonly
used formats including all Microsoft Office formats. The interface is very
similar to Microsoft Office and takes no time to master.
Source | Economic Times | 9 October 2013
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