You need good software and plenty of CPU power to create virtual worlds. Luckily for today’s animators, powerful PCs are inexpensive, and some excellent animation tools are absolutely free.

The Linux environment includes some powerful tools for editing, managing, and scanning digital images.

You can rename and modify JPEG files without touching the graphics by manipulating settings in the file header.

The imgSeek image viewer offers a unique alternative to the non-intuitive norm of searching by filename: you can find an photo based on motif.

The Sane interface provides access to image processing devices such as scanners. You can manage your Sane-supported scanner from Linux with the handy XSane front-end.

Xnview is a handy image viewing and editing tool that is free for private use. We’ll show you around some of the program’s best features.

Chaos is inevitable when your hard disk fills up with digital photos. The F-Spot image man agement program helps you manage your photo archives effectively and without time consuming sorting.

Good homepage design is a question of the layout. Sometimes the best option is to use a graphics program to design the page, then translate the result into HTML code. The versatile image manipulation program GIMP can help.