The first 2 gigs are free and you get referral credits (an extra 1/4 gig if someone refers you & the referrer gets the same added credit up to an additional 3gb).

After you’re using your account you’ll notice a VERY manageable dashboard when you log into the site – displaying a recent history of your actions – even as detailed as which file was updated on which pc. This is great for maintaining the latest version on every pc that is utilizing a file. After all, why bother installing something like this if it isn’t keeping the versions the same(?).

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2. Photobie is one that I recently started using myself… mostly to see if all the plug-ins were as awesome as they seem (so far they are). For a professional, the provided templates may seem ‘beneath them’, but for the other 99% – these templates appear to be useful – at least to inspire creativity if nothing else.

3. Get Paint is one of those editors that you want when you do not want to spend 3 hours getting intimate with the tool set or the logic of how the program works…. it’s simple, direct and does a limited amount of tasks “very well”. A good tool to have on hand for quick photo/pic adjustments.

4. Yes, GIMP has to be on the list. If you haven’t heard of GIMP – I’m speechless. It’s intimidating interface rivals photoshop (yes, it really rivals photoshop for $1200-$1800 less [it's free]). The support, community, and innovative plug-in support is unmatched. If you want to invest time in a tool that will have infinite payoff’s – GIMP is it.

5. Picasa would have to be on the list too. I resisted the google app for many years, but finally caved in once I saw a friend importing over 50 pictures from her digital camera, tagging photos, and choosing/uploading pictures to her online album. It’s not the wicked graphic editor GIMP is, but it’s not meant to be. It’s a good solid vehicle for organizing your photos locally & on the web on a free website. There are permission levels that can be set on web albums, so only authorized people can view the specified albums.

6. VicMan’s Photo Editor is a straight forward editor, I wasn’t able to tell how extensive the support was, but the product worked well – and the twain (scanner/image device) worked much better than my purchased HyperSnap.

7. Photoscape is a great attempt at combining photoshop’ish editor with an old product I used to use by MGI that was basically a bin of effects – which were all good, but way overused by the ‘webmaster’ generation. Yes, there can be tasteful embossing, riveting reversed polarity, and bedazzling beveling without anything blinking…

8. i.Mage is a great paint replacement… it’ll never be a high speed editor, but it’s a good choice if you ever find your resourced peaked, and need to edit something to make a quick change (rotate/touch up a basic shape),

9. Online Image Editor messed with my sense of reality some, but this is a solid little tool if you are trapped like a rat at a remote location, and need to make a change or develop a quick graphic. Defiantly worth bookmarking/xmarking so you can get to the link when you’re on a jobsite.

10. The best for last… Splash Up is when you’re back is against the wall, you need photoshop, but you’re on your friends computer and they don’t have $1200-$1800 dollars to spend on the CS*<--(insert latest version number) master suite either. It's an online app which is key portability, but it also does many of the layering properties that only a high speed locally-installed application like GIMP or PS will handle. I found this application while writing How To Fix Your Sucky Website, and it has stayed bookmarked on my laptop sense.

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A site like this one would be a good place to start to get the feel of how to use a template before experimenting with a more complex css templates like the ones found here.   Swapping around your look & feel gets easier once you get used to how CSS and xhtml are laid out. You’ll soon find that most of the templates start to look alike other than color choices, graphic style and flavor (size of object/text/etc…).

 The template resources are virtually endless. This google search  produced over 500,000 pages of free css templates sites.  Like anything else, just because it’s free doesn’t mean it is good or ‘what you should use’.  So if you have any choice dilema’s while browsing templates, remember to try to pick simple to start with until you get used to the designers layout style. 

If you have a good design, but need to spruce it up a little, there are a lot of resources on the web for creating cutting edge menu navigation,  editing/creating graphics, and a mind boggling 16 milion sites waiting to give you ideas for gadgets & widgets to add to your site. 

There is no crime in asking for advice either… There is a seemingly endless line of patient people waiting to help you. Just a word of advice, try to examine the work of the person you’re about to ask advice of – they may not share your same goals, taste or style.  If you’re not sure how to view their work – ask them.  They will usually have several samples they will be proud to show you.  If they don’t – move on to another web design advice forum.

There are some complete solutions out there – just in case you are at your wits end – and just want to be free to focus on the content.  Don’t forget blogs (in the rare case you’re delima can be solved with one of these type of solutions). Likewise, there is usually some really good design support for some of the bigger solutions like Joomla or WordPress.

Reference used for this post:

http://www.splashup.com/

http://www.joomla.org/

http://wordpress.org/

http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en

http://www.alistapart.com/

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