How to cut images into custom shapes without photoshop?

March 21, 2016 4:16 PM

I am trying to make a collage with digital images and would like to cut images into custom shapes so that they can fit next to/into one another. How can I do this without photoshop?

Thank you.

posted by DeltaForce to Technology (5 answers total)

Gimp
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:19 PM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Gimp has a steep learning curve, but it's free and definitely works for this sort of collage-making. I've had decent luck using it and googling when I hit a wall and don't know how to do something.
posted by jessamyn at 4:52 PM on March 21, 2016

Paint.net

I've been using it for oh probably 10 years now . It's free and it will be able to handle simple shapes. It's basically a simplified version of Photoshop and is surprisingly easy to use.
posted by A hidden well at 5:02 PM on March 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

pixlr and it's variants are sweet, and it's also fairly awesome that it almost always works on locked-down computers you can't(or don't want to, like a friends/relatives) install anything on since it's browser based. it's surprisingly capable, too.
posted by emptythought at 5:37 PM on March 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

You can do this in Google Draw, which is free as part of Google Drive.

Just import an image, then click the drop-down arrow next to the crop tool. That will apply a mask to the image.

Super easy.
posted by guster4lovers at 7:28 PM on March 21, 2016