Who would have guessed all those years ago when the personal computer first arrived, that they could be used for such incredible tasks as editing multimedia files like video, music and sophisticated websites? But here we are, and one great result we’ve benefited from is the rise of free open source software which helps us do these tasks without having to mortgage the cat.
If you’re on the lookout for any tools to do some sophisticated editing on your computer, and don’t fancy paying a large sum to a big corporation, then you should definitely start with this list of 17 Open Source Tools For Music, Video and Design Editing. Interestingly enough, there used to be 22 tools, so it looks as though some have either died or been wrecked by commercial interests, but nevertheless the remainder are pretty solid.
Our personal vote goes to the trio of Gimp, Audacity (awesome!) and Picasa, which offer the most bang for your non-bucks in terms of platforms and functionality. Unfortunately we’re not really that impressed with the video editors, because although Lightworks looks to be fairly capable, we’re kind of unimpressed with the user interface, and while Kdenlive is better, it’s Linux only. Ah well, hopefully someone will deliver something cool soon from the open source community.