Here’s the photo we’ll start with:

The photo itself is very nice – but the only thing that annoys me are the people all over the beach.
(I guess they were annoying at the time when picture was shot as well ;)
Ok – let’s clean it up a little.

We’ll work with high zoom (400%) using Clone Brush tool – with options set as on the screenshot.

Technique of using a Clone Brush is very easy to show, and quite hard to master.
You won’t be able to clone any backgroud – only the repeated textures will do (like water or rock in this example). You need to clone large areas so it look natural, but you should make sure to clone out any specific patterns that are easy to recognize.

Remember about the details – like taking out reflections in the water.
(I actually miss reflections on the wet sand at right side)

As I said – remember not to leave cloned patters that are easy to spot (remember those cloned iran rockets? ;).

We continue to clone background areas to other places – hiding what we would like to hide (tourists in this case).

Final touch is to boost Saturation and Contrast a little – and we have it ready.

Before (click to enlarge)

After (click to enlarge)

It provoked a little discussion about the subject – you can check it here.

GIMP

It’s graphic editor both for Windows and Mac (I don’t need to mention anything about it for Linux users – they all know it). If you need very short review – the Gimp is now where Adobe was with Photoshop 6.0. And this means that Gimp is a very powerful tool – you have all the blend modes, masking and effects. You can also read .pdf files with Gimp (but you won’t see any layer effects though).

Positives: powerful, free graphic tool.

Disadvantages: Gimp don’t support CMYK colors (so it’s totally useless if you design for print), Gimp don’t support .psd files in 100% (so you need to ask people to save the files as legacy psd in order to open it with Gimp).

Final opinion: Gimp is great if you need image editor as support software (for example – you’re developer – you write the code 80% of the time – but sometimes you need to scale an image, cut out some layout element or create a button). Having Gimp as core design tool is also possible – but it sometimes might be problematic.

check Gimp official site here

Quanta

Quana is web development environment that can be counter option for Dreamweaver. Actually, you have all the features needed – most developers in here use Quanta.

Advantages: powerful web development environment

Disadvantages: you don’t have built-in two way ftp.

check Quanta official site here

Blender

Blender is open source professional 3d renderer. We don’t use Blender that much to give you full review here – but if you check what you can do with it – it’s quite impressive. And it’s quite easy to learn it (I’ve made my first model in about 15 minutes).

check Blender official site

Open source can really save you a lot of money – and deliver professional software that will boost your creativity. So – I think it’s worth trying.

Inkscape

Inkscape is open source vector graphic editor – like Adobe Illustrator. It uses SVG as it’s main format. It’s quite powerful (although it’s early version). The main Inkscape disadvantage is that it only allows saving in other formats (.ai / .eps) – you won’t be able to open those files in Inkscape. This make it quite useless for bigger projects – but it’s great to create some logos or icons.

check Inkscape official site here