I want to

A great image converter

There are plenty of image converters out there, but Convert-my-image.com (link) is a really good one, You can take a .jpg and convert it into a PDF file, but also plenty of others, such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIF, TIFF, and WMF. You can change the settings to do things such as changing the margins, the orientation of the page, the size of the image and you can also rotate the image angle as well.

I tried it out myself, and it’s lightening fast. The resulting PDF file was then automatically downloaded back onto my computer. I really liked the presentation and quality of the conversion. The Convert-my-image website also has a variety of other tools as well, such as converting a set of images and pictures into PDF as a batch process. You can also convert PDF to JPG online (with no limits on the document size), and you can crop photographs or images online (no need to download or install any software).

I really liked the tool that lets you turn an image into an icon of either 16x16 or 32x32 (as well as 10 other formats); that was great fun, and it even worked on a photograph of me, which I thought was
very impressive.

All told, it’s a great resource – fast, easy and effective, and best of all, it’s completely free to use.

The screenshot below shows the menu for taking an image and turning it into a variety of other formats, including icons. 

Logo Maker

If you are in need of a logo then it's worth looking at the Logotypemaker site. Simply upload the name that you want associated with the logo, and the resource will create hundreds of alternatives for you. You get different images and typefaces, you can change the size and rotation and so on. They were fine, and if you're not that bothered, or just want some example logo to use in a project you're creating, this is a perfectly fine tool. However, I looked at the options and found them all really what they were - clip art off the shelf, and they didn't really appeal to me. Surely a logo has to be an integral part of what you're doing (if you decide to have one of course), and as such is worthy of taking some time over? However to be fair to the service, it's free, and I did get one or two ideas that I could actually work on to create something that I liked. 

Here's a few examples so that you can make up your own mind:

Logo Maker

This is a rather clever site. Simply type in some text, such as your name, company name or so on, and LogoTypeMaker will create some images for you to play with, based on the wording you gave it. Gradients, drop shadow, outlines, reflections and so on. All very nifty and entirely free to use. The main disadvantage that I can see is that it might be a little difficult to go back to it in the future to create new or slightly different versions of the same image. However, there's a nifty little editing tool as well, so that if you can find the original again, you can play with it further.

 

Related articles

• Logotype Maker - Quickly Create Neat Logos (freetech4teachers.com)

Logo Design Software

If you're after good Logo Design try this site, which offers logo design software, logo creators and a logo maker. It is commercial software, but it provides excellent results. The latest version of the logo creation software, v5.0 comes with modifiable logo designs, each edition comes with logo elements such as orbs, swooshes, shapes and so on. You can import and more importantly manipulate your own artwork, photographs and clip art images.

The tools allow you to undo/redo to up 60 times, you can resize, rotate, fade and change opacity, add in reflections, 3D and mirrored effects - great for a Web 2.0 look to your pages. Other features include shadows, circular text, backgrounds, edit text size etc. You can create your own logo template and then modify it to see what it's like in different colours and so on.

There are a variety of different versions available - The Logo Creator, The corporate logo edition, with 80 professionally created designs, The Business Mascot logo creator, The Travel and leisure logo design set, with 50 logos designed for the travel industry, The Entertainment logo creator, which would work well with podcasts, radio, news groups and so on. The Spiritual logo collection, The real estate logo edition, with 50 real estate logos, The Sports logo collection, again with 50 different designs. Finally, theres a pack that contains all the sets, with a total over 800 logos. This costs $189.95, and each pack costs $29.95

The website provides you with a lot of samples to view, so you do get a very clear idea of what exactly you're going to be getting. It's true to say that there are plenty of free logo/image/banner products available, but the ones in these collections really do look professional. The website itself says:
"Create incredible logo, page headers, splash page images, movie titles and more that look like a Photoshop guru spent hours laboring over! It's like having your own logo design studio... without the studio!

With The Logo Creator by Laughingbird Software - you'll get a portfolio full of logos that you can modify and personalize yourself, in your own time... for far less than what a designer will charge. "

[Please note that this has been a paid posting, but also note that I wouldn't advertise products that I didn't think were good in the first place.]

Lightview - fancy overlays for images on websites

Lightview. From the website:

# Clean: Designed to compliment your images.

# Fast: Smart image preloading.

# Easy to customize: You don't even have to know CSS.

# Rounded: Adjustable rounded corners, without PNGs.

# Smart resizing: Images will always fit on your screen.

# Slideshow: One button slideshow.

# Effects: Using Scriptaculous.

# Works on all modern browsers

VectorMagic

VectorMagic | Precision Bitmap to Vector Conversion Online. This site converts bitmap images to vector images - it's an online auto-tracer. Basically it takes something small and makes it big so it still looks good.

Genfavicon. Free Online Favicon Generator. Icon Generator.

Genfavicon. Free Online Favicon Generator. Icon Generator.. This works very well, even to the extent of letting you upload photographs and transforming them into 16X16 icons.

favicon.ico Generator

Link: favicon.ico Generator. Want a favicon generator? There's one here, free and for nothing. What's a 'favicon'? The small 16x16 pixel image you see in the top left hand corner of the address bar.

Official Seal Generator

Link: Official Seal Generator. No, not the watery creature, the other sort of seal. 5 minutes of fun.

Buttonator

Link: Buttonator. Want a button? This is the place to come. Chose style, colour, font, fill in the boxes and grab the result.