Software for Media Project

Media Software Solutions

Discovering appropriate software to edit your media is relatively easy in the 21st century. Whether you want to pay to access professional-grade proprietary software such as Adobe Creative Cloud, or you are interested in a free solution, an open-source or otherwise, the SMC offers you a list of media software that may take you to the next level for your media production.

Some software is available only on Mac OS, some software is available only on Windows, and some software is available on both platforms. The software described on this page is not necessarily available on SMC computers. If you have additional suggestions for software that should be included on this list, please email SMC.

Note: Please visit In-House Software page for software which is available at the SMC.

Audio

Audacity (free, open-source, Linux/Mac/PC)
"Audacity is free, open-source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds." More info.

Adobe Audition (proprietary, Mac/PC)
"Record, edit, and create audio content with Adobe Audition's comprehensive toolset, including waveform, spectral display, and multitrack. This powerful sound editing program is designed to accelerate audio and video production workflows and deliver the highest standards for audio quality." More info.

Ardour (free, open-source, Linux/Mac)
"Ardour is an open-source, collaborative effort of a worldwide team including musicians, programmers, and professional recording engineers." More info.

Video

OpenShot (free, Mac/PC)
"We designed OpenShot Video Editor to be easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful video editor." More info.

Adobe Premiere (proprietary, Mac/PC)
Adobe's professional video editing software. More info.

Panopto (proprietary, Mac/PC)
"Panopto is the easiest way to manage, live stream, record, and share videos across your organization." More info.

Image/Graphic

Adobe Photoshop (proprietary, Mac/PC)
Adobe's professional image editing software. More info.

Canva (free or subscription, browser-based)
Canva is an online graphic design platform that makes it simple to design presentations, social media graphics, and more with thousands of layouts. The tools can be used for both web and print media graphics. More info.

Pixlr (free, browser-based)
"Welcome to Pixlr the Online Photo Editor that lets you edit photos and create great designs right in your browser for Free. Experience next level, intuitive photo editing and graphical design with AI-powered tools for quick yet professional edits. Our editor opens almost any image format such as PSD (Photoshop), PXD, JPEG, PNG (transparent), WebP, SVG and more. Start from an empty canvas or select one of our professionally crafted templates." More info.

SumoPaint (free, browser-based)
"Sumo Paint is an online image editor, without need to install anything to your device. It's the most versatile photo editor and painting application that works in a browser. You can open and save images from your hard drive or save it to cloud." More info.

Paint.NET (free, PC)
"Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins." More info.

Seashore (free, open-source, Mac)
Seashore is an open-source image editor for Mac OS X's Cocoa framework. It features gradients, textures, and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format. More info.

Krita (free, open-source, Linux/Mac/PC)
"Krita is a FREE digital painting and illustration application. Krita offers CMYK support, HDR painting, perspective grids, dockers, filters, painting assistants, and many other features you would expect." More info.

GIMP (free, open-source, Linux/Mac/PC)
"GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages." More info.

Illustration and Vector Imaging

Adobe Illustrator (proprietary, Mac/PC)
Adobe's professional vector and illustration program. More info.

Inkscape (free, open-source, Linux/Mac/PC)
"Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps, and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W3C open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format, and is free and open-source software." More info.

3D and Animation

Maya (proprietary, Linux/Mac/PC)
"Maya® 3D animation, modeling, simulation, rendering, and compositing software offers a comprehensive creative feature set on a highly extensible production platform. Maya provides high-end character and effects toolsets along with increased productivity for modeling, texturing, and shader creation tasks." More info.

Adobe Animation (proprietary, Mac/PC)
"Animate characters in real time with Adobe Character Animator. Use Adobe Animate to create vector animations." More info

Be sure to take a look at SourceForge for thousands of more open-source software projects that might support your media needs.

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