Featured Resources – Freepik

Whether you are using PaintShop Pro for digital scrapbooking, for collage, for photo-composition or any other type of project, it is likely that you will be looking for images or designs to use. Finding good images can be tricky as you need to be aware of copyrights and you obviously cannot just go to Google and search for photos online. That is a big no-no in itself and could get you in big trouble, so you have to find a reliable source for those. And this is one of my favorites.

FREEPIK

Freepik is a site where you can find a lot of designs. They do have vectors, photos, PSD or icon elements so you have a wide variety of resources there. The best feature of this site is the fact that most of those resources are free, as long as you credit the author (when it is feasible). On the other hand, they have a Premium level, which is very affordable (under $100 per year), that grants you the privilege to use all the resources without having to credit the author but it also unlocks many resources that are exclusive to Premium members.

Photos

The photos available are different from what you could get on sites like Unplash, as they could be photos of people and activities but also photos of setups (like on a table) or photos of elements only on one side so you can add text on the other side, or the details are on the edges leaving you the center to add your message. Some photos are actually collages while others are just photos on their own. And you can also get some great backgrounds to start your own compositions.

And typically, the images are of great quality and mostly, they are quite large.

Vectors

The vector elements available in Freepik are great, however, they are in a format that you cannot use directly with PaintShop Pro, unfortunately. They often come in .ai format and .eps format. Neither one format can be opened, as is, in PaintShop Pro. If you have another program that opens those formats, or can convert them, you might need to use them. Convertio.co can be useful, but sometimes, the result is less than desirable. A program like CorelDraw will have the ability to open the .eps files, and then export them into .wmf files that PSP can then open and treat as vectors (so you can resize them without distortion).

Luckily, each of those vector files also comes with a .jpg format image that can then be used as is in PaintShop Pro. Of course, you don't have the ability to resize as you wish or get fantastic and clean edges, but with a little bit of work, you can still use those designs.

Although it is not the case for every vector image, many will have a solid background color so it would be easy enough to remove those with the Magic Wand in PSP.

It is a bit more work, but definitely worth it if you need those images.

PSD

On the site, once you do a search, you might find a number of .psd files available too. Typically, those will be mockups involving text that can be removed and replaced.

Icons

Whether you want to use icons for a button, a forum badge or any other purpose, icons are available in Freepik too. You can download png, psd, svg and eps formats. They are mostly black in the display, but if you choose to download a png format, you will get the option to select the color. Of course, even if you download a black icon in png format, you can easily change the color in your PaintShop Pro.

With this new resource, what will you create? How about creating a project, and posting it in the forum so we can see how you turn something ordinary into something creatively unique?