While you’re saving your nickels and dimes to get the latest version of the Adobe graphics suite, what do you do to keep from going through graphics-creation withdrawal? Here are some free or very common resources you can use to explore your artistic side.

Resizr – Do one thing, and do it well. I recently found this quick Web-based graphics resizer and have had some success with it. All you do is upload your file or tell it an online graphic’s Web address, and you can resize and save as any JPG, GIF, or PNG.

• Pros: It works well on GIFs and PNGs, especially for shrinking graphics or relatively small size increases. It has a crop feature, too. Proportions are automatically calculated, and there’s a live display of your resized graphic each time you edit it. Relatively intuitive.
• Cons: JPGs tend to get blurry if you’re very particular about them. (It may not show in the final product, though, if you select GIF or PNG on the top right before you commit.) There’s some pixelization on large graphic expansions, but that’s pretty common. You can’t alter the aspect ratio (stretch height or width). You can only edit one file at a time.

UrbanFonts – Free fonts are always fun, and besides having a good-sized archive, you can use this one for a tiny bit of graphic design.

• Pros: There’s a very large archive of all different kinds of fonts here, from sans-serif to decorative. You can preview any font you want to download by typing in your sample text, and it’ll appear in a variety of font sizes. Check it out with the Eight Track font for example. The quality is better than what you’ll get on MS Paint or other non-anti-aliasing programs.
  Cons: One trick pony. You can’t do any other kinds of graphics-editing. Give it a break — it’s just a font archive!

Have you found a nifty little Web-based or downloadable app for specialized graphics manipulation? Let everybody know in the Comments section!

[This is the first in a three-part series. Come back in a couple days for the next installment.]