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Free Graphic Design Software that Doesn’t Hurt Your Wallet
Allen Harkleroad
August 6, 2007
While Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Dreamweaver are the unequivocal tools of choice for the professional designer, there are alternatives for those that don’t have a large software budget.
I use Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, and Acrobat on a daily basis. I also use many free open source tools and have found several that work nearly as well as their commercial cousins.
Just because a tool is open source doesn’t mean it isn’t a good tool to use. What matters is that you are able to design (or learn to design) without spending a fortune in software.
Anyone who is thinking about doing digital graphic design or are already immersed in the design industry open source graphics software is something worth looking at. While many of the open source applications don’t do everything the commercial product do, they can still be adapted to fit your needs.
GIMP
First on the list would be GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). GIMP is very similar to Adobe Photoshop and is free. The latest version has many features that are found in Photoshop and some that aren’t. You can download and use GIMP on Windows, Mac OSX and Unix/Linux. Photoshop only currently runs on Windows and Mac OSX.
Inkscape
Inkscape is very similar to Adobe Illustrator for illustration. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. It uses the SVG format so that Inkscape files can be imported into other graphics applications (both open source and commercial). Inkscape is free and licensed under open source.
Nvu
Nvu is an open source HTML editor. While it doesn’t have all of the features found in products like Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Web Expressions or SharePoint Designer it does exactly what it is supposed to do, namely edit HTML web pages. Nvu runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. Nvu is free and there are a good many extensions that enhance Nvu.
PDFCreator
PDF Creator is a Windows printer driver that allows you to print to the PDF format. You can also use it to create JPG’s, TIFF’s, BMP’s, PCX, PS’s (postscript) and EPS’s (encapsulated postscript) file. It has quite a few features and is handy for creating PDF’s of documents and files. It is free (even for commercial use) and is licensed as open source.
Scribus
Scribus is an open source desktop publishing application similar to PageMaker, Quark and InDesign. It runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. Features include CMYK color, separations, IIC color management and even PDF creation. Scribus is free and licensed under an open source license.
There are may open source (free) graphic design software application out there, the ones I’ve mentioned above are well supported, have many great features and don’t cost one penny to use.
From beginner to skilled professional there is a place for open source graphics software on your computer and your daily workflow.