Graphic Design Software
Not everyone has the cash to spend kitting themselves out with the most expensive graphic design software, particularly when starting a new business or embarking on a new career in design. There's no denying that paid-for creative software – like Adobe's fantastic suite of applications – will always be better than a freebie. But for those who don't want to pay and have time to do the groundwork, there is some free graphic design software out there that will do the job well. To save you from doing said groundwork, we've compiled this list of the best options around and divided it into five sections – use the drop-down menu to navigate to the section you want.
Find great deals on eBay for graphic design software and photoshop cs5. Shop with confidence. Not all designers have the money to kit themselves out with the most expensive graphic design software when embarking on a new career.
Graphic Design Software For Mac
Free vector art software 01. Gravit Designer delivers a full vector toolkit for free. Platform: Online, PC, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS Previously known as plain old Gravit, Gravit Designer is a full-featured vector design app suitable for all manner of jobs, from screen and icon designs through to presentations, illustration and animation. With a clean and intuitive interface that adjusts itself as you need it, this free graphic design software packs a wealth of tools for creating detailed and beautiful vector imagery, including non-destructive booleans, a knife tool and path graphs, plus multiple fills and blending modes, and a powerful text engine. It'll export as PDF, SVG or bitmap, and if you need to access a project on the go there's the Gravit Cloud service that enables you to get to your work wherever you are.
Vectr's online options make it great for live collaboration. Platform: Online, Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebook Available both as a browser-based web app and as a stand-alone desktop app, Vectr is a free editor for creating 2D vector graphics.
With all the vector features you'd hope for, plus plenty of options for using filters, shadows and fonts, it's versatile enough for day-to-day design tasks. Particularly useful are its live collaboration and synchronisation options, which enabling you to hook up with anyone, anywhere, to create in tandem. Although SVG-Edit is limited to the SVG format it's surprisingly capable.
Platform: Web Browser If you're looking to quickly output SVG or edit an existing SVG file, there are a few online editors that will do the job just as well as Adobe Illustrator. (scalable vector graphics) is an open format that allows you to reproduce your Vector drawings programmatically, and one of the nicest projects is SVG-Edit. This is built entirely on HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript without requiring any server-side processing. So not only can you use it to create and edit documents, but as it's open source you can also download and modify the code – making your own version if you want. The standard – albeit basic – toolset of every vector-image editor is here, and although it's limited to the SVG format it's surprisingly capable.
Free graphic design software Inkscape has very good SVG integration. Platform: Windows/Linux (Mac possible if you're technically minded) As with many of the free options available, Inkscape focuses on the SVG format as its primary file format.
This highly capable editor has a very good SVG integration, supporting many of the more advanced features that aren't always available in other apps – such as alpha blending, cloned objects, and markers. Full support for different colour modes means this is a viable alternative to Illustrator for both print and web design, and although the interface is somewhat simpler than Illustrator, it's still possible to achieve extremely sophisticated artwork. Of particular note is the ability to trace bitmap images, support for variable width strokes and native import of Illustrator files.
Graphic Design
There are source binaries available for Windows, Linux and Mac, and compiled versions currently offered for Windows and Linux. Need to fix your photos?
Photo Pos Pro can do that and more. Platform: PC If you're on PC and need a decent set of image editing tools without Photoshop's price tag or GIMP's immense toolset, Photo Pos Pro should hit your sweet spot.
Built with image enhancement and editing in mind, it's perfect for typical photo editing tasks such as fixing contrast, lighting and saturation, but it'll also stretch to more advanced techniques. It boasts an extremely user-friendly interface as well as an in-depth help system to get you started, and if you want to expand its tools to fit your needs there are plenty of expansions and plugins available.
Krita has been in development since 1999. Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Designed with the VFX industry and concept artists, illustrators, matte and texture artists in mind, Krita is a free and open source painting tool that's been in development since 1999. It comes with a full set of brushes suitable for all manner of work, and there's a whole host of plugins available, from advanced filters to painting assistants for perspective work. Notable features include brush stabilisers to smooth out any shaky lines, a wrap-around mode for creating seamless textures and patterns, and a pop-up palette for quick colour-picking. Free graphic design software Pixlr comes with more than 600 effects.
Platform: iOS, Android Free graphic design software Pixlr claims to be 'the most popular online photo editor in the world'. It boasts more than 600 effects, overlays and borders, and lets you do all the main things you'd expect from a photo editor, from cropping and resizing to removing red-eye and whitening teeth. If you're used to using Photoshop, then you'll find Pixlr's user interface easy to pick up, as it's very similar. This free app is available in both and varieties. For photo editing, free graphic design software Paint.NET is an excellent alternative to Photoshop. Platform: Windows Paint.NET is a Windows-based alternative to the Paint editor that Microsoft shipped with versions of Windows.
Don't let that put you off, though, as it's surprisingly capable, useful and free graphic design software. The focus is on ease of use, and there's a definite tendency towards photo editing rather than artistic creation. That said, there are a range of special effects available, allowing you to easily create fake perspective, blend and push pixels around the canvas, tile and repeat selections, and so on. A good range of selection tools, support for layers, and adjustments such as curves and brightness/contrast mean that Paint.NET is a great alternative to Photoshop for photo editing, especially if you can do without some of the more recent additions to Photoshop's toolset.
Free graphic design software Sumo Paint works in the browser. Platform: Web browser (requires Adobe Flash Player) Sumo Paint is a highly capable browser-based image editor. All the standard features you'd expect from a desktop tool are present and correct (and by buying the Pro version you can install a desktop version of the app if you prefer). You need the Adobe Flash Player to use this tool, so you're not going be using Sumo Paint on your iPad. That said, it's lightweight and quick to load, and the free version is very usable. The standard range of tools and adjustments you'd expect are all included.
Brushes, pencils, shapes, text, cloning, gradients and so on are all quickly accessed from the Photoshop-esque floating toolbar. It can also open saved documents from your hard drive, making Sumo Paint a perfectly viable option for editing and re-editing. GIMP is a popular, free graphic design software alternative to Photoshop. Platform: Linux, Windows, Mac Open-source free graphic design software that debuted on Unix-based platforms, GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. Today it's available in versions for Linux, Windows and Mac. GIMP's interface differs somewhat from Photoshop, but a version of GIMP is available that mimics Adobe's look and feel, making it easier to migrate over if you're ditching Photoshop. The full suite of tools is available here – everything you're accustomed to is within easy reach, including painting tools, colour correction, cloning, selection and enhancement.
The team that oversees development has worked hard to ensure compatibility too, so you'll be able to work with all the popular file formats without any trouble at all. You'll also find a very capable file manager built in, along similar lines to Adobe's Bridge.
Free 3D software 11. 3D becomes much easier if you use SketchUp. Platform: PC, Mac For getting your first foothold in the world of 3D, it's hard to go wrong with SketchUp, and its free version, Sketchup Free, is an ideal starting point. It provides a friendly and forgiving introduction to building stuff in 3D, starting you off by simply drawing lines and shapes that you can then push and pull around to turn them into 3D forms.
Adobe Photoshop Elements
If you need a bit of inspiration, you can search the SketchUp 3D Warehouse's immense library of models and download them for free. 3D software Daz Studio is available to download completely free of charge. Platform: Mac, Windows Daz Studio is a 3D figure customisation, posing and animation tool that enables artists of all skill levels to creating digital art using virtual people, animals, props, vehicles, accessories and environments. With Daz Studio, you can create custom 3D characters and avatars, design virtual environments, produce graphic design elements and much more. There's also a handy table that shows you what this free tool offers in comparison to its paid alternatives (scroll down ). The superb animation Big Buck Bunny was made using free graphic design software tool Blender. Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux If you're serious about 3D but struggling to afford software, then you're in luck.
Is a free, open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems. Started by founder Ton Roosendaal back in 2002, Blender is now largest open source tool for 3D creation. Its makers are constantly working on its development, but you can pretty much do anything 3D related with this software, including modelling, texturing, animation, rendering and compositing. Master the art of digital sculpting with Pixologic's free graphic design software Sculptris. Platform: Mac, Windows If you're interested in the art of digital sculpting, check out 3D software from. Perfect for all skill levels, the software is a great starting point for users new to the discipline, while more experienced CG artists will find the software a quick and easy way to realise concepts. Sculptris is based on Pixologic's ZBrush, the most widely-used digital sculpting application in today's market.
So, when you're ready to move on to the next level of detailing, skills learned in Sculptris can be directly translated into ZBrush. Get to grips with the Houdini graphic design software with this free Apprentice version. Platform: Mac, Windows, Linux Houdini is a 3D animation and visual effects tool, used widely throughout the media industry for film, broadcast, entertainment and visualisation.
And its cheapest version costs just a little under $2000. But the makers of the programme – – are a good bunch and, knowing that cost can be an issue, offer an Apprentice version for free. With this you can access all the features of the full version in order to develop your skills and work on personal projects. The programme is purely for use non-commercial and learning purposes. Free data visualisation software 17. Create infographics for your website or to share on social media.
Platform: Web browser Infogram is a great free tool that offers access to a wide variety of graphs, charts and maps as well as the ability to upload pictures and videos to create cool infographics. The data upon which the infographics are based can be found in an Excel-style spreadsheet, which the user can easily edit and see the results change in real time. When you're happy with your infographic you can publish it to the Infogram website for all to enjoy, or embed it in to your own website or share it via social media. Other useful free tools 21. Klex is an easy-to-use way of creating great designs quickly. Platform: Online, PC, Mac, Linux, ChromeOS Made by the people behind Gravit Design, and sharing the same engine, Klex is an easy-to-learn and accessible tool for anyone who wants to create impressive graphics in just a few clicks.
While obviously not aimed at pro designers, it's a perfect tool for anyone who wants to quickly bang out memorable designs. There's a plethora of ready-made templates to choose from, plus thousands of assets and a great selection of effects and filters, as well as customisation options and a load of fonts and text assets.
Purchase or sell popular products that have your graphics printed on them Fatpaint is the world's first graphic design software, specialized in helping you create illustrations and print your graphics on popular consumer and business products that can be purchased and delivered to your address, or posted for sale on your own webshop. With Fatpaint you can create graphic design, pages and images from scratch, or use ready made images and photos, and have it printed on a t-shirt, poster, business card, flyers, invitations, iPhone/iPad case and many other products. All from within a single, online and free application that has all the necessary tools and graphical resources. Prior to Fatpaint, it was a difficult task to draw and paint your own graphics, and have it printed on products. You had to figure out the exact image requirements and measures, search, download and install fonts and clip-arts from the internet, make the graphics on your favorite graphics application, save the files on your computer, find a printing company and manually upload the graphic files on their website.
This process was tedious, and if you were not happy with the design, you had to go back to the graphics application and repeat the process again. Fatpaint makes the process of designing, buying or selling custom printed products much easier because it comes with built-in tools for painting, drawing and visualizing graphics on products. It contains a huge collection of graphical content, such as fonts, public domain images, clip arts and brushes. Furthermore, images can be added to your project by searching on Wikimedia, Picasa, Flickr, Bing, Yahoo and Google.
Fatpaint has templates with the exact image measurements for 142 items, from which 32 are popular products that can be purchased directly from the editor. It allows you to preview your graphic design on products at the press of a button, also from withing the editor. Then you can share these images on Facebook so that you can get some feedback from your social network before you make a purchase or post the product for sale. Fatpaint takes care of sending the images to the printing company allowing you to focus on making the graphics.
The graphics are printed on products using state of the art digital technology, with unlimited colors. The products are printed, delivered and 100% guaranteed by, one of the leading companies in the industry. You can keep it simple or use the advanced drawing and painting tools You can make graphic design by adding clip-art images, photos and writing text to the page, or you can use the advanced vector drawing and painting tools to make graphics from scratch, it's up to you. There are over 5000 clip-art images and 15000 thousand public domain images in our collection. Besides that, you'll find millions of free images on Wikimedia and Flickr.
All you need to do for creating a cool t-shirt design is write a slogan and perhaps add a few clip-arts. There are over 900 fonts to choose from. Creating a nice looking pair of sneakers is as simple as picking an image and using it on all the sides of the shoe. Using the brush painting tools, you can create a digital painting and have it on the wall of your home as a framed poster. And you don't need to be a painter to create a good looking image. Fatpaint has Smudge painting tool.
It's easy to make abstract images with it. I usually start with a photo or some colorful image and then smudge it. Then I add more layers and do the same. Go ahead and try using Fatpaint. There are some short tutorial videos to help you get started.