There are a lot of great free Graphics software applications out there, so how do we know what is different or will accomplish more than the standard, renaming files, painting, changing color or effects? What will give users an advanced, as well as basic graphics editing capability? Well, I will list a few that I consider to be among the best out there and in combination can be a great Photoshop alternative.
1. GIMP
First up is Gimp. What is Gimp? Definition from the main Gimp site: 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.
What does it do? What doesn’t it do may be a better question. I have used Gimp to do all my graphics work and from my experience, Gimp is only limited to your imagination. Gimp is not as automatic as Photoshop but will accomplish the same results with different methods. Gimp has some limits compared with Photoshop, although they are minor and won’t affect most users.
Gimp can be anything from a basic image editor, to a professional editor with the ability to manipulate, save to and work with numerous formats. It will even compile icons, create animated gifs, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Gimp
http://www.gimp.org/
For numerous plug-ins to enhance Gimp, you can go here
http://registry.gimp.org/
2. INKSCAPE
Next up is Inkscape. What is Inkscape? From the Inkscape main site: An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) are basically XML scripts at heart. To read more on SVG and how versatile it is, go here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVG
This is very similar to Photoshop and others that support or use SVG and like Gimp, it’s free. This comes in extremely handy for icons and other images but the uses are endless. Some may like the Bitmap tracing features, I know I do and use it all the time. It may take some getting used to but once you do, you will be hooked.
Inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/
3. Blender 3-D
Then finally I want to mention Blender 3-D. From the main Blender site: Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.
I won’t lie and say it’s easy to use right off, however, with patience and time, you can begin to create some really awesome 3-D graphics. You can put your 3-D creations into movies, even create your own 3-D movie, pictures, models for games and many other things too lengthy to mention here. It may not be an “easy use” type of 3-D creator, however, it’s far more powerful and quite limitless when you get to know it and is very much worth learning.
Blender
http://www.blender.org/
You may need the Python programming language to run Blender which is a very small install and you will never know is there, it’s used for Blender and other applications to run correctly.
http://www.python.org/download/
I would like to mention that there are numerous great freeware image editors, manipulators and creators but impossible to mention them all and these few are my personal favorites.
Also, please read tutorials, PC requirements and help guides, there is a lot of help for beginners out there. In the long run, you will be thankful you did.
Note by Avinash – This Guest post is by PChammer who is a regular contributor here at Avinashtech. Just like to mention the awesome image he created (GIMP one in this post). Hope to see more from him in future.
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Great collection PChammer. But I always found it too hard to go with GIMP. The main thing is that there are no enough tutorials out there as there are for Photoshop. When I try to imitate the photoshop on GIMP I get frustrated, because photoshop tutorials just don’t work with GIMP. What’s the good way to learn GIMP? and What’s your opinion on paint.net and artweaver?
Hi Samuel, thanks for the reply.
Actually there are numerous tutorials on Gimp, more than I can count and places like GimpTalk, GimpDome, and numerous other sites including the main Gimp page. If you visit these sites, people replicate Photoshop tutorials all the time and with the same or better results. I myself have created beginner tutorials explaining at a beginners level how to get around Gimp and may in fact put a Gimp blog back up. I have quite a few tutorials that I have made up myself as well as many talented others on Gimpdome and if you browse the tutuorials section, you will find a lot of ways to do things.
Another thing, if you try to imitate Photoshop completely, remember, Gimp is not Photoshop and there are different means in doing things. It’s like Windows and Linux, if you are used to using Windows, Linux is going to be very different, same applies to Gimp but not such a steep learning curve.
A good way to learn Gimp is as I stated, to go to those sites and read, mess around, don’t be afraid to screw up, try all the features, plugins, etc… see what they do. That’s what I did, just had fun with it until I knew what most of the functions were. Once you are familiar with them, you’ll realize it’s not that hard.
That said, I may start a blog featuring tutorials for Gimp :)
Paint.net is great although not my choice to use, I feel limited with it compared to Gimp and others and I don’t like the interface but others have done amazing work in it and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. Artweaver I haven’t used so can’t give an honest opinion.
Last I would like to point out something…
Photoshop CS4 $699
Gimp $0
;)
Gimp is the best because its free frm blotwares.
there is a must watch movie completely made by using blender.
Here,s a complete list of movies made with Blender
http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/movies/
Nice catch Avinash, amazing to see what people can do in blender.
NOTE: I am having some internet issues along with mail so If I don’t reply right away to anything or other topics, tis why.
Here is a list of Blender tutorial sites and let me first say, Graybeard’s tutorials are great but some may be outdated so a person will have to improvise but he makes you think as you go along.
http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/
http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=blenderMoyesSeries001
http://davidjarvis.ca/blender/
http://blendernewbies.blogspot.com/
These are just a few of many but you may be surprised how easily you can pick up on it once you get into using the interface.
That’s a great list for anyone who want to learn.:P