The most advanced graphics editors like Adobe's tools cost a lot of money. But there are free and quite worthy alternatives, the possibilities of which will be enough for most. Creative Bloq, a photographers and design publication, has chosen The best free graphic design software the best among similar programs and services.
Designed for creating and editing logos, interfaces and other scalable graphics.
Gravit Designer - formerly known as Gravit - is a full featured vector editor. It is suitable for any task: from interface design and icons to work with presentations, illustrations and animations.
Gravit Designer's clean, intuitive interface is customizable. The editor contains a lot of tools for creating beautifully detailed vector images. Among them are non-destructive (their action can be canceled) functions for working with boolean operations, the Knife and Path Graph tools, plus many fill and blend modes, as well as a powerful text engine.
If you need to access your work on the go, Gravit Cloud lets you return to your project on any device.
Vectr offers all the features you need to create vector graphics, plus many options for using filters, shadows, and . This is enough to handle most everyday design tasks. Particularly useful are the co-editing and synchronization capabilities, which allow you to work in tandem with other people anytime, anywhere.
If you need to quickly create or edit a simple SVG file, there are several that will do the job just as well. Adobe Illustrator. Among the best of them is SVG-Edit.
This editor is entirely built on HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript and does not use servers for data processing. The SVG-Edit code is open. Therefore, if you wish, you can download it and modify it to create your own version of the editor.
SVG-Edit has all the basic tools of a vector editor. But it only supports SVG format.
This powerful editor offers many tools and features that are often not available in other similar programs. Among them are alpha blending, object cloning and markers.
Full support for various color models makes Inkscape a worthy Adobe Illustrator for both web and print design. Despite the simplicity of the interface in this program, you can create incredibly complex work.
Features such as bitmap-to-vector conversion, variable-width stroke creation, and support for Illustrator files deserve special attention.
Designed for creating and editing any non-scalable drawings and photographs.
Free graphics editor open source code. GIMP comes with a rich set of features for painting, color grading, cloning, selection, enhancement, and more. The GIMP interface differs from the most popular Photoshop, but you won’t have to look for the right tools for a long time.
The GIMP team has taken care of compatibility so that you can work with all popular image formats without any problems. In addition, GIMP has built-in file manager, similar to Bridge from programs from Adobe.
If you're on Windows and don't need as many tools as GIMP, Photo Pos Pro might be your ideal editor. The latter was created with an eye on image editing and does a great job with typical tasks like adjusting contrast, lighting, and saturation. But Photo Pos Pro is also suitable for more complex manipulations.
This program boasts a very friendly interface and detailed help that helps beginners to understand. If you want to make Photo Pos Pro even more functional, there are many extensions and plugins at your service.
Another open source editor. Krita has been around since 1999 and is constantly evolving to meet the needs of concept artists, illustrators, visual effects, rendering and textures.
The program includes a set of various brushes and supports many plugins: from advanced filters to auxiliary tools for working with perspective.
Some of the most interesting features include brush stabilizers that smooth out lines, a looping mode for creating seamless patterns and textures, and a pop-up palette for quick select colors.
Pixlr offers over 600 effects, overlays and frames. With this service, you can do everything you would expect from : resize images, crop them, remove red-eye, whiten teeth, and much more.
If you're familiar with Photoshop, you'll get up to speed on the web version of Pixlr very quickly. The interfaces of these editors are very similar.
Paint.NET is an alternative to the Paint program built into all Windows versions. But don't let the similarity of names fool you: Paint.NET is a much more advanced and useful editor.
The development team focuses on ease of use and improves Paint.NET's photo editing features rather than graphics design capabilities. However, Paint.NET allows you to control perspective, manipulate pixels on the canvas, clone selections, and so on.
With support for layers, a wide selection of selection tools, and settings like brightness/contrast and curves, Paint.NET can be thought of as worthy replacement Photoshop.
Sumo Paint works fast on the web and copes with tasks no worse than desktop editors. But to run it you need Adobe Flash player. So Sumo Paint is not for iOS devices.
Sumo Paint's arsenal of settings and features includes pencils, brushes, text, gradients, cloning, shapes, and more. All this is always in view on a floating panel like the one you might see in .
Designed to work with 3D models, effects and animations.
SketchUp Free can be called the ideal entry point into the world of 3D graphics. This editor kindly brings the newbie up to date and forgives him for all the mistakes made. You can start with simple drawing lines and shapes, and then convert them into 3D objects.
If you need inspiration, you can download models of various objects for free from the 3D Warehouse library through the search form on the SketchUp website.
With the help of Daz Studio, you can customize, move in space and various 3D objects like people, animals, objects.
You can create unique characters, worlds, various design elements and much more. But Daz Studio lacks the modeling and texturing capabilities available in paid alternatives. A detailed table with a comparison of editors can be found on the project website.
Hexagon is a free 3D modeling tool. It has everything you need to create detailed models ready for final rendering.
Among the tools and functions of the program you will find the ability to quickly import from Daz Studio, presets for various objects, brushes for manual modeling, UV-scan (applying flat textures to a three-dimensional object), advanced drawing tools and instant shading (instant ambient occlusion).
Daz Studio and Hexagon are created by the same developer and complement each other. Together they make up a complete free kit to work with 3D graphics.
Blender is advanced free editor Open source 3D graphics available for all major platforms.
Developers are constantly developing Blender. It supports all possible operations with 3D graphics: allows you to model, texture, animate, render and compose.
If you're interested in the art of digital sculpting, try Pixologic's Sculptris. It suits equally well for any level of training. Beginners get a good starting tool, and already experienced digital artists get a platform for quick and easy implementation of ideas.
Sculptris is based on the same developer's ZBrush editor, the most popular digital sculpting application. When you're ready to take it to the next level, you can easily switch to ZBrush.
Houdini is a tool for working with 3D animation and visual effects, which is often used when working on films, TV shows and other media content.
The cost of the editor starts at $2,000. But the developers of the program - Side Effects Software - allow you to use the version of Houdini Apprentice for free. Thanks to it, you can access all the features of the full version and hone your skills on personal projects. Only Houdini Apprentice is for non-commercial and educational purposes only.
Today, you won’t surprise anyone with graphic images in a computer version, because even modern cameras are able to take pictures with enough high resolution. However, there are also special graphics programs that allow you to process one or another type of image with the best result.
Before talking about what graphic programs for a computer are, it is worth dwelling separately on the most common and used types of graphics as such. To date, there are at least two of them: vector and raster graphics.
Raster graphics is an obsolete type of creating and saving images or pictures, which is based on the pixel grid of the same monitor or using the capabilities of the printer when printing the image.
Vector graphics involves the creation and editing of complex objects that consist of several structural elements. Moreover, each element can have not only the main outline, but also a fill. In passing, it is worth noting that when creating such a complex structure, you can also use the overlay of layers, so that when editing or changing the image, the loss of overall quality is not significant.
It goes without saying that the types of graphics programs vary depending on the image processing for which they were originally intended.
As for the difference between the two types of graphics, based on the above, it is obvious: a pixel-based bitmap image, even by a small percentage, will look like a set of squares when enlarged. But vector graphics objects can be enlarged by changing the layers used. As a rule, this does not affect the quality of the picture in any way. Moreover, with the appropriate products and special add-ons to them, the programs themselves become more powerful. There may not be a graphic image, say, a vector one, when opened, but the subsequent raster conversion allows you to easily create a rather complex layout.
If we talk about specialized utilities or software packages, designed for raster processing, here among the main and most commonly used are Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw.
The Corel Draw software package is, in general, almost the very first powerful software product, which allowed working with graphics at the highest level. All these “photoshops” appeared much later, but the ideas embodied in the principles of image and photo processing by the developers of this package are still alive.
If we consider more complex utilities, or rather, programs designed for more complex types of vector images, programs like Photo Paint (the same name for all software developers of this type) and tools created by Adobe Corporation (more on this later ).
You should not discount the specialized utilities such as Paint.NET, which allow you to change the original size of images in the direction of its increase. You don't see that often. Note that this approach is applicable only to vector graphics, with a raster, no matter how hard you try, nothing good will come of it.
In principle, there are enough software products. However, even some viewers graphic files can provide the user with unprecedented opportunities even for automatic editing of the same photos, taking into account changes in contrast, brightness, color saturation, etc. You don’t need to go far. What is the viewer called ACDSee.
And now a few words about the most versatile packages that can be used to process graphics of any type.
First of all, this famous Adobe Photoshop. Apparently, even many professionals working with this software product do not fully know all its capabilities.
On the other hand, graphic programs like Ashampoo Photo Optimizer, although originally designed to optimize images, nevertheless boast a fairly good set of tools, sometimes not inferior to the same Photoshop.
However, such programs from the first acquaintance are quite difficult to understand. So if you are already engaged in editing or creating graphics (and even more so animated), you should start with the simplest. Having learned the basics, you can move on to more complex levels, when you can even make a full-fledged movie scene out of ordinary graphics.
Look at least how the fight between Morpheus and Neo was filmed in the first part of The Matrix. First, hand-drawn animation was created, consisting of a huge number of consecutive images in which the movements of the characters were recorded, and only then the images of real actors (Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves) were superimposed on the animated image.
What can I say, the same animated series "Masyanya", popular in its time, was also created using graphic programs that can transform hand-drawn graphic animation into a full-fledged video, or at least save it as a flash movie.
There are many free graphic programs and image editing tools that can be considered as an alternative to Photoshop. I have compiled a list of the best of them. Some of them are free online services while others are available for free download and installation on computers and mobile devices.
If you need to programmatically render a drawing or vector graphics, you can do so using the Scalable Vector Graphics format ( also known as SVG). And the program for developing Scalable Vector Graphics is called SVG-Edit .
This software open source. SVG-Edit is a powerful tool that allows you to create or edit SVG elements. The tool is built on top of CSS3 , HTML5 and JavaScript . With it, you can quickly edit and process a two-dimensional ( 2D) vector graphics:
Free graphic design software. This is a 2D vector graphics editor program that allows you to draw, edit and create professional designs.
DrawPlus also contains a number of features that allow you to create 3D objects using extrusion, apply a wide range of 3D styles with a huge collection of brushes:
With DrawPlus, you can easily create graphic designs, logos, technical drawings, animations, and more. There are various preset templates. Newbie guides are also available to help you get started with the program.
If you're looking for a replacement for Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, then InkScape is the tool you should be looking for. It is an open source vector graphics editor with many powerful features:
It also supports SVG integration with advanced options for print and web design. It is a professional graphics editor with a simple and easy to use interface.
Free graphical software to run under Linux/Unix. It is a flexible and powerful tool for creating illustrations, diagrams, etc.:
Functional 32-bit graphic drawing program. latest version supports a set of basic functions that can be used without any restrictions:
Ultimate Paint supports flexible brush management features that allow you to create creative designs. As well as PEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PCX, AVI (read only), TGA, WMF / EMF, ICO (read only), IFF / LBM and WAP BMP formats, as well as Twain-compatible scanners.
A simple touch freehand drawing tool that can be used to capture images High Quality. It supports many kinds of brushes ( pen, pencil, airbrush, natural brush, etc.), retouching tools, layers, etc.:
Fat Paint is known as the best software for graphic design, drawing and logo creation. This free program for image editing, which allows you to create pages, vector illustrations, logos, photo editing and web design:
A graphic design software that lets you focus on creativity, not interface management issues:
It is a fast and easy to use open source graphic design application that is available for both Windows and Linux users.
Paint.NET is a great alternative to the built-in graphics editor Paint. It is an easy-to-use image editing tool with a range of basic and advanced features:
With powerful features, this editor is often compared to other digital photo editing packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft photo editor, and GIMP.
Another powerful graphics program for the computer, which is widely used for photo retouching, processing, creating image composition, etc.
It is a free and open source graphic design software that is widely known as an alternative to Photoshop. Although GIMP was originally created for Unix, it is now available for other operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, etc.
Powerful image editing application for IOS and Android. It can be downloaded for free from App Store or Google Play Store. This is an interesting and powerful photo editor that allows you to quickly crop, rotate and adjust any image.
Pixlr has over 2 million combinations available free effects, which allow you to make the image unique.
If you want to get started with images in the browser, Sumo Paint will help you get started. It can be used to edit photos online, or you can install the program to access all features offline ( paid subscription):
With Sumo Paint, you can edit photos right in your browser. Although this requires the presence of Adobe Flash.
A powerful tool for converting images from one format to another. For example, from .jpeg to .png . This is a graphical bitmap editor program that allows you to create, edit and convert bitmap images to other formats.
The program contains such useful features like cropping, rotating and transforming images, mirror reflection etc. What makes her handy tool for graphic designers.
If you want to start learning 3D design and animation, install DAZ Studio. You will have at your disposal a sufficient number of tutorials that will make you a "ninja" of 3D animation, no matter what your level is at the moment:
With DAZ Studio you can create your own 3D characters, avatars, graphic design elements.
Create your own short films and animations, illustrations for books and magazines, and more. This free software will be very helpful when learning 3D.
If you want to reach your potential in 3D sculpting, 3D painting, then Pixologic will help you with this.
It is a 3D modeling tool with powerful features to help you navigate the world of digital reality. If you are new to 3D sculpting and 3D painting, then Sculptris is best point to start with.
One of the best graphics software for creating 3D projects. It is an open source software that can be downloaded and installed for free on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, etc.:
Blender contains many 3D tutorials and a gallery of previously created projects available for download. There is also an active community, whose members are ready to answer your questions.
3D SketchUp is still the most in a simple way drawing in 3D. It is a powerful 3D modeling software that allows you to quickly create 3D objects. The program is very easy to use.
It is an intuitive software for real-time 3D modeling and 3D animation. It provides tools for simple control 3D scene with drag-and-drop functionality:
It is a graphic design program developed by Amabilis Software. It is available in three versions - 3D Crafter, 3D Crafter Plus and 3D Crafter Pro. The basic version is free, while Pro and Plus are paid. The program runs on Windows 7/8/Vista.
Open source software for 3D modeling and visualization. It is written in Java, so it is a powerful 3D design program that can be used on many virtual machines java.
On the project website you can find many manuals, galleries of works. In addition, active forum participants are always ready to help. Therefore, even if you are new to 3D modeling and just taking your first steps, Art of Illusion is perfect for you.
One of oldest programs for 3D modeling, which was introduced back in 1999 and is still actively used all over the world. It is intended mainly for 3D modeling and character animation under Windows:
Anim8or includes many powerful features: a tool for creating and modifying 3D models, support for TrueType fonts, a built-in 3D object browser, a Joint character editor and much more.
A powerful tool for creating and customizing charts with various data. Represents an easy-to-use free app for data visualization, which facilitates the creation of interactive pie charts, line charts, segment charts, etc.
With this graphics program, you can create a visual representation of your data and get code to embed it in web pages, spreadsheets, and more.
Infographics is new way visual representation of data, which is developing at a rapid pace. Visual.ly is the best software for creating and publishing interactive infographics:
It is a social platform for creating and publishing infographics, which allows you to interact with other users and share interactive visual representations with them.
Another powerful interactive tool for creating stunning visuals and infographics. With Infog.am, you can create infographics, charts, and other visual representations in three simple steps: choose a template, visualize the data, and then publish it.
You can also select charts for free from a collection of over 30 interactive chart types.
Another powerful tool for creating infographics. Even if you don't know how infographics are created, all you need to do is go to the site, choose a template and get started:
As part of this service, a huge number of graphic shapes and objects are presented, as well as infographic templates, with which you can create and publish visual representations online.
A personalized tool that allows you to create and visualize a resume in one click. All of this is available for free.
With over 500,000 projects already created, Vizualize.me is the #1 resume creation service. It contains more powerful tools to help you build your resume.
This tool is a free favicon generator that allows you to create favicon icons for your website. Just upload the file and click the Generate button.
ColorPic is a free screen color picker. It allows you to capture color palettes up to 16 colors at a time. You can also use the advanced mixer to mix the four colors.
This graphics program for artists supports advanced features such as red-eye removal, color adjustment, photo viewing, email e-mail, framing, etc.
fast stone image viewer is another powerful functional tool for viewing, editing and batch converting photos.
Pixel Toolbox is a powerful tool designed to create impressive graphics for Windows. Create, edit and apply 1-bit patterns, wallpapers, icons and cursor icons - all with one tool.
Powerful free software that allows you to create, edit and use presentations remotely from anywhere. It is available for desktop PCs, smartphones and tablets. There is also integration with cloud service, which expands the functionality of the program.
This is a free web application that allows you to design almost anything. Simple drag-and-drop functionality makes it so easy to work that you don't need to be a designer to create amazing graphics.
With the help of the services and programs for graphic design discussed above, getting started is very simple! Wish you all the best!
This publication is a translation of the article " 31+ Best Free Graphic Design Software to Create Stunning Graphic Visuals» prepared by a friendly project team
Working with graphics
6.1. Bitmaps and vector graphics
Graphics capabilities provided by Microsoft Word are large enough. Availability of graphic objects in text documents often desirable, and in some cases simply necessary. Illustrations can help to present this or that event, draw the reader's attention to a certain part of the text. Word can also be used for layout, in which case illustrations and photographs are a must.
There are two main types of graphics - vector and raster. Raster graphics objects are built using individual dots - pixels. Pixels form an image on the monitor screen. The number of such points depends on the type of display and graphics adapter. Each pixel corresponds to one or more bytes of video memory that define the attributes of the pixel: color and brightness. Therefore, the image that is displayed is an array in video memory, each element of which contains attribute values for one pixel. In order for a program to create various images, it must either store arrays of attributes or be able to generate attributes for each screen pixel.
Vector graphics is a kind of image encoding based on the geometry of curves. The basic concept of vector graphics is a curve. vector image can be freely transformed, such as scaled and rotated. In this case, the quality will remain unchanged.
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