The amount of software out there that allows an artist to realize their imagery in digital is abundant. But it can also be extraordinarily costly to go the commercial route!
As a graphic designer, I have used packages like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXpress, Maya and 3D Studio Max (just to name a few!). Any ONE of these can run you $1000.00, or more, to purchase. Personally I think the price is getting a bit crazy - especially for someone who doesn't make an income to warrant these costs, but still need an income doing what they love!
As finances were tight at the time, I had been looking to alternatives and OH what I've found! Looking through what is known as 'Open Source' software, I've found several software packages which do wonderful as substitutes for various other commercial software at a fraction of the price (or free).
Blender 3D is a 3D modeling, animation and compositing package which has been used for some pretty impressive videos and effects. Blender is constantly being updated by the large team working on the project (https://www.blender.org/)
Krita is software to simulate conventional drawing/painting/artistic medium. With a graphics tablet you can get the pressure sensitivity as well, aiding the overall look and feel. This is another project being updated regularly! (https://krita.org/)
Gimp is a pixel based photo editor with MANY features found in commercial software. Works great. Updates are a bit slow coming. I don't think there is many working on it (small team) (http://www.gimp.org/)
Inkscape is a vector art program. Images are created using shapes, lines, curves and nodes as opposed to pixels. Works great as it is. Updates are a rarity these days however (https://inkscape.org/en/)
Scribus is one for Desktop publishing. Whether you are laying out a magazine of 100 pages, or a single page newsletter, it works great! I haven't used this one extensively, however what I have needed it for it has come through wonderfully! (https://www.scribus.net/)
There are MANY others out there! These are the main ones I use in the graphical department, and they are all free! (You can support all of them with donations!)
There are a few Cons to Open Source. What I've found is that not all the software can be, or has been tested with all configurations of hardware, so sometimes there might be the occasional glitch. I've rarely encountered this, but have heard of it occurring. So SAVE OFTEN (which you should regardless of using Open Source or commercial!) The other is that they are not 100% compatible with commercial programs. You may, for instance, load an Adobe Illustrator file into Inkscape, but some of the layer effects will not transfer into Inkscape leaving you to do some cleanup (there may be a flattening of layers in Illustrator you can do - I never did however).
I hope this list helps those looking for alternatives. If you know of any yourself, please let me know in the comments.
As a graphic designer, I have used packages like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXpress, Maya and 3D Studio Max (just to name a few!). Any ONE of these can run you $1000.00, or more, to purchase. Personally I think the price is getting a bit crazy - especially for someone who doesn't make an income to warrant these costs, but still need an income doing what they love!
As finances were tight at the time, I had been looking to alternatives and OH what I've found! Looking through what is known as 'Open Source' software, I've found several software packages which do wonderful as substitutes for various other commercial software at a fraction of the price (or free).
Blender 3D is a 3D modeling, animation and compositing package which has been used for some pretty impressive videos and effects. Blender is constantly being updated by the large team working on the project (https://www.blender.org/)
Krita is software to simulate conventional drawing/painting/artistic medium. With a graphics tablet you can get the pressure sensitivity as well, aiding the overall look and feel. This is another project being updated regularly! (https://krita.org/)
Gimp is a pixel based photo editor with MANY features found in commercial software. Works great. Updates are a bit slow coming. I don't think there is many working on it (small team) (http://www.gimp.org/)
Inkscape is a vector art program. Images are created using shapes, lines, curves and nodes as opposed to pixels. Works great as it is. Updates are a rarity these days however (https://inkscape.org/en/)
Scribus is one for Desktop publishing. Whether you are laying out a magazine of 100 pages, or a single page newsletter, it works great! I haven't used this one extensively, however what I have needed it for it has come through wonderfully! (https://www.scribus.net/)
There are MANY others out there! These are the main ones I use in the graphical department, and they are all free! (You can support all of them with donations!)
There are a few Cons to Open Source. What I've found is that not all the software can be, or has been tested with all configurations of hardware, so sometimes there might be the occasional glitch. I've rarely encountered this, but have heard of it occurring. So SAVE OFTEN (which you should regardless of using Open Source or commercial!) The other is that they are not 100% compatible with commercial programs. You may, for instance, load an Adobe Illustrator file into Inkscape, but some of the layer effects will not transfer into Inkscape leaving you to do some cleanup (there may be a flattening of layers in Illustrator you can do - I never did however).
I hope this list helps those looking for alternatives. If you know of any yourself, please let me know in the comments.