Friday, June 04, 2010

Awesome Free Design Software

Sometimes we need to improvise on the go, maybe we are using someone's laptop or desktop and they do not have the latest version of PhotoShop or Illustrator. here are a couple of programs to get the job done in a pinch.

Image Editors:

Paint.NET - Windows only photo editing software that supports layers, undo's and many special effects.
GIMP - It is a free open source PhotoShop like image editor with many features and functionality.
Xara Xtreme - A great free application which is very similar to Adobe's crown jewel.

Illustration Programs

Inkscape - A great free vector based program with capabilities that are very similar to Adobe Illustrator.

Karbon - Free vector application with an easy to use interface and lots of features.

3D Modeling

Blender - The best free 3D rendering program out there.

K-3D - Very good 3D modeler and animation application.

Google Sketch up - Leave to google to once again come out with a great free application that gets the job done. This software has many powerful features.

Animation

Synfig - A powerful vector-based 2D animation software application.


Let me know if you have any more that you have used and recommend!


+dwebb