Macworld: Best Software for Artistic Dabblers? ...

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6 Replies Last post: May 20, 2007 7:45 AM by Hugolino

Hugolino

59 posts since
Oct 6, 2006

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Oct 6, 2006 9:33 PM

Best Software for Artistic Dabblers?

Greetings,

I wondered if others could suggest the best entry-level software for those who want to dabble artistically.

Two examples I can offer to would-be dabblers would be the simple but impressive natural painting software ArtRage 2.11 (www.ambientdesign.com) for anyone who wants to create natural raster artwork on a computer, and Comic Life Deluxe (www.freeverse.com) for anyone who wants a quick and easy raster comics layout program.

To offer my background, I am a graphic designer familiar with Photoshop, Gimp, Quark Xpress, and Illustrator, although my skill with Illustrator is limited. I would like to experiment with animation and video. I do enjoy iMovie and iDVD, so that satisfies my dabbling with video for now, but I have yet to find an inexpensive animation set that isn't seriously crippled or a little pricey.

Any suggestions, whether for me specifically or for any artistic dabblers looking for entry-level software?

Sincerely,
John

P.S. Oh, I would so love to find a vector graphics program that doesn't have a steep learning curve but is still useful! John laughs

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Hugolino

59 posts since
Oct 6, 2006

1. Dec 7, 2006 11:17 PM

in response to: Hugolino

A Few Great Artistic Programs

To help answer my own question (since nobody else cares to do so):

Free open source software for raster image editing (a la Photoshop) and creating high resolution animated GIFs
--> http://www.gimpshop.net/

Free open source software for creating low resolution raster animations (as Quicktime movie or animated GIF)
--> http://www.opensword.org/Pixen/

Free commercial software for simple natural painting (including simulated paint blending, wax crayons, and so on)
--> http://www.artrage.com

Free open source software to create fonts
--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FontForge

Free open source software to create basic PowerPoint and Flash slide shows, as well as Microsoft Word and Excel files
--> http://www.neooffice.org/

Free open source desktop layout software
--> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribus

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rotavator

17 posts since
Sep 27, 2006

2. Dec 8, 2006 4:23 AM

in response to: Hugolino

Re: A Few Great Artistic Programs

Hi, They are some great links. Thank You, I know much less than you- so I wasn't able to advice or answer your original question. Am still a novice with many of creative programmes.

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Hugolino

59 posts since
Oct 6, 2006

3. Dec 9, 2006 1:27 AM

in response to: rotavator

Re: A Few Great Artistic Programs

You're very welcome. I'd hoped that was the cause for the lack of replies, which is why I decided to share what I had learned since my original post. I'll probably try to add to this post whenever I run across another freeware art gem.

Oh, and here's one more program, Inkscape:

A free open source vector drawing program
--> http://www.inkscape.org

and a "portable" Mac OS X version that you can keep on a thumb drive
--> http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/inkscape/

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Hugolino

59 posts since
Oct 6, 2006

4. Jan 11, 2007 1:05 AM

in response to: Hugolino

Useful Sites for Finding Gems

Here are a few sites for finding the best quality free (or inexpensive) creative software -- or just help -- for the Mac:

http://www.opensourcemac.org/
* This site offers the cream of the crop of free open source software for Mac OS X. It doesn't have everything out there that is great and free for the Mac, but everything it does have is great and free for the Mac.

http://osx.iusethis.com/
* A great site for skimming briefs on the latest freeware, shareware or updates for Mac OS X. I find it more useful than the popular and polished yet often overwhelming software sites http://www.versiontracker.com and http://mac.softpedia.com/index.free.shtml

http://www.macosx.com
* What good is specific software for your Mac without general Mac tech support? This web site forum offers free (unofficial) general tech support for Mac OS X users. You definitely can't top that!

http://www.deviantart.com
* This free social gallery networking site (MySpace meets Flickr) offers many helpful tutorials for major, and even minor, graphic design programs, such as Photoshop. Just beware that not all of the art or photos on display there are suitable for children. But don't worry... it's not a porn site. Its just a typical assortment of art, crafts and photography on display.

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Hugolino

59 posts since
Oct 6, 2006

5. Jan 13, 2007 10:44 AM

in response to: Hugolino

Watermark Freeware

http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html

Thanks to a graphic designers blog I ran across this gem. ImageWell is free software that lets you resize, frame, watermark and transmit your images, and that's just in the free version. Nice little (universal binary) timesaver!

http://www.digitalcalamity.org/software/applications/picmark/

After experimenting with ImageWell, I rediscovered an old version of PicMark and started it up. Well, they have a new update and -- depending on exactly what you're looking for -- it may be better than ImageWell. Either way it offers a different set of features exclusively focused on adding watermarks to images.

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Hugolino

59 posts since
Oct 6, 2006

6. May 20, 2007 7:45 AM

in response to: Hugolino

Open Source Animation Freeware

I finally discovered a freeware (open source) animation program that allows you to create Flash and Quicktime movie cartoons.

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/

According to the Web site:
"Pencil is an animation/drawing software for Mac OS X and Windows. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source."

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