Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

i have a macbook pro (OS 10.5.3) and I use GIMP. For some reason, INKSCAPE won’t install on the computer, and I can’t even get GIMPSHOP to work either. Anyone have any tips on this?

I agree that Adobe Professional is very expensive for the non professionals, there are many lower cost solutions ( some even free ).

I prefer to use instead PDF Writer Pro ( http://www.amicutilities.com/?v=adobe_6_0_profe... )

Ramona

Though it is now in posession of Adobe, Freehand once belonged to Macromedia (before assimilation by Adobe last year) and it was the strongest rival to Illustrator. However niether Macromedia updated it last 2 years nor did Adobe since merger.
There is an online petition for Adobe to develop a new version of Freehand.
If you use FH you can too add your signature to the petition and join huge number of responses from FH community.
Petition link is:
http://www.enrichdesign.com/freehand.html

If there are students out there that want a legit copy of CS2 (and a lot of other stuff, like Quark and Corel) for a great discount, check out www.journeyed.com.

Thanks for posting these John.
As a member of iStockphoto.com I was able to become a beta tester for Xara Xtreme. The application is great as far as functionality and how fast it operates, however, most applications stick to the same keyboard shortcut keys. I have become very used to using the keyboard shortcuts to speed up the process. Xara changes the shortcuts around so much It's just such a hassle to use completely different shortcut keys that are'nt very well placed.
For example, the Hand Tool most commonly known with the Space Bar. Xara uses Shift+F8, and that only toggles it on unline Space Bar held down is on and once you let go it goes back to whatever tool you where using before.

Other than the keyboard shortcuts and the horrible import ability the application is great. But those two things ruin it for me.

It is generally a problem, the quality standard of these apps. Not that they aren't in themselves great apps, most of them are incredible for the price tag, but sadly. It's rarely that they meet industry standards and the standards feature set and compatibility. That's really the clincher, whilst the software is great, it has trouble talking to the standard. (Mostly because of propietry formats that need a rare amount of hacking to become even readable.) It lacks some of the features that are nessacary to be able to "talk" to most printing houses and such. (CYMK support, I'm looking at you ...) And finally, there is a lack of the consistency between the different apps functions, GUIs and philosophy's.

So, whilst OSS & other alternative apps are brill. They are sadly not playing the same game yet. (I have to by the way add, that being a student, I can't afford to buy the Adobe CS package, nor do I want to pirate it. So I do have those alternatives installed, and I dp use them when digital work arises, but, it's a heck of a lot more work. To the degree that digital isn't worth the bother any more, not until I can afford something that easily works with ICC profiles, CYMK and the print shop.)

But, on the other hand, it's just a matter of time really, before OSS / the other alternatives can do the same. But those apps need a userbase for that to happen.

- Papi out

Speaking of open canvas and it's net drawing features, oekaki boards are always fun. My talented eFriend julia/sonmi runs one here

The more work I see from Open Canvas the more I enjoy it. The way the brushes blend is great, and the event playback function makes it worth the 60-70 usd pricetag.

http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/

Also, the original 1.0-1.72 versions which you can find floating around the web have a webpainting interface where you and your friends can share a canvas via the net and have a great time.

Does Inkscape have a painting tool? If so, where is it? I can't seem to find it if it does exist...

ArtRage2 is absolutely great!

I can't imagine you left it out. It could be interesting to see other people reading Drawn! that use ArtRage2 to actually see the potential of the tool.

Cheap Thrills. I tried all the free programs, you pay for you get or should I say what you don't. I know the cost will scare the pants off many people. But let's be honest here, we know that most people have pirate versions of the Adobe software. Being in business, I am fortunate to be able to buy the Adobe Suite CS2. They are fun free programs but in the end, Adobe rules. Another alternative is Coreldraw which was once the leader in this field, they are doing amazing work with their new version.

Xara Extreme definitely needs your attention as a concurrent to Illustrator. It's not free (79$) but if your using Windows go for it, it's incredible fast !

http://www.xara.com/gallery/

Although I generally hate X11 apps on the mac, I find it surprisingly easy to use Cinepaint on the mac.
I also found X11 programs much easier to use with Focus-follows-mouse behaviour enabled-
in terminal type: defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true
if you are using apples X11 that is.
I haven't gotten their color profiles to work though although they have them.
Integration with apples colorSync framework is probably one of the big plusses for SeaShore.
Aside from that and Seashore I use GraphicConverter (about 30$) which is a great and easy tool for format conversion, scaling and reducing/changeing colors.
I also use Pixen if I want to do Pixel-intensive artwork (plus I like the easy way they allow to view tiled pictures and the interesting way they support different left- and rightclick brushes).
As an alternative to Illustrator I wasn't very impressed by inkscape nor Skribus but I haven't tried Skencil yet.

I too recently discovered ArtRage( Windows+Mac) and found the free version provided hours of fun.

like commenter ryan before me i definitely recommend ArtRage. It's clean and super fun to use and is really good for painting! it even has this handy "trace" function that lets you easily put whatever photo you want below your drawing surface and trace it.

and then there's Google's new Sketchup. i don't know if it counts as an art tool, but it's fun to use this to create all sorts of things- bizaare houses, sets, etc..

still no need to pay for painter or paint shop...FLUSH!!! whats that? O it your money going down the drain. file sharing people. join the liberated

Ok, it's definitely not free, and not exactly cheap, but Corel's Paint Shop Pro X runs about $100 (retail, you can get it way cheaper than that), can do nearly everything Photoshop can, is easy to learn, and very cool. It's a great program for a serious photo/graphics hobbyist or semi-professional. Plus, unlike GIMP or Paint.net, it accepts almost all Photoshop plugins/filters and brushes. Can't recommend it enough.

Who pays for software????? uness your running a business your just throwing your money away.

The problem with Gimp (and perhaps other OS apps) is.... NO CMYK support, making them pretty useless in the print-production world.

This was the case when I checked out Gimp a good 6 months ago.

I second Sawdell's GIMPshop recommendation!

You're supposed to pay for Photoshop? When did that start?

Autodesk Sketchbook Pro cheap good art app

Deneba Canvas X full featured raster/vector art app (can't afford it)

I wouldnt recommend gimp to anyone wishing to do anything other than plink around on their own. Also your premise is that students can't afford adobe prices, but adobe, like many major manufacturers has drastically reduced academic pricing. CS2 suite is $389 new vs $1200 non-academic. I know this isn't free, but I'd hate to be dropped into the real world not knowing the industry/real world tools.

Myself? I like working in Conduits Pocket Artist on my pda. It can net great results.

I'll have to try out Inkscape, thanks for the tip!

For those who wish to learn and use Inkscape, it's highly reccomended to check out this page! ( http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/in... ) Also it should be added that The GIMPs sister, Cinepaint is a very handy tool for images of a lot higher bitsize than the GIMP can handle. (All the way up to 48-bits support and other interesting features.)

project dogwaffle. more painter than photoshop, but cool none the less.

http://www.squirreldome.com/cyberop.htm

There's also the open source Paint.NET at:

http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

Windows only, I'm afraid.

Krita is a KOffice program that runs on Linux - It's a Painter replacement. On Windows, lookup Artweaver (Freeware Painter 6 clone), Graphics Gale (Great pixel art program), Open Canvas (Freeware Painter/Photoshop hybrid), and a host of others. I was going to start such a thread in the forums as I've a ton of Linux apps that replace their PC counterparts for free too, but I think people here might not find them as helpful.

For people on OS X, there's also Intaglio. I also use Illustrator, but find Intaglio's pen tool to be simpler to use and more intuitive. Not free of open source, but damn nice.

You can't forget ArtRage, a great and easy natural media simulator.

The first version is free, the second version costs 20 bucks but has a free limited version. at www.artrage.com

I've been using a beta of Expression for over 2 years now. It's great for certain applications: I find it really good for inking comics - especially if you like inking with a brush. It's also great for colouring comics in a watercolour style too. It stores everything in vectors so you can go back and edit stuff easily!

Microsoft's Expression is currently in 'preview' mode and fully functional as far as I can tell:
http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en...

Also, If you have used photoshop in the past and prefer that
type interface, to the Gimp's (IMHO) unweildy multiple windows;
there is GIMPshop (http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294)
It runs on Windows and Mac and some Linux'es.

Damn dude, thanks for the tips - i never knew there were so many great options out there, and for OSX too!

Oh, and hey, shoot me a Drawn banner at 150w x 50h that I can run for free in our BlogAds as a Thank You for the hookup a while back....

This is my first attempt at linking from a blog so hopefully it works ok. I'll focus on Open Source/Cross Platform. For vector work, Inkscape is rapidly becoming a decent alternative to Illustrator and since Adobe owns Flash now, you could say that
Synfig is an alternative to Flash in terms of vector animation. Scribus is an attempt at a viable alternative to page layout ala, Pagemaker/InDesign/FrameMaker.

Anyone try Sodipodi (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sodipodi/ )? It's a free illustration prog like Inkscape.

It's unfortunate how chunky and big GIMP's interface is. They need to get some icons made pro-bono by Iconfactory.

while on the topic of 3d : wings3d

Oops, Erik, seems I was just typing my (now redundant) comment about Inkscape at the same time you were posting yours.

Anyway, for those who still haven't tried it, it's definitely worth it. One of my favourite features of Inkscape is its "tile clones".

Whoa -- in the time it took me to type 3 other people posted about Inkscape -- obviously it rules!

http://www.inkscape.org/ is an awesome free illustration program available for Mac, Windows, Linux. It's easier to use than "Frustrator".

http://www.blender3d.org/ is a free 3D program -- I've never used it, so I can say if it's awesome or not.

and also this little vector program inkscape

Don’t forget the open-source vector drawing program: Inkscape. It offers a great feature list, and a very good autotracing engine based in poTrace.

Check out Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/) as an Illustrator/Freehand/CorelDraw alternative as well. It's pretty solid and stable, works on Windows, Linux, and Mac, and has some really nice features (like fantastic XML support) that those other apps don't have. And the best part is that it's totally free :~]

I'm a big fan of Xara X myself, but don't do a lot of illustration (mostly web design). It's vector-based and extremely fast, but Windows-only at the moment.

Have you looked at paint.net? I have photoshop, but paint.net might be worth looking into for people looking for a free alternative.