Free Drawing Software Reviews

Open Source software has now been developed to the point that it can compete with applications that cost a lot of money – some of the paid apps can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. For example, Linux is an excellent operating system that is Open Source and completely free, but that many consider to be on par with, or even superior to, the Windows or Mac platforms.

Similarly, there is now free drawing software on the market that competes with paid, premium drawing programs. Of course, the premium drawing utilities are those like Photoshop or AutoCad. Everyone knows those – Photoshop is even becoming a verb much in the same way that Google and Facebook have! But not everyone knows what the best free utilities for drawing are. Over the remainder of this article, I’ll be giving a little review.

First, we have a great utility called Paint.Net. Just as you would think, you can find it at the address Paint.Net! Now, when you hear the name, you probably think of that crappy old -paint- utility that comes with Windows. This is not even close to being the same thing! Rather, this is a highly advanced tool that has many features that will surprise you at their sophistication. While it may not be quite as full featured as Photoshop, it can do pretty much anything that a beginning to intermediate user could do in Photoshop. You can create banners, manipulate images, make vector graphics, and much more. The interface takes a little getting used to, but it does come with a tutorial as well as an active online forum.

The second great free drawing utility is called Gimp. It can be found at Gimp.Org. Don’t be offended by the name. It’s not a slur against disabled people or anything – GIMP started out as an acronym for GNU Internal Manipulation for Photos, but is now just referred to by it’s initials.

Now, this utility actually grew out of the open source Linux community. It was developed as an alternative to Microsoft Window’s original -Paint- program. However, the Linux community being overachievers, they wanted to make it far better than what Microsoft had going. And they did! This advanced drawing and photo application shipped standard with Linux releases such as Debian and Red Hat. But now it’s available as a one-off download. There are versions for Linux, as well as for any flavor of Windows or Mac. It’s just as full featured as the aforementioned Paint.Net. It has the ability to do vector graphics, moving banners, to manipulate photos, and more.

So, in summary, there is a very good chance that you are the type of person who could benefit from, and save a lot of money with, free drawing software. Only a very small percentage of people use the premium, paid programs for things that they couldn’t do just as easily with the free software. All they’re paying for is the brand name. And with the state of the current economy, few people can afford that. So check out those two utilities today, and see which one will work the best for you!