Graphic Design Programs, The entire Creative Suite Free, Open Source, Which are the best Programs?

I have been a Graphic Designer in the Industry for over 30 years. In that time I have seen and been part of the change from a 'Hands on' craft to a Computerized industry. From the first Mac's with Pagemaker to the modern world of super powerful computers available cheaply for everyone. I have taught Desktop Publishing at the Corporate and School level and have Published books on Training. One thing that I have always done is to try out and experiment with all of the Graphic Design Programs that have been available over the Years.

These programs Include: Illustrator, Freehand, Xara, Corel Draw, Inkscape, Photoshop, Photopaint, The Gimp, Fireworks, In Design, Quark Express, Ventura Publisher, Pagemaker, Scribus, Acrobat, PDF Creator and many more. All of these programs are different, all are of a high professional standard and all offer a choice of creating artwork with a different feel. Like an artists palette they offer a variety of choice. The advent of PDF files as a standard (early to mid 90's) in the Industry meant that any of these programs could be used to prepare artwork for a Printer. The Offset Printer (or other) did not need to have the program the artwork was created in installed on his computer.

Which of these programs are the best?

Photoshop is a brilliant Photo Editing program and has set a standard in quality that others aim for. But this is an expensive program and you have to pay extra money for many of the add ons and Plug Ins. The quality of output and the management and depth of color manipulation is really hard to beat. if you rely on Photo Editing as your main business then Photoshop is a Tool you can't ignore. There is considerable online material and lots of free training sites teaching Photoshop.

Corel Photopaint comes packaged free with Corel Draw and is a full featured RGB and CMYK program and although many would argue that its output is not as good as Photoshop it actually does a lot better job than most realize..that is if they ever took the time to use it and learn it properly .

The GIMP is an Open Source alternative Photo Editing program that although has a bit of a learning curve it actually comes with more filters and add ons (with the ability to add hundreds more free plug ins) than the commercial programs and its free. It has got a very good CMYK plug in which allows you to convert and save RGB files as CMYK tiff files with a choice of Printing Profiles.

Illustrator for years has been promoted as the best Vector Illustration Package, although it has always had high quality output, and has been a stable platform, it is lagging behind in features and the interface is not at all intuative. It recently got some of the interface features that programs like Corel Draw, Freehand, and Xara had back in the mid 1990's. But YOU HAVE TO LEARN IT if you go to a College or University and it is the standard in the industry...

Corel Draw went through the horrors with some 'crashy' versions 4,10,11,12 with some 'Classic Versions' 3,5,7,9,13,14. Today it repesents great value for money and does so much more than Illustrator that I could write a thick book on just that. Corel Draw has a very high quality output and has the ability to produce extremely high quality Illustrations and Technical Drawings. It has been used extensively in the Promotional Industry for its ability to print directly high quality Color Separations to an Image setter. This makes it very popular with Screen Printers and Direct Digital Garment Printers. Corel Draw can be used as a Stand alone Publishing Program and is quite capable of producing high quality Brochures, Flyers and even Books. It can export high qulity artwork supporting the PDF-X3 format. 

Many programs like Freehand are no longer available which is a shame because it was a good high quality Vector Drawing Program.

Xara is a lovely little program that is available free on Linux machines and at a very reasonable price on Windows machines. It's a really easy to use 'modern' program that is brilliant for Creating Web Graphics and Complex Vector Illustrations. It has an easy to use intuative interface and doesn't get anything like the recognition it should from the industry.

Inkscape is the new Open Source Vector Drawing Program and personally it's the one I now use. It is simply brilliant and has the look and feel of a program designed with a lot of consultation with Artists. It can produce amazing accurate high quality Vector Illustrations, output PDF files and produce stunning graphics for the Web. The interface is great and there is an immese amount of free training with it.

Desktop Publishing programs were dominated by Quark Express, but recently In Design has made huge in roads into this market.

Quark Express had a very old fashioned interface and it was mind bendingly expensive. But they have both dropped the price and improved the usability considerably in the latest release.It does have a very high standard of accurate output and its Text capabilities set the standard for a long time. It is still used in the Publishing Industry and in particular News print where its Text out put matters a great deal.

In Design is well thought out and has a nice intuative interface, it is rapidly taking over as the standard in the industry as the premier Desktop Publishing Program. It is designed to work with Illustrator and Photoshop to produce finished artwork with a high standard of Text editing kerning and accurate positioning. It is used to output Books, Brochures, Flyers, Pamphlets and Advertising Material to name a few. Naturally it exports final work files using the PDF-X3 industry standard which is a development of  the Post Script Language Adobe created many years ago.

Scribus is the Free Open Source Alternative to these programs and is getting better with every version. Its interface is very similar to In Design and its relatively easy to learn once you grab a few concepts. It export files using the PDF-X3 industry standard and I have fornd that it does a really good job.

The new Open Source Graphics Programs really are a Refreshing New Wave. There are so many more programs and alternatives so I have decided to create a Web site where you can download a Free Version of the Creative Suite using Open Source and Freeware programs. I have provided links to training, Free Tutorials and Reviews on all of this software (many on Hub Pages). All of my training sites are for Free and I am improving them and adding Tutorials all the time.

Now do yourself a favour and get into Graphics...but keep an open mind. Learn as many programs as you can. You can download free trail versions of all the Commercial Programs andf there is a huge amount of Free training on the net.YOU CHOOSE which one suits you, don't take my word for it .

May the Force be with You!