Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw are always on the top of list when it comes to creating scientific models for journal publications. These software can be expensive. Especially when designing isn’t part of your main business and you only need occasional graphical illustrations.
So~ the question is: Do you really need a paid software to create high quality illustrations?
The answer is simply no. As you can see... Below is a brain illustration that I have created using inkscape.
I'll be covering three of the most popular opensource software which you can make use of to create your very own scientific illustration in this post. As to which software to use is largely depended on how you want to go about creating your work of art.
Inkscape has been my favorite vector graphics tools ever since i discovered about it. No doubt it is widely known as the free counterpart to the "almighty" Adobe Illustrator. Th editor contains a huge array of advance tools and effects which includes complex path/ node editing, tracing, image filters and text with path editing. It allows importing of PostScript, JPG, PNG, BMP, TIP format files and exporting of PNG, SVG format files, Great for vector art and graphical model drawings.
Do note that it may appears buggy at times, causing the program to close/crash. So just remember to save your work frequently while working. For the later versions you can easily retrieve the backup file if the autosave feature is activated.
Krita is by far the best free raster graphics editing software around currently. If you are into creating your own concept art or medical illustrations Krita is the way to go. The brush options provided by Krita is detailed/diverse and some find that is crazily overpowering compared to what Photoshop has offered. Not to mention, the built-in color wheel. Blending tools of Krita also runs smoother as compare to the smudge tool of PS which lags significantly.
Krita has tools for frame-by-frame animation however the animation aspect of Krita is pretty much limited. eg. features like tweening is missing.
Overall the layering system and the amount and capacity of brushes is what that makes this painting software so powerful.
Compared to Krita a raster painting software, GIMP is mainly used for photo manipulations and compositing. It works with layers, has masking, paths, transformation, cropping features. With tons of filters you can play around with and has great color management support. Importing and exporting image files to and from GIMP shouldn't be too much of a hustle as it supports various types of image file formats.
Not only that these software are free. There are also tons of tutorials which you can follow on YouTube making learning much easier. So don’t let the fact that these open source software is anything less than professional.
So~ the question is: Do you really need a paid software to create high quality illustrations?
The answer is simply no. As you can see... Below is a brain illustration that I have created using inkscape.
Inkscape - vector graphics software
Inkscape has been my favorite vector graphics tools ever since i discovered about it. No doubt it is widely known as the free counterpart to the "almighty" Adobe Illustrator. Th editor contains a huge array of advance tools and effects which includes complex path/ node editing, tracing, image filters and text with path editing. It allows importing of PostScript, JPG, PNG, BMP, TIP format files and exporting of PNG, SVG format files, Great for vector art and graphical model drawings.
Do note that it may appears buggy at times, causing the program to close/crash. So just remember to save your work frequently while working. For the later versions you can easily retrieve the backup file if the autosave feature is activated.
Krita - raster graphics software
Krita is by far the best free raster graphics editing software around currently. If you are into creating your own concept art or medical illustrations Krita is the way to go. The brush options provided by Krita is detailed/diverse and some find that is crazily overpowering compared to what Photoshop has offered. Not to mention, the built-in color wheel. Blending tools of Krita also runs smoother as compare to the smudge tool of PS which lags significantly.
Krita has tools for frame-by-frame animation however the animation aspect of Krita is pretty much limited. eg. features like tweening is missing.
Overall the layering system and the amount and capacity of brushes is what that makes this painting software so powerful.
GIMP - photo editing software
Compared to Krita a raster painting software, GIMP is mainly used for photo manipulations and compositing. It works with layers, has masking, paths, transformation, cropping features. With tons of filters you can play around with and has great color management support. Importing and exporting image files to and from GIMP shouldn't be too much of a hustle as it supports various types of image file formats.
Not only that these software are free. There are also tons of tutorials which you can follow on YouTube making learning much easier. So don’t let the fact that these open source software is anything less than professional.