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Ted Sumner
Courses Plus Student 17,967 PointsOpen Source alternatives to PhotoShop, Illustrator, and other expensive programs
I have a very limited budget for software ($0) and am interested in open source alternatives to expensive design programs. What are people using?
I downloaded Gimp for an alternative to PhotoShop. Any other ideas?
Edit: Inkscape is one I am looking at as an Illustrator alternative.
3 Answers
jordans
1,609 PointsIf you're looking for a program for programming HTML / CSS templates, Brackets is great. It's an open source IDE that is very lightweight and has awesome features. What really drew me was being able to edit HTML / CSS templates live. What I mean by that is Brackets will create a small local server and give you the ability to make HTML and CSS changes live from the editor so you see exactly what each code adjustment does.
Surprisingly, it's made by Adobe. It's programmed with Java, so theme and plugin development is very easy. You can download extensions directly to Brackets from the community.
As for photo editing, I've never tried using an open source photo editor, so I can't offer much incite on that. I do remember reading into Google releasing a Web Designer they're letting people try out since it's still in beta.
You can check it out over at https://www.google.com/webdesigner/. I've never tried, so I don't have an opinion on it.
Jeff Lemay
14,268 PointsGimpshop is worth a look as a Photoshop alternative: http://www.gimpshop.com/
Caleb Kleveter
Treehouse Moderator 37,862 PointsSublime Text is another text editor that can be downloaded for free.
Ted Sumner
Courses Plus Student 17,967 PointsTed Sumner
Courses Plus Student 17,967 PointsThank you for Brackets. I started using that a week ago after using Notepad++. Both are good and free. I think I like Brackets better.