Apr 27 2009
Poor Mans Creative Suite
Fortunately we live in an age when you don’t have to plunk down a month’s rent to get quality design applications. Check out my picks for free web and graphic design.
We know that GIMP is the free graphic design solution. This incarnation on GIMP has an interface that has been rearranged to more closely match Photoshop’s. It’s a convenient layout and a great example of the benefits of Open Source development.
Here’s another raster image editor that steals from GIMP.Written in Cocoa, it shares GIMP’s native file format.
Seashore supports an array of file formats and includes all the basic tools (gradient, stroke etc.). It is not as full featured as GIMP, but useful for users of the Photoshop’s core tools.
Here’s a bizarre but good deal. Expression, according to MacUpdate, is a Microsoft application. The about box credits Creature House.
Who’s ever it was or is, it is also a tidy vector illustration program. Its feature set is probably comparable with Illustrator 7 or 8, but it covers the core functions well.
Nvu stands for anything but “Not Very Useful”. This Gecko-powered HTML editor and web site manager has matured to 1.0 status with improved Mac support and Dreamweaver-like features.
Edit web pages and publish them directly to your FTP site. Built-in tools like HTML Validator, Markup cleaner and CSS Editor make it a contender to commercial solutions.
With the increasing quality and power of free applications, you can now rely on freeware – even for pro quality work. How’s that for lowering overhead.
Downloads provided by MacUpdate