If you are planning to learn graphic design software or looking for the best graphic design applications for your Mac then this post is designed to help you to choose the one most suitable for your needs. There are some great free graphic design programs that are enough to do some cool things on your own.
Graphic design software is a category that includes pretty much every type of application from photo editing to web design. So keep reading to get alerted on the best applications for creating graphics for your own projects, as well as for business or clients.
jAlbum:
jAlbum is the perfect application for creating photo galleries and uploading them on the web. Using jAlbum, you can easily create family photo albums, portfolios, online image galleries and more. The application allows hosting your albums and video files to jalbum.net or upload them on the websites.
Adobe Illustrator:
Here’s the third product of Adobe Creative Cloud for graphic design software for Mac on our list. It’s more than just graphic designing software. It allows users to create beautiful artwork, page layouts, website prototypes, creative logos, and other things that are similar to graphic designing. It also has an accessible, user-friendly interface. You can easily customize your interface according to your needs with typical adobe membership plans.
Adobe Illustrator has two membership plans for its user i.e.
- Illustrator Single App ($239.88/year)
- Illustrator + All Creative Cloud Apps ($599.88/year)
Inkscape:
Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.
- Windows / Mac / Linux
- Drawing: pencil tool (freehand drawing with simple paths), pen tool (creating Bézier curves and straight lines), calligraphy tool (freehand drawing using filled paths representing calligraphic strokes)
- Shape tools: rectangles (may have rounded corners), ellipses (includes circles, arcs, segments), stars/polygons (can be rounded and/or randomized), spirals
- Text tool (multi-line text, full on-canvas editing)
- Embedded bitmaps
- Clones (“live” linked copies of objects), including a tool to create patterns and arrangements of clones
- Transformations (moving, scaling, rotating, skewing), both interactively and by specifying exact numeric values
- Z-order operations (raising and lowering)
- Grouping objects (“select in group” without ungrouping, or “enter the group” making it a temporary layer)
- Layers (lock and/or hide individual layers, rearrange them, etc; layers can form a hierarchical tree)
- Alignment and distribution commands
Fuzel Collage:
Fuzel Collage is a great application to create wonderful collages using photos from your image gallery. The application offers a variety of templates to create collages that can include up to 100 photos. You can also add unique features to a collage, such as photo effects, stickers, patterns, labels, music, transition effects, frames and more. Fuzel Collage lets you pick photos from Instagram or Facebook, share online or take a new snap in the application.
GIMP:
GIMP is a cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and more operating systems. It is free software, you can change its source code and distribute your changes.
Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools. You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization options and 3rd party plugins.
- Windows / Mac / Linux
- High-Quality Photo Manipulation
- Photo Enhancement
- Digital Retouching
- Hardware Support
Photo Pos Pro:
Photo Pos Pro is a popular free graphic design software that is user-friendly. This free photo editor provides you complete solutions to enhance your photos.
- Windows / Mac
- Remove/erase/replace backgrounds
- Remove unwanted objects
- Fix poor photos
- Frames and Collages
- Advanced Photo Effects
- Stunning Text Effects
- RAW Files support
ImageJ:
ImageJ is an image processing software application written in Java. The application supports several image manipulation features, such as smoothing, sharpening, resizing, cropping, color processing, median filtering and more. Moreover, you can get plugins for graphic designing from its website that offers several powerful features.
Pixlr:
Free graphic design software Pixlr claims to be ‘the most popular online photo editor in the world’.
It boasts more than 600 effects, overlays and borders, and lets you do all the main things you’d expect from a photo editor, from cropping and resizing to removing red-eye and whitening teeth. This free app is available in both iOS and Android varieties.
- Mobile App
- Create photo collages with a variety of layouts, background, and spacing.
- Balance out color in one easy click with Auto Fix.
- Layer multiple photos and blend them together to get a unique look, using Double Exposure.
- Stylize images to look like a pencil drawing, an ink sketch, a poster, and more.
- Make your selfies beautiful with simple tools to remove blemishes and red-eyes or to whiten your teeth.
- Focus on one color with Color Splash or add impact with Focal Blur.
- Choose from a pool of effects to give your image the look and feel you want.
- Adjust the mood of the photo with overlays – amplify the tone, cool it down, or add surreal shades.
- Mask your photo with captions. Choose from a variety of fonts.
- Finish off your editing process with the right border – pick a style that suits you.
- Keep things fresh with our growing catalog of additional effects, overlays, and border packs.
- Keep track of your favorite effects and overlays with the Favorites button.
- Resize images quickly and easily after editing.
- Share photos directly with friends through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or email.
Gravit Designer:
The developers of Gravit Designer software offer many possibilities. This is something between Inkscape and Vectr.
It has more functions than Vectr and is as intuitive as Inkscape. This program allows you to do everything that you expect from a vector software and have some tools typically available in digital asset management software for photographers.
You can create curves, edit paths, manage layers and use the knife function. It supports SVG, PDF, JPEG, SKETCH and since recently, EPS formats for import and export too. Besides, you can work on your projects on different platforms.
Gravit Cloud provides a smooth transfer of files between desktop and online versions. A portable version of this software is also available.
Among other useful functions of Gravit, there are vector assets available. The library of Gravit Designer assets includes badges, forms, emojis and illustrations that can be combined and modified for commercial and non-commercial use.
Easelly:
The next option might seem too creative for those who haven’t worked with infographics yet. Especially, if you take into consideration a set of different icons in the form of moving people, various lines and diagrams.
This software allows you to create and edit different infographics and display it in PDF or JPG formats. The basic version is free but additional elements are available for a small fee. However, unlike many other data visualization tools, Easelly is way cheaper.
Conclusion:
Graphic design software and graphic design apps are integral to the field of design. Whether you’re a print designer, web designer, logo designer, or just want to incorporate more design into your life, there are a ton of great software and applications you can use to get started.