As a designer, you are well aware of the importance of software in your profession. Thus, this article will focus on image design software free download. I can’t emphasize enough how helpful the right tools are when creating professional graphics. When you first start out in graphic design it can be difficult to know what software to use. There are heaps of options available on the market, but which do you choose? Should you even spend any money on software or is there decent free image design software out there? Read on to get the answer to these questions and more.
If you’re thinking about becoming a graphic or web designer, you should know about free image design software. You won’t be able to create anything meaningful if you don’t have the right tools. Thankfully, this post is here to give you a quick crash course on graphics software and other design tools that you can use for free.
Adobe Spark:
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS
Adobe Spark is a free alternative to the company’s popular, for-pay Adobe Illustrator. While it’s not nearly as full-featured, it does support integration with other Adobe products. It’s easy to use and it comes with a host of free templates. If you’re looking to quickly create posters or videos for ad campaigns, Spark is a great choice.
The potential drawback? A limited feature set makes this a great starting point for beginners but less useful for more in-depth projects or experienced designers. The good news is that Spark is available for both web and mobile, meaning you can design anywhere, anytime.
Setka Editor:
Platforms: Windows, Mac
Setka bills itself as “everything you need to create content that converts.” This graphic design software is primarily focused on delivering enhanced content branding across your website, ad campaigns, and social media posts — and works from within your current CMS or in the cloud.
The caveat? Although the Setka Editor is free to try for two weeks, companies will need to select a plan — Starter, Pro, or Enterprise — to unlock the full feature set and keep using Setka.
DesignWizard:
Platform: Windows
DesignWizard ranks among the best free graphic design software for beginners. The tool offers a large database of images along with a host of free templates (over 10,000), plus a simple, easy-to-use interface. While you can also quickly create custom templates, DesignWizard excels as a front-line, free graphic design tool for beginners.
Despite an easy-to-use interface and no upfront costs, it’s worth noting that most of the more powerful options in DesignWizard are only available in its for-pay version.
Canva:
Best for: Social media graphics
Platforms: Mac, Windows, Android, iOS
Canva launched in 2013 and has since become a very popular online design and publishing tool. In fact, this is the software that Team Clark uses to create a lot of the graphics we post on social media!
Canva offers a free version that includes everything you’ll need to start designing. With it, you’ll get access to more than 250,000 free templates and more than 100 design types including social media posts, presentations, letters and more. You’ll also be able to use hundreds of thousands of free photos and graphics, collaborate on projects with members of your team and save your work with 5GB of free Cloud storage.
You can create a free account to begin using Canva online directly in your web browser. You can also download the desktop app for your Mac or Windows device. Canva also offers highly-rated apps on The App Store and Google Play for your iOS or Android device.
Vectr:
Best for: Collaborative projects
Platforms: Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Web Browser
Vectr is a free graphics software that lets you create vector graphics using a simple platform. Vectr is available as a downloadable program, or you can use the software online in your web browser.
The website includes a variety of helpful tutorials ranging from how to get started to creating beautiful professional presentations. You can also use the software to create business cards, typographic logos, social media headers, memes, resumes and more. In addition to the tutorials, you can also check out Vectr’s user guide for a more comprehensive description of how to use the software.
Perhaps one of the best features that Vectr provides is real-time URL sharing. You can send anyone a Vectr document for real-time collaboration online. You can create and edit designs live from both the web app or the desktop version. This makes it a great tool for collaborating with others on projects.
Inkscape:
Best for: Professional quality vector graphics
Platforms: Linux, Windows, macOS
According to Inkscape’s website, the software was created for designers of all kinds including those in marketing and branding, engineering/CAD, web graphics, cartooning and for individual uses. You can get started by downloading the software to your Linux, Windows or macOS device.
When I first downloaded Inkscape, the interface reminded me of Microsoft Paint. This made it really intuitive to use, and all of the features are available for free. According to the website, those features include object creation, object manipulation, fill and stroke features, operations on paths, text support, rendering and a variety of file formats.
There are tons of resources available on Inkscape’s website under the “Learn” tab including an FAQ section, tutorials, books/manuals and a guide to how to use Inkscape for animation. Users also have access to Inkscape’s community which includes user support and discussions in the form of chat, forums and more.
SVG-Edit:
Best for: Basic online editing
Platforms: Any web browser
SVG-Edit is a web-based drawing editor that works in any modern web browser. The code to the program is completely open-source, which means you can download and edit the program’s code itself, embed it into your own website and more. Of course, even if you aren’t interested in coding, you can just visit this website to use the basic editor online for free.
As you can tell from the program’s title, the editor specializes in creating and editing scalable vector graphics (SVG) images. This is one of the most popular graphics formats. Still, you can export your finished images as PNG, JPEG, BPM, WEBP or PDF files as well.
SVG-Edit looks a lot like Microsoft Paint, and it’s great for similar simple tasks. You’ll find basic tools that allow you to create and edit images including a digital pencil, shape tools, text tools, a color picker and more. You can use the tools to create a basic graphic from scratch, or if you need to make simple edits to a graphic or image, SVG-Edit may be the best basic online editor. Of course, if you have a more complicated project, this editor may not be enough.
GIMP:
Best for: Free Photoshop alternative
Platforms: GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows
If you’re looking for a free alternative to Photoshop, GIMP is a graphic design software worth checking out. While you can’t use the software online, it can be downloaded to Linux, OS X or Windows computers.
GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s a free software that was designed for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring, according to the website. The interface is really similar to Adobe’s Photoshop, so if you’re already familiar with the tools and shortcuts, using GIMP will be easy.
You can get started by checking out the tutorials online which include beginner basics, photo editing tips, painting guides and more. If you’re ready to try out the software yourself.
Conclusion:
If you do not have any software to design high quality images, the internet has supported you the right place for that. Now you do not have to worry about software anymore. But choosing the best is not like picking a piece of cake. By nature there are a lot of images designing softwares can be taken from online sources, but only a few of them will get the job done satisfyingly. With many competitors out there, it is not easy to distinguish which one can serve your needs to a greater extent.