Have you ever asked yourself, “What kind of graphic design software do I need for beginners?” Well, luckily for you this article will help you find your way. Here is a list of the different kinds of graphic design software below.
The first question that comes to mind when people think of graphic design is, “What software do you need for graphic design?” It is the most important program a graphic artist will ever use. So what are the top ones?
Cinema 4D
Features
- Cinema 4D comes in four levels: Prime, Broadcast, Visualize and Studio.
- Involve 3D animation without any formal training.
- Amazing support for materials and textures.
- Accessible user interface.
- Smooth learning curve.
Affinity Designer
Features
- Affinity designer allows an intrinsic zoom-in experience.
- Functions in any color space like RGB, CMYK, LAB, Greyscale.
- Possess CMYK workflow along with ICC color management.
- Compatible with macOS and Windows.
ACDSEE Photo Editor
Features of graphic design tool
- Availability of numerous standard photo editing tools.
- One can draw their own web designs or use the software’s pre-designed templates.
- Better sharing options to offer.
- With 3200% as the maximum zooming option. It has a lot of basic editing tools at hand.
- ACDSEE Photo editor offers to import and export options as well.
Adobe Photoshop.
Adobe Photoshop is synonymous with photo editing for graphic designers. It is one of the most popular photo editing software tools in the market in a robust package that offers excellent graphic design capabilities.
Key Features:
- Design Tools: Offers a lot of design tools for both mobile apps and web
- Creative Cloud: Its active synchronization with Adobe Creative Cloud offers a lot of unique features, including Content-Aware Crop, Face-Aware Liquify, Artboards, the Design Space view, synced libraries, a glyph panel, Cloud Documents, touch, and stylus input support, among others.
- User Interface: Adobe is continuously working on delivering a more customizable user interface. It offers several targeted workspace layouts, including Graphic and Web, Motion, 3D, Painting, and Photography, Designer can also create your own custom layout of panels and windows.
- Open-Source GIMP Software: If you don’t want to pay a dime, then you can download and install this software for free. Consider installing it on a powerful machine to avoid lag and other performance issues.
Pros:
- It offers a complimentary mobile application
- Its slick user interface offers a lot of assistance for easy use
- Got a rich set of typography and drawing tools
- Comes loaded with 3D design capabilities
- Offers a library and photo management with Adobe Creative Cloud
- Efficient file transfer between different programs
- Multiple design tools come with responsive graphics
- Ability to edit animation and video layers
- Users can define the size of the canvas, create custom brushes, work in 3D, isolate elements from backgrounds, among others.
Cons:
- Adobe now offers Photoshop along with the subscription of Creative Cloud. The recurring payment turns out to be more costly, and people who want to buy software forever don’t have the option to buy a perpetual license
- A plethora of features might overwhelm a new user
- Offers lessor support for raster and vector images like SVG files
Pricing Plans:
Adobe offers Photoshop at a subscription price of US$33.99 per month per license.
Adobe InDesign.
Adobe InDesign is a must-have software tool if you are in the business of publishing. It offers excellent capabilities to design stunning magazines, info sheets, and brochures while easily exporting them to PDF or HTML.
Key Features:
- Easy To Use: Unlike PhotShop, InDesign requires a low learning curve. That means new users can quickly learn how to combine text and graphics to achieve the best results.
- Adjust Layout: The ‘Adjust Layout’ feature empowers the designer just to change the text of the template, and design gets adjusted automatically, which is great for infographics.
- Sensei Technology: Adobe’s AI-powered Sensei technology ensures automatic resizing and arrangement of images.
- Adobe InCopy: Designers can leverage InCopy to work with other members of the team by sharing text, colors, and graphics.
Pros:
- Graphic designers can efficiently combine graphics and texts for easier streamlining and optimizations of files.
- It allows users to add tags to indexes, keywords, anchor text frames, footnotes, table of contents, and captions with hyperlinks.
- It supports HTML exporting that enables web developers to export clean and simple codes during the implementation of the website’s layout designs. This works great for WordPress sites.
- It can help you eliminate redundant div tags in HTML files along with insignificant content grouping.
- Has the capability of resizing multiple objects and change the width and height at the same time.
- Designers can leverage its Eyedropper tool to apply position or size instantly to another object within the document.
- It is an industry-standard for desktop publishing.
Cons:
- The less intuitive user interface can make things overwhelming for new users.
- Not positioned for general users. Suitable for enterprise use only.
- Relatively expensive than other similar software available in the market.
- PDF comment integration needs perfection
Pricing Plans:
Adobe offers InDesign at a monthly subscription of $20.99. The full Creative Cloud costs $52.99 per month.
Adobe Illustrator CC
A vector graphics solution, Adobe Illustrator CC, is highly-suitable for professional graphic designers and artists. It has a wide array of tools that can greatly help in the creation of graphic designs for websites, brand logos, video games, and print. It works well with vector graphics, allowing users to come up with beautifully crafted designs, topography, sketches, and illustrations.
The product allows for faster design creation owing to its built-in design presets and templates, which can be easily accessed. Its integration with Adobe Creative Cloud makes sharing of projects by individuals easy. Sharp segments and clear lines can be produced as the solution can create paths that automatically align to the nearest pixel grid. Its Snap to Pixel feature can be customized to align an artwork with precise pixel boundaries.
Adobe Creative Cloud is available in a variety of pricing plans starting at $29.99/month.
Why choose Adobe Illustrator?
- State-of-the-art digital illustration tool
- Industry-standard vector graphics software
- Scale artworks to any size – from mobile screens to outdoor billboards – while maintaining quality.
Conclusion
Choosing the right graphic design software for beginners can be a bit of a challenge. There are so many options available. This post will help you answer the question “What kind of graphic design software do I need to design amazing graphics?”