The 5 Best Open Source Graphics Programs - Page 2

Scribus

Need to whip up a brochure for your business, or maybe a PDF that you can send to clients and want something with a bit more oomph than Microsoft Word or LibreOffice Writer can provide? Scribus is an open source desktop publishing tool that can help you create press-ready output.

Scribus is similar to tools like Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress. It may not have as many features as those tools, but it is up to the task of creating just about any publication that your small business may need. Like GIMP and Inkscape, Scribus has great documentation for getting started.

Scribus is an open source desktop publishing tool.

The Scribus Project provides packages and installers for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. For Mac OS X, you may have to choose a developmental release (1.4.x) rather than the last stable release (the 1.3.x series), but going forward you should be able to get newer, stable releases of Scribus as they come out.

LibreOffice Draw

For simple graphics, diagrams and charts, you might want to turn to LibreOffice Draw. As the name suggests, Draw is part of the open source LibreOffice productivity suite.

You can use Draw for very complex artwork, but it's also well-suited for creating charts and diagrams or other simple artwork for presentations and so on.

You might not be familiar with LibreOffice, but have probably heard of OpenOffice.org. LibreOffice is a project that spun off from OpenOffice.org to foster better community collaboration. If you're already using OpenOffice.org, you can use its version of Draw, or check out LibreOffice. LibreOffice is available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and other operating systems.

Blender

Last, but very certainly not least, is Blender -- an open source, cross-platform suite for 3D creation.

Blender is capable of stunning 3D work -- and not just still images. Blender has been used to create animated masterpieces like Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream. (See a list of movies from the Blender Foundation on the Blender site.)

Few small businesses will need this kind of power, but Blender is on par with proprietary tools if you have need for 3D modeling and such. If you're running a small art shop, Blender should be part of your toolkit.

Blender is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and more. On the download page you'll also find "regression files" that are meant to test releases of Blender to ensure that updates don't break features artists have come to expect. But you can also use the files to get up to see how things are done with Blender. The application also has lots of docs to get you up to speed.

Clip Art Bonus

What's a set of graphics tools without clip art? If you're looking for some clip art, you could start with the Open Clip Art Library. The OCAL has a collection of clip art licensed under the Creative Commons Public Domain license. Essentially, anything in the OCAL should be entirely free to use, royalty free, in any project that you're working on.

Most of my graphics work consists of cropping photos in GIMP or using Inkscape to create simple graphics for presentations -- but the tools are capable of much more. Creating your own art to promote your business doesn't have to be expensive or difficult -- the tools are ready and waiting.

Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years covering IT. Formerly the openSUSE Community Manager for Novell, Brockmeier has written for Linux Magazine, Sys Admin, Linux Pro Magazine, IBM developerWorks, Linux.com, CIO.com, Linux Weekly News, ZDNet, and many other publications. Brockmeier is also a FLOSS advocate and participates in several projects, including GNOME as the PR team lead. You can reach Zonker at jzb@zonker.net and follow him on Twitter.

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