How To Get Free Photoshop and Illustrator?
Posted March 20, 2009 by Mister Knowitall

I’d really like to do some professional graphics, but I need pro tools and I’m broke. Can you tell me how to get free Photoshop software or free Illustrator software?

Over the years, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator have become industry standards among graphics professionals. The way to get Photoshop for free or get Illustrator for free would be to try to download a cracked Photoshop or a cracked Illustrator off a peer-to-peer file sharing network or via bittorrent, but when you do that, you take huge risks of getting other software you don’t want installed along with them. On top of that, it’s illegal and can carry penalties if you’re caught.

The thing many people don’t know is there are programs that are being given away that make it almost like you’re getting Photoshop for free.

The gimp is not just a character in Pulp Fiction. It’s also a short for the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. It’s a professional-grade photo and bitmap editor and is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms. Because Photoshop was limited to the Mac/Windows world, this grew up not out of a desire to unseat the reigning champ as some open source software has, but to meet a real need among people using Linux and BSD systems.

If you do your research, you may see people complaining that it doesn’t support 32-bit color and therefore it’s not nearly as good as Photoshop. You can get a CMYK plug-in for GIMP if you really need it, but you only need 32-bit color for 32-bit color applications, like 4-color printing by professional printers. You can start with GIMP and always add the CMYK plug-in when you actually need it. You’ll likely find you don’t need it.

If you need more native 32-bit color support and you’re on Linux, BSD, or Mac, there’s CinePaint. This is an offshoot of the GIMP that has dedicated software developers making it more friendly and useful for people working in the film industry with more support for industry-standard file formats, 32-bit color and more. The drawback is it’s not available for Windows.

If you want GIMP to be more of a free Photoshop clone, you can always get GIMPShop. GIMPShop arranges the GIMP functionality into a more Photoshop style interface. If you’re used to working with Photoshop or you’re trying to learn graphics so you might get a job where Photoshop is used, this is a good option. And like the GIMP, it’s available for Linux, Mac and Windows.

But not every graphic is a photo. While a photo/bitmap format file stores the colors of dots, a vector format file stores the color, thickness, and geometry of lines and shapes. This format is often used for clip-art because it can be moved, squeezed, stretched, and even enlarged to billboard sizes without suffering any degradation in quality. This is the kind of stuff Adobe Illustrator is best for.

If you can’t afford Illustrator, Inkscape is like getting Illustrator for free. While it does not have as many import filters and export filters as Illustrator (working mostly with the SVG file format), its drawing tools are top notch. In fact, I find it easier to draw in than Illustrator. I’ve drawn things like a suicidal giraffe and a cartoon zombie face. Inkscape is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and there are thousands of free SVG format clipart images you can use or edit in it available at the Open Clip Art Library.

If you want to get PhotoShop for free or get Illustrator for free, you can go the piracy route, but you better be ready to accept all the possible consequences ranging from spyware to viruses to Adobe coming after you, or you can try out these free alternatives which may take a little learning, but can give you professional quality results.

Tags: Software