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GraphicsAcademy.com > Software > Choosing Illustration and Drawing Software

Choosing Illustration and Drawing Software

Illustration software is vector based drawing software for creating art and drawings. It is not generally orientated to creating accurate and precise technical drawings (for this purpose, CAD software is generally used instead) although some illustration software does come to meeting this need. Neither is it orientated towards to drawing structured diagrams such as organization charts or flowcharts (diagram drawing software is better for that). What illustration software is however generally very good is creating posters, signs, marketing materials, and so forth.

Here are some of the main illustration software packages you may wish to consider:

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a very powerful but relatively easy-to-use program that is available for both the Microsoft Windows operating system, and for Apple Macintosh computers. Illustrator is perhaps the best known software in this category/
Corel DESIGNER

Corel DESIGNER is technical drawing software for Microsoft Windows. It has many features orientated towards precision technical drawing, and as far as packages in the illustration category is concerned, is arguably the strongest one for those users need those types of features.

At the time of writing, Corel DESIGNER is sold in a package (Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X5) which includes CorelDRAW (see below), and several other graphics programs.
CorelDRAW Graphics Suite

CorelDRAW is a very powerful vector based drawing program for Microsoft Windows, that is in many ways comparable to Adobe Illustrator.

At the time of writing it is available at least two ways: firstly as a component of Corel DESIGNER Technical Suite X5, and secondly as the main component of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5. In both cases, several other excellent graphics programs (including a photo editor, a screen capture utility, and more), are also included with the package.

CorelDRAW:
Inkscape

Inkscape is an open source licensed drawing and illustration program available for Microsoft Windows, the Apple Macintosh, Linux.

Being open source, you can download, compile, and even modify the program yourself (although you would need programming skills to do the latter two) for free - or there are several commerciation distributions of Inkscape available. Commercial distributions of the program, typically include a clean and straightforward installation procedure, documentation and in some cases, additional extras or add-on items.

Inkscape:
MAGIX Photo and Graphic Designer

MAGIX/Xara Photo and Graphic Designer is an affordable illustration software package for Microsoft Windows. As well as features for creating vector drawings and illustrations, it also incorporates some features for manipulating photo images and even creating for creating SWF flash animations.
Serif DrawPlus

Serif DrawPlus is an illustration and drawing package for Microsoft Windows. Although entirely vector-based, it incorporates tools for creating artwork that appears that it has been created using natural media and tools such as oil paint and watercolor. As well as static illustrations, the program also incorporates features for generation animations in many different file formats including flash (SWF), GIF, MOV, AVI, and WMV.

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