Learn Computer Graphics for Free!

Fun, Free, Educational Graphics Software for All Ages

Teaching yourself graphics and computer animation doesn't have to cost a fortune with this collection of free software.� Just download it, install it, and start messing around wiht the features. Learning how to find answers is part of learning, so I'm not providing explicit download and installation instructions. Help is available from the user and developer community, user forums, and the software's help files.� Be sure to look at the galleries for inspiration.

What's included: This collection is for graphics creation, not photo editing, although some of the software can incorporate digital photos. Check the system requirements, because they vary from program to program.

Basic information: There are two kinds of graphics images for computers: vector-based or pixel-based.� Vector-based images are drawn on your screen with a text-based language that tells the software to "draw a red line from here to over there".� Pixel-based images are colored dots on screen.� The file they are stored in has information for all of those dots.

InkScape
Inkscape Website

InkScape is vector-based graphics software similar to Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, and CorelDraw. InkScape uses the W3C's standard scalable vector graphics format (SVG).� The supported SVG features include basic objects. In addition, it supports Creative Commons meta-data, node-editing, layers, complex path operations, text-on-path, and SVG XML editing. It also imports several formats like EPS, Postscript, JPEG, PNG, BMP, and TIFF and exports PNG as well as several vector-based formats.

What you can learn:� InkScape uses bezier curves, control nodes, text manipulation, layers, shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, and grouping.