Inkscape vs GIMP: Complete Comparison for New Users

taking a peek into the world of graphic design for the first time can be a bit overwhelming there's a lot to learn in terms of design principles color theory techniques and branding in general but if you want to create digital art then you first have to familiarize yourself with the tools that we use as graphic designers as of right now the industry standard is the adobe creative suite with applications like photoshop and illustrator leading the way these programs cost a lot of money though and they come with some pretty daunting hardware requirements this can be a bit off-putting for someone who just has a casual passing interest in graphic design and because of this you may find yourself looking into free alternatives like inkscape and and wondering what the differences are in this video i'll be comparing both applications going over what their intended uses are the pros and cons of each and most importantly i'll be helping you determine which one is best for you this is nick with logosbynic.com and in this video we'll be doing a comprehensive comparison of both inkscape and the first thing you need to understand about inkscape and is that although they're both free and open source design applications they're actually quite different comparing inkscape versus is no way an apples to apples comparison they're two very different tools with very different intentions let's have a closer look despite the various different types of graphic formats that exist in the world the types we'll be looking at in this video are raster and vector and it's important to understand the differences between these two because they both represent the intended uses for inkscape and rasterization is a digital imagery format where the image is made of individual colored boxes known as pixels and it's the format that you're probably most familiar with this is commonly used in things like photos jpegs and other types of imagery you commonly see on the web the raster format is preferred if you're going to do any kind of design work where you'll be editing photographs but it's not ideal for things like illustrations and designs where you need clean lines and crisp edges vector graphics on the other hand are a different type of imagery format altogether vector graphics are not made of pixels they're a series of coordinate points that dictate the properties of a graphic on an x and y axis this makes vector graphics ideal for things like illustrations and designs where you need to have crisp definitive edges but it's not the ideal format for working with photos where inkscape and come into play is that is intended for working with raster imagery making it ideal for editing photos and inkscape is a vector graphics editor making it ideal for creating digital illustrations let's take a more in-depth look at this is a free and open source application that functions in the raster environment and it's widely recognized as the go-to free alternative for adobe photoshop which stands for general image manipulation program was originally founded in 1995 by developers spencer kimball and peter mattis who were both students at uc berkeley at the time according to wikipedia it was a semester-long project they were working on for the experimental computing facility as the years went by continued to evolve as it saw lots of updates and new features from a bustling community of users and supporters believe it or not was actually used to create the original google logo in 1998 so keep that in mind for the next time that somebody wants to tell you that professional work can't be done with open source software would be the ideal program for you if you're a photographer looking to retouch your photos it allows you to adjust things like the white balance the exposure color saturation and it allows for some complex color correction using curves and levels as well it even has some cool features that allow you to do things like alter the shadows and highlights of a photograph as well as the brightness and contrast would also be ideal if you're just looking to crop an image or maybe crop something from an image and remove the background there's some really advanced tools and features that allow you to extract subjects from your photos even if they have strands of hair and other fine details that make it difficult to define you can also use to make some quick and easy corrections to subtle imperfections like skin blemishes and yellow teeth you can change the color of someone's eyes create different color variations for a product that you may be selling and you can even restore color to black and white photos and by the way i have lessons demonstrating how to do all of these things on my channel if you want to check that out isn't just used for editing photos though you can also use it to create some pretty cool effects to interact with your photos like a sliced effect mosaic collages 3d text and you could even turn yourself into a caricature if you'd like finally is the right tool for you if you do a lot of sketching painting or airbrushing it comes equipped with lots of brushes and presets attended for freehand drawing whether it be by mouse or with a drawing tablet you can even download brushes that were intended for photoshop and use them in and if you can't find the brush you're looking for you can simply create a custom brush of your own although is a great tool it's not the right tool for everything a good example of this would be for designing things like logos symbols and other types of simple iconic illustrations these things have lots of individual moving parts that you need to regularly move around and transform independent of the rest of the image and the way that functions just isn't suitable for this sort of thing it can technically be done but it's kind of like using a fork to eat your cereal you're making life a little more difficult for yourself than it needs to be because there's better tools that you can use another problem with using is that by nature the designs you create will not be scalable you can scale down without a problem but if you try to enlarge your image you're going to end up with pixelation or in other words the individual colored boxes that make up the image are going to become more visible this reduces the quality and resolution of the image if you want a more dynamic graphic that can be scaled to fit many different sizes and applications then it's best to stick with vectors let's talk a little bit about inkscape now unlike inkscape doesn't work with pixels it's a vector graphics editor and it's widely recognized as the best free alternative to adobe illustrator inkscape started out as a code fork for sodipode an open source vector graphics editor that was discontinued in 2004. the project was led by developers ted gould bryce harrington nathan hearst and another developer who goes by the name mental guy inkscape has come a long way since then they've added lots of useful features like live path effects text manipulation and various third-party extensions the core functionality of inkscape remains the same though so you never quite feel like you have to relearn anything despite all of the additions and improvements inkscape would be the best tool to use for designing logos logo design is unique from other types of design because logos are typically used in a wider variety of contexts a logo needs to be scaled up large enough to work as a sign and resize to fit various different dimensions one of the benefits of working with vector graphics is that they can be scaled up infinitely without quality loss this means that you can take your logo and enlarge it for use on a billboard or the side of a van without having to worry about pixelation the vector format is the best platform for providing a logo with the versatility that it needs inkscape is also useful when it comes to creating simple illustrations like icons buttons and user interface inkscape makes it easy to work with simple shapes and objects that can be combined and transformed into whatever you like you can also adjust the coordinate points of an object otherwise known as nodes to create your custom shapes another thing inkscape is great for is creating digital illustrations mascots and characters with a cartoon-like style this can technically be done with as well but the vector format allows you to give your illustrations clean crisp and definitive lines making inkscape the ideal tool for this and if you're creating characters for a 2d game design then you're going to need the scalable benefit of working with vectors as well inkscape would also be the best tool for designing graphics for mobile applications like app icons splash screens buttons and various other types of user interface the vector format is great for this because it provides the versatility needed for these designs to fit any screen resolution without quality loss finally the illustrative nature of inkscape allows you to create some other unique types of designs like infographics charts and repeatable background tiles with an abstract pattern one of the downsides of inkscape is that you can only work with photos in a very limited capacity since inkscape is intended for creating vector designs there's really not much you can do with rasterized photographs you can create clipping paths to remove the background or even use them as a texture mask if you like but that's about it if you're looking to do any kind of extensive photo editing you're better off sticking with another downside to using inkscape is that it's not ideal for doing any kind of painting or sketching there are tools that allow you to paint and sketch in inkscape but they should only be used in a limited capacity the way that vector graphics works is that you'll put a lot of strain on your hardware if you create too many brush strokes and the file size will be enormous not only that but you won't get all of the brush settings and realistic textures that you get with something like the application that you should use when choosing between inkscape and depends entirely on the type of design work you're doing if you're working with a lot of photos you should probably stick to but if you're creating simple illustrations then you're better off with inkscape one software is not objectively better than the other it depends entirely on the context of what you're designing if you're wondering if it's more important to learn one over the other it's not they're both equally important as a graphic designer you should familiarize yourself with both vector and raster design knowing how to work with both allows you to create some really dynamic designs combining elements from both inkscape and and it'll make you a more complete designer as well if you'd like to learn more about inkscape and i have hundreds of tutorials on this channel that will walk you through each step in such a way that even a first-time user could follow along i also have video courses for each application where i go through every tool and feature and explain how it all works and that should do it for today's video if you have any questions for which software you should use for a particular type of design that i may not have covered in this video just leave a comment below and as always thanks for watching you

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 87,432

Rating: 4.9735036 out of 5

Keywords: inkscape, gimp, inkscape vs gimp, logos by nick, logosbynick, nick saporito

Id: NKDkCyL7vKM

Length: 10min 50sec (650 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020