graphic design on a budget - free and legal alternatives to paid apps to get you started.

It goes without saying that a lot of the graphic design industry heavily relies on Adobe and other comapnies as such, which have become a monopoly (basically took over the industry and became the main choices for the majority), and of course those programs are not free, quite the oppsite usually with a steep pricetag of hundreds per year being attached to it.

So, what should you do if you do not want/ cannot afford to fork out the money? Lucky for you, there are plenty of free alternatives available out there for some of your needs, while they may not be the exact 1:1 quality those paid programs offer, they can get the job done if you are on a tight budget:

Photoshop ---> Paint.net (Image Editing)

Link to the official paint.net site can be found here

Paint.net is a free photo editing and manipulation software, allowing the user to get quite similar functionalities one may get out of Photoshop, while it lacks some of the fancier features. I myself have used this for years, and for some smaller jobs it has done the job without an issue. Paint.net is entirely free and does not contain any adverts or subscription models or anything of the sort, which is why I have made it my top choice as a Photoshop alternative.

Procreate ---> Krita (Sketching)

Link to the official Krita website can be found here

Procreate is a widely popular drawing app designed for the iPad, allowing the user to access functionalities such as layering, manipulation, hundreds of brushes with the option to download more, etc., but all that also comes at a pricetag. The best alternative that has costed me nothing has been Krita, using it for some of my degree coursework has proven it to be adequate for basic sketches that I have done, but have seen some of my more gifted friends using it to draw complex pieces, which leads me to believe this is one of the best free drawing apps on the market right now.

Premiere Pro ---> iMovie

This is only available for Mac, but seeing as I am a MacBook user, I found iMovie to be a fitting alternative for Adobe Premiere Pro, sharing similar core functionality as the paid program, it allowed me to carry out basic to intermediate edits on my footage and create work of good quality. iMovie is included free of charge with any Apple device, including iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks, and tends to not only be free but also very easy to get into, making it my top choice as a free alternative.

There are plenty of other alternatives out there I could write about, but the best way to find something that suits your needs is to go out and look; that is how I stumbled upon all of these. There are plenty of other posts and even communities dedicated to finding free alternatives for so much software.