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ArcHub: Graphic Art

Free resources and open-source creative tools

Reference & Instruction

  • How To Think When You Draw [website] - blog and books by the Etherington brothers
  • Dimensions.com - an ongoing reference database of dimensioned drawings documenting the standard measurements and sizes of the everyday objects and spaces that make up our world.

Drawing & Painting Tools

  • Krita.org [software] - a professional FREE and open source painting program made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.
  • MyPaint.app - an easy, nimble, and distraction-free tool for painting and sketching from scratch
  • Paintroid/PocketPaint [app] - a graphical paint editor application for the Android platform
  • Excalidraw - Generic, intuitive, in-browser sketching tool for quick concepting.
  • Akira - Offline generic sketching tool, also great for concepting.
  • DrawPile - collaborative drawing program that lets multiple people draw, sketch, paint and animate on the same canvas simultaneously
  • Paint Brushes [video - yt] by How To Make Everything

Photography Tools

  • GNU Image Manipulation Program [software] - One of the most popular Photoshop alternatives with an impressive feature set and versatility.
  • RapidRAW - Modern, high-performance Lightroom alternative with a beautiful interface.
  • Darktable - Virtual lightroom and darktable for photographers, allows for processing of raw image files.
  • RawTherapee - Like Darktable with a steeper learning curve, but with excellent HDR and tonemapping capability.
  • ART - A popular fork of RawTherapee with the purpose of simplifying the UI while keeping functionality in tact.
  • DigiKam - Tool for sorting and organizing expansive collections of photos, with batch editing features.
  • Immich - Self-hostable image and video management solution.
  • Memories - A beautiful Nextcloud app that provides a private and powerful, self-hosted photo management suite.
  • Photoprism - AI-powered application for advanced photo organization and easy sharing.
  • HDRView - High-dynamic range image viewer for viewing and comparing images with support for many file types, 10-bit displays, and Apple EDR.
  • Siril - Advanced astronomical image processing for space photographers. Provides calibration, enhancement, and more.
  • Hugin - Panoramic imaging toolchain for stitching photos together.
  • Curtail - Handy image compressor for Linux.
  • pngquant - Efficient command line utility for compressing PNG files.

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