Graphics Programs-New

There are many nice graphics programs that are available for Linux. The granddaddy of freeware graphics programs is Gimp, and to illustrate it's popularity, it has a large community that use, create plugins, and develop the Gimp programs.
One of the best 3D programs available regardless of platform is Maya. This is a very expensive, professional 3D rendering program. It is one of the programs of choice for movie animators. The last time that I checked their web site Maya had a non-commercial freeware version available for download, alas, only for Windows, not for Linux.
PhotoPaint 9 for Linux is another free graphics/photo editing program. It may be somewhat hard to find since Corel isn't supporting the Linux version anymore, but it is a decent photo editing program, and worth checking out.
Krita is a new program, and it is being developed for KOffice. It looks pretty basic at this point, but I like their philosophy- make the program easy to use. I like gimp, but all of the floating tool bars can be confusing, and irritating, when you are learning the program.
There are many graphics programs available for Linux. Most of them are free, and many of them are still fairly new so don't expect the advanced features of the mature programs, but if you have a need to edit photos, or create graphics, and you don't want to spend a fortune to do it, check out some of the available programs.


	Gimp is the the most popular freeware graphics program bar none. It has been around a long time, and has many users and supporters. Gimp is used for photo editing, but there are a wide range of plugins that will allow you to create web graphics, banners and buttons. You can download the program at here. There is also a manual, Grokking the Gimp, that is available for download. There are links to other Gimp sites that include tutorials and plugins. There are books available at your local Boarders (or what ever) book store. There are different version of Gimp. One version is called Gimp for the movies, it was used to make Stuart Little's fur look real in the Stuart Little sequel. Gimp does take a little getting use to, but once you've gotten use to right clicking on the image to edit it you're half way there. In case you were wondering what all of the different banners look like here is an example. These are created with the default colors, but the colors are changeable.
	Blender is an amazing 3D rendering program. It is also a free program for the downloading. Like Gimp, Blender has a lot of users and supporters on the web. Unfortunately the company that makes Blender went belly up, but they have decided to release the source code under GLP. The program is still available for downloading, and I have found several sites that offer well-written tutorials on using blender. This is very helpful since the interface is confusing to say the least. Check it out here: www.blender3d.com
	PhotoPaint is another free Corel program. You can't find it directly on the Corel website, but if you do a Google search, you can find links to the original Corel web pages, where you can download it. This is actually a pretty decent program. Like Gimp, it is similar to Photoshop. The interface is slicker than Gimp, but it is not as powerful. As far as I can tell Photopaint does not have the following that Gimp has. Corel has released Photopaint 11 for Windows, but don't expect a Linux version. I have used it for basic photo editing and it works great.
	I just discovered this program while cruising the KOffice website. This is a new raster based drawing and photo editing program. Since this program is still in early stages of developement, it is not as powerful as Gimp. It is designed for ease of use, so for a beginner that does not need a lot of power, this might be a very handy program.