A visually appealing site is a dream of both a website owner as well as a user. The real task is of the graphic and web designers to make the dream turn into reality. It is possible with best graphic design software.

Gone are the days when people only indulged in reading content online. Nowadays, more than words, the site should look interesting in the first place. In fact, with eye-catching visuals and gripping content, the user gets convinced to stay on the website and use it, especially in the case of eCommerce sites. That is to say, graphics play a major role in shaping the outlook of your website. Thus, as a graphic designer, this is your territory and you are the king. So, it is your responsibility to bring something interesting for the viewers. However, in order to create a website with such intriguing visuals, you will require graphic design software tools that will help you reinforce images, models, and text that is to be shown on the website. Well, if you’re a newbie in the field of graphic designing, you are at the right place. Since here at TemplateToaster web design software blog, you can check out the list of essential graphic design software for beginners (both paid and free) that will render a professional look to your website graphics.

List of the best Graphic design software (2021)

1. PhotoShop 2. GIMP 3. Illustrator 4. Inkscape 5. CorelDraw 6. Adobe InDesign 7. Serif Drawplus 8. Xara Xtreme 9. Coral paintshop 10. Coral photoimpact

Graphic design software for graphic designers (Review)

1. Photoshop – graphic design software

Photoshop graphic design softwareThe road led to photo editing was never so interesting. The automatic options infuse life into your images. You will able to craft beautiful designs with Photoshop that become ‘the talk of the town’ in minutes. However, with Photoshop graphic design software you can easily combine multiple images to make a beautiful amalgamation. Moreover, it provides you the features to remove unwanted objects from the image. You can use its basic features like perspective correction, channel mixing, and clone stamp tool and have a stunning piece of design in a couple of minutes. Photoshop runs smoothly both on Windows and Mac operating systems. In fact, Photoshop is also considered one of the best graphic design software for beginners as it comes with many simplified options.

  • Basic: Cropping, straightening, rotating and flipping.
  • Auto-Fix: One touch adjustment.
  • Blemish Removal: Ability to remove any spot or dirt from the image.
  • Colour: Slide controls to enhance the colors of the image.
  • One-Touch filter: 20 eye-catching effects to choose from.
  • Image Rendering: Panoramic image option.
  • Borders: Add your personal touch.
  • RAW photo support: RAW format support.
  • Sharing: via sites like Facebook, Revel, Twitter, Tumblr, and more.

Pros of graphic design software

  • Video editing is smooth.
  • The crop tool is quite effective.
  • Performance is highly improved.

Cons

  • No perpetual license.
  • The interface is crushing.
  • Some tools lack progress bar visibility.

Grab Adobe Photoshop

2. GIMP

GIMP graphic design softwareGIMP or GNU Image Manipulation Program is the perfect alternative to Adobe Photoshop. In fact, the professional graphic design tools make it ideal for not just graphic designers but photographers as well. The photo manipulation feature of this software is highly used to craft crystal-clear graphics. However, once you start using GIMP, it will definitely achieve the pedestal of being your main desktop publishing tool. The GIMP interface is totally customizable. On the other hand, the full-screen mode allows you to view and edit at the same time. However, it does not include all the extensive features. But, there are many notable features that will provide you a great designing experience. GIMP runs on GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows, and other OS. Being a cross-compatible graphic design software program, it has a strong support community. This is, hands down, one of the prime choices when selecting the best graphic design software for beginners. You can check the difference GIMP vs Photoshop

Pros of graphic design tool

  • The UI is bright and modern.
  • Very easy to use.
  • Comes with single windows usage.

Cons

  • Have a few bugs.
  • Struggles with Cintiq tablets in the initial stage.

 

3. Illustrator – best graphic design software for beginners

Illustrator graphic design softwareIf you want to use vector art to create logos, sketches, typography, icons or even complex illustrations for videos or mobile then Illustrator is the tool for you. You can create artwork with seamless alignment by drawing pixel-perfect shapes. With Illustrator designing could never be faster. Illustrator comes with its own plugins that help in making a blank web page into a brilliant looking web page. Some plugins are made for older versions of Ai and have a zest of new features for new versions like Creative Cloud, making it an ideal and best graphic design software. Being part of Creative Cloud, you get to use the app on both your desktop and Mac. You may read Indesign vs Illustrator, Coreldraw vs Illustrator, Illustrator vs Photoshop, Lightroom vs Photoshop , Affinity designer vs Illustrator and Coreldraw vs Photoshop.

Pros of graphic design software

  • Touch-type tool is awesome.
  • The Free Transform tool is very simple to use.
  • Availability for Windows and Mac.

Cons

  • The price is high.

Grab Adobe Illustrator

4. Inkscape

Inkscape graphic design softwareInkscape is a professional tool ideal for vector art lovers and graphic designers who use SVG file format. The tool is perfect for Windows, Linux, OS, and Mac as well. It doesn’t matter whether you are a professional or just a person who wants to create vector images for a personal blog. In terms of sketching, coloring or making illustrations Inkscape is very easy to use. With the Ghostscript extension .eps files are easily readable. You can check difference between Inkscape vs Illustrator. Inkscape also comes with awesome features like:

  • Ability to directly edit the source code.
  • Keys to move screen pixels.
  • Edit clones on the canvas.
  • Edit gradients.
  • Fill paint-bucket with one click.

Pros

  • Absolutely free.
  • Endless Filters.
  • New effect tools as a bonus.

Cons

  • Extremely slow.

 

5. CorelDraw

Corel graphic design softwareAre you an aspiring web designer and looking for a graphics editor that gives you the ability to create infinite designs without any restrictions while honing your skills at the same time? If so, you might want to check out CorelDraw, a vector graphics editor, that is hands down one of the most popular Industry Standard editors presently. CorelDraw has some cool productive functions and such an ease of use that no other vector editor can match up to. However, the tool gives you full control so you can get fast and dynamic results. With CorelDraw version X5 and above, you get an inbuilt organizer (Corel CONNECT) also. With tools like Twirl, Smear, Repel and Attract – vector object editing was never so easy. Likewise, the Alignment guide enables you to position objects as per your requirement. CorelDraw works smoothly with large files in Corel Photo-Paint, making it a must-have in the graphic design software list. In fact, it also supports apps like Barcode wizard, Duplexing wizard, Bitstream Font Navigator, etc. Check out more about CorelDRAW.

Pros

  • The interface customization is ideal.
  • The design is very fresh.
  • The training videos are very helpful.
  • Choose from perpetual license or subscription.
  • The right-click gives awesome vectorization.
  • Shaping docker gives maximum usage.

Cons

  • No Mac version.
  • Tools are hard to learn for newbies.
  • Navigation is not easy.
  • Navigation board is not visible.
  • The freehand brush is hard to use.