1. The amateur or enthusiast cannot afford the professional grade software, and piracy is not a valid alternative.
2. Free software can do most if not all of what an amateur or enthusiast wants to do, and if it doesn’t, you didn’t waste any money on it anyway.

So here’s a list of the best free software for your digital art needs, divided into the categories of Illustration, Animation & 3d, Video, Audio, Interactive, and Other. No trial or shareware crap, but real free software.

As always, with free software there’s a good chance you might not get all the features or stability that you want, but at the very least you can use it as a springboard to learn or generate some income with which you can buy the professional software, and at most you’ll never have to pay for digital art applications again.

Note: Not all of these applications are available for all operating systems, so do your research before you download anything.

Illustration

GIMP

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

GIMPshop

GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

It shares all GIMP’s advantages, including the long feature list and customisability, while addressing some common criticisms regarding the program’s interface: GIMPshop modifies the menu structure to closely match Photoshop’s, adjusts the program’s terminology to match Adobe’s, and, in the Windows version, uses a plugin called ‘Deweirdifier’ to combine the application’s numerous windows in a similar manner to the MDI system used by most Windows graphics packages. While GIMPshop does not support Photoshop plugins, all GIMP’s own plugins, filters, brushes, etc. remain available.

Due to the changes to the interface, many Photoshop tutorials can be followed in GIMPshop unchanged, and most others can be adapted for GIMPshop users with minimal effort.

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.

Pixen

Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac. It’s designed from top to bottom for pixel artists—people who make low-resolution raster art like the sprites you see in old video games. But it’s great for artists of all arenas: Pixen is like a very powerful MSPaint or a simpler, more agile Photoshop. And best of all, it’s Free!

Xara Xtreme for Linux

Formely known as Xara LX, it is based on Xara Xtreme for Windows, which is the fastest graphics program available, period. The Xara Xtreme source code was made available open-source in early 2006,  Xara Xtreme for Linux is available for download now.
Xara Xtreme for Linux is a powerful, general purpose graphics program for Unix platforms including Linux, FreeBSD and (in development) OS-X.

• Is very fast, very slick to use.
• Offers some of the most powerful graphics tools available.
• Is simple to use and learn.
• Has a clean, un-cluttered user interface. Few floating dialogs, palettes, menus etc.
• Is able to create a huge range of outstanding graphics.
• Has a huge resource of learning material, tutorials, movies, tips and a very active enthusiastic and growing user community.

SUMO Paint

Sumo Paint is a new web based image editor. This free software does not require any installation to function. All you need is a computer with network connection. With Sumo Paint you can create, edit and save images into your computer or to your Sumo account. Sumo Paint has all the basic tools for editing and drawing spectacular images. In addition there are a bunch of unique and advanced features for more professional image editing. For example the Gravity tool combined with the Symmetry option makes creating imposing art a breeze.

Inkscape

Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format. While Inkscape does not have all the features of the leading vector editors, the latest versions provide for a large portion of basic vector graphics editing capabilities. People report successfully using Inkscape in a lot of very different projects (web graphics, technical diagrams, icons, creative art, logos, maps). For example, thousands of images on Wikipedia are created with Inkscape, as is the majority of the content on openclipart; many examples of Inkscape art can be seen here and here.

Animation & 3d

Synfig

Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. Synfig eliminates the task of manual tweening, producing smooth, fluid motion without the animator having to draw out each frame individually. This allows you to produce 2D animation with fewer people while producing art of a higher quality.

Blender

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.

Wings 3d

Wings 3D is a free and open source polygon mesh subdivision modeler inspired by Nendo and Mirai from Izware, all using the winged edge data structure. It is available for most platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, using the Erlang environment.
Wings 3D is ideally suited for modeling and texturing low to medium density polygon meshes. It has a wide range of very effective tools optimised for these tasks hidden behind its ‘minimalistic’ interface.

MakeHuman

MakeHuman (c) is completely free, innovative and professional software for the modelling of 3-Dimensional characters. The features that make this software unique are the new tetra-parametric GUI (c) components and the Natural Pose System (c), for advanced muscular simulation. Using MakeHuman a photorealistic character can be modeled in less than 2 minutes; MakeHuman is released under an Open Source Licence, and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

POV-Ray

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics. It is available in official versions for Windows, Mac OS/Mac OS X and i86 Linux. The source code is available for those wanting to do their own ports.

Video

Cinelerra-CV

Cinelerra is a free and open source software non-linear video editing system. It is designed for the GNU/Linux operating system, but has also been successfully ported to Mac OS X. No support is provided for any version of Microsoft Windows. It is produced by Heroine Virtual, and is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Cinelerra also includes a video compositing engine, allowing the user to perform common compositing operations such as keying and mattes. CV stands for Community Version. The CV has a number of features that the official version of Cinerella does not have. Cinelerra CV can be defined as the community’s attempt to stabilise the official release and to add enhancement in a community fashion.

CinePaint

CinePaint is a deep paint image retouching tool that supports higher color fidelity than ordinary painting tools. CinePaint is used to retouch feature films and in pro photography. CinePaint opens high fidelity image file formats such as DPX, 16-bit TIFF, and OpenEXR, and conventional formats like JPEG and PNG. It has a flipbook for movie playback of image sequences in RAM. It supports 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit color channels, HDR and CMS. CinePaint is used for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching, dirt removal, wire rig removal, render repair, background plates, and painting 3D model textures. It’s been used on many feature films, including The Last Samurai where it was used to add flying arrows. For still photography, CinePaint can import bracketed HDR exposures. It has gallery-quality 16-bit per channel color printing with GutenPrint. CinePaint’s high dynamic range is crucial with B&W still photography, where images only have a single channel.

Avidemux

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities. Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome.

Audio

Audacity

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

• Record live audio.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
• Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
• And more! See the complete list of features.

Hydrogen

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It’s main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

Ardour

Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound.

Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-destructive editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a powerful mixer, unlimited tracks/busses/plugins, timecode synchronization, and hardware control from surfaces like the Mackie Control Universal. If you’ve been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Pyramix, or Sequoia, you might have found it.

MilkyTracker

MilkyTracker is an open source, multi-platform music application for creating .MOD and .XM module files. It attempts to recreate the module replay and user experience of the popular DOS program Fasttracker II, with special playback modes available for improved Amiga ProTracker 2/3 compatibility.

Interactive

Pure Data

Pd (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. It is the third major branch of the family of patcher programming languages known as Max (Max/FTS, ISPW Max, Max/MSP, jMax, etc.) originally developed by Miller Puckette and company at IRCAM. The core of Pd is written and maintained by Miller Puckette and includes the work of many developers, making the whole package very much a community effort.

Pd was created to explore ideas of how to further refine the Max paradigm with the core ideas of allowing data to be treated in a more open-ended way and opening it up to applications outside of audio and MIDI, such as graphics and video.

Processing

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used by students, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It is created to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as a software sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.

Other

FontForge

FontForge is an outline font editor that lets you create your own postscript, truetype, opentype, cid-keyed, multi-master, cff, svg and bitmap (bdf, FON, NFNT) fonts, or edit existing ones. Also lets you convert one format to another. FontForge has support for many macintosh font formats.

celtx

Celtx is the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production software. It has everything you need to take your story from concept to production. Celtx replaces ‘paper, pen & binder’ pre-production with a digital approach that’s more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.

Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio. A multimedia creation flavor of Ubuntu. Ubuntu Studio is aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video and graphic enthusiast as well as professional. We provide a suite of the best open-source applications available for multimedia creation. Completely free to use, modify and redistribute. Your only limitation is your imagination…

Did I miss anything? Drop a comment to let me know.