Inkscape kicks Illustrator's butt

1 - I can do better 2 - Jury's out 3 - Pretty darn good 4 - Splendiferous 5 - Awesometastic by 3 people | Log in to rate

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HERE'S WHAT I THINK

Inkscape kicks Illustrator's butt

Now don't get me wrong... Illustrator is a fine program that's been around many years... but that's part of the problem. It's a tremendously bloated application at this point, it's very space/memory hungry, and even on a relatively new system, it can lag quite a bit when working on a large illustration.

Inkscape, by comparison, has come quite a ways in the last few years -- every release is more and more stable, stronger than the last and adding more features. The shape/vector optimization in inkscape is excellent, as is the trace functionality.

Did I mention that it's free?
Did I mention that it's open source?
And that it runs on Windows, OS X *and* Linux?

From the Blogs: Inkscape Rocks 

Inkscape .47 rocks « mairin
Open up a piece of vector artwork in Inkscape and select it. Then go to paths > path effects, it'll open up a palette on the right. From the drop down pick the 'sketch' affect and hit the 'add' button to apply it. ...
reihu: #Inkscape RoCkS: i just imported a pdf page generated by ...
#Inkscape RoCkS: i just imported a pdf page generated by confusing php code that will be replaced by a prepared-svg parsing php file soon :)
Inkscape on FLOSS Weekly
Inkscape rock stars Jon A. Cruz and Ted Gould are on the latest episode on FLOSS Weekly. Check it out. http://www.twit.tv/floss76.

What can Inkscape do that Illustrator cannot? 

(from the Inkscape Wiki)


  • Edit SVG source directly

  • Clones, tiled clones, edit clones on canvas

  • Keys to move/rotate/scale by screen pixels

  • Shapes as objects

  • Edit gradients with handles on-canvas

  • Edit nodes with keyboard

  • One-click paint bucket fill

  • Color painting over objects

What can Illustrator do that Inkscape cannot? 

(from the Inkscape Wiki)

  • Gradient meshes

  • Multiple strokes and fills for one object

  • Color management for print (ICC Profiles, etc.)

  • PMS color

  • Natively work with graphs based on data

  • Free transform and perspective transform (only via extension)

  • Blends (only via extension)

YOUR TURN! 

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