Most widely used graphic design software

Maya is great at modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering — its vast feature set includes particles, hair, solid body physics, cloth, fluid simulations and character animation. This level of power also comes at a price — a subscription to Maya doesn't come cheap. But for those who have the time, skill and patience to master it, Maya has some of the best 3D tools around and is a sound investment. Want to get started with Maya? Our selection of mighty Maya tutorials will help you take a step in the right direction.

ZBrush is a standalone sculpting and modelling app that is best suited to the creation of organic forms — although recent updates have gradually improved its hard-surface abilities.

ZBrush is a popular choice among artists wanting to 3D print toys and action figures, too, with tools specifically aimed at 3D printing. Widely used in the VFX industry for creating a range of 3D imagery, Houdini's node-based procedural approach provides digital artists with an unprecedented level of power, flexibility and control. Like Maya, this level of power and non-standard workflow can be tricky to get to grips with.

Fortunately, SideFX offers Houdini Apprentice, a free version of Houdini FX, which can be used by students, artists and hobbyists for personal non-commercial projects. The free version gives you access to virtually all of the features of the award-winning Houdini FX to develop your skills and for working on personal projects. The full-featured Houdini Indie also provides an affordable commercial option for small studios. Cinema 4D enjoys a thriving community with a huge online library of tutorials and how-tos — not to mention training site Cineversity, to which you get free membership when you buy the app or pay for the annual Maxon service agreement MSA.

It also boasts volumetric modelling, which is perfect if you don't have the time or skillset to create smooth solid forms. Check out the trial version, which gives you 14 days to experiment for free, and the free education version for students and teachers.

Like its sister software Maya, 3ds Max boasts a very robust toolset for 3D modelling, not to mention fluid simulations, hair and fur, plus character rigging and animation. It uses both direct manipulation and procedural modelling techniques, and a huge library of different modifiers makes the modelling process easier for new or intermediate 3D artists. However, students can get the software for free and a trial version is also available for 30 days.

Borne out of the development team behind LightWave 3D, Modo has grown from a basic subdivision surface modeller to the fully-featured digital content creation app we know today. Try Canva for Free Here. Adobe Illustrator is a graphics design software that is used to create advanced logos, images, and icons. Experts use this for online and mobile graphics, building animations, book illustrations, logo designing, packaging, and more.

The Adobe Creative Cloud offers an excellent collaborative option. Because it is vector-based, it can be used to generate visuals for everything from mobile phones to huge billboards. Price: 7 Day Trial available, followed by 3 types of monthly payment options.

Try Adobe Illustrator for Free Here. There are platform-specific variants of this drawing software. It allows for a smooth transition between desktop and online applications. As a result, no matter what device you choose to create with, the application will always perform to its maximum capacity. There are a plethora of functionality and customization options and only people with prior experience should choose this.

Price: Available in two options: 1. One Time payment 2. Annual Payment. There is a free 15 days trial available. Inkscape, like many of the other top graphic design software choices, employs the SVG format as its main file format.

With full support for multiple color modes, this is a suitable option for Illustrator both for print and online design. You may also modify the source code and disseminate your modifications to a large user community.

High-quality picture alteration, creative artwork production, and graphic design are all possible with it. The Krita project was started by the KDE community in An intuitive user interface that stays out of your way.

The dockers and panels can be moved and customized for your specific workflow. Once you have your setup, you can save it as your own workspace. You can also create your own shortcuts for commonly used tools. Over professionally made brushes that come preloaded. These brushes give a good range of effects so you can see the variety of brushes that Krita has to offer. With it's powerful tools and brilliant effects, Klex makes it easy to create stunning and memorable designs for your business, family and friends.

Klex runs with the same powerful engine that runs Gravit Designer. This means you have the same impressive technology from a professional tool, but simplified to be accessible to literally anyone who wants to produce amazing graphics. Professional design within your reach with just some clicks. Guaranteed headache-free, with all the freedom you need to make your perfect design. Create anything from social media posts, business cards, invitations, presentations, book covers and much more with our stunning preset layouts, or personalize them and have your professional looking design ready in just a few minutes!

Create engaging infographics and reports in minutes. More than 35 interactive charts and over maps to help you visualize data, including pie charts, bar graphs, column tables, and word clouds. Infogram is an intuitive visualization tool that empowers people and teams to create beautiful content.

Take your stories to the next level with object animations. Set objects to zoom, bounce, flip, fade, and slide effortlessly into your work. Powerful analytics gives you detailed viewer demographics, average on-screen rate, and how many people shared your content.

Venngae is offered free to students. Gravit Designer is a powerful vector graphics design software that you can use online or download and install on your computer. Despite being a full-featured design solution that you can use for personal and commercial purposes, it is offered at no cost at all. You can use it to make screen designs, presentations, high-quality icons, illustrations, app designs, and print materials.

It works on any platform or operating system, boasts of unmatched precision, offers structured content, comes with grids and auto-layouts, has multiple styles and effects, and provides a robust text engine. It is made for vector graphics and comes with advanced tools for sketches, presentations, and transformations, among others. It offers dozens of predefined dimensions or presets for easily making designs for print, social media covers and content, websites, tablets, and smartphones.

The software is highly customizable and comes with a simple but intuitive interface. PhotoScape gives you over a dozen design and editing functions in one on-premise package. It is an image editor, photo viewer, batch editor, page merger, animated GIF maker, photo splitter, screen capture tool, color picker, RAW converter, photo file renamer, and more. All these tools and functionalities are offered in a lightweight, responsive software that is completely free.

Simply download it from its official website and install it in your computer. While it has many helpful tools, the core feature of PhotoScape is its image editing and design module packed with several features for making adjustments in color, size, resolution, brightness, gamma, backlight, and more.

It has text, design, and drawing tools like filters, paintbrush, effects brush, and clone stamp, among others. It is cross-platform and works on Mac, Windows, and Linux machines. It is offered in several languages and comes with a separate but also free edition — PhotoScapeX — for Windows 10 computers. Easelly allows users to turn any bit of information into stylish infographics with customizable designs. Made for students and businesses of all scales, the dynamic visualization tool makes the creation of infographics simple through its intuitive interface.

Living up to its name, Easelly features a drag-and-drop interface that lets anyone produce appealing infographics; no background on web or graphic design required. The design templates are available for free. In fact, you can start downloading and customizing a wide array of templates when you visit its website. The platform also lets users collaborate in creating infographics. So, if you want to up the ante on the designs, you can work with a graphic designer remotely through the platform.

Easelly even offers graphic design services in case users are very particular with the visual style. The solution is popular among film and TV visual effects artists and professionals, along with game designers and developers of virtual reality games.

Uses include infrastructure and building design, construction, product development, and planning in the manufacturing sector.

Autodesk 3ds Max lets you create massively designed game worlds, characters, and building environments. It also allows for the animation of characters and the creation of scenes that contain them. This is especially useful in and beyond, as 3D is a cornerstone of graphic design trends as we head into the new decade. Onshape is a cloud-based design platform for 3D CAD, data management, and real-time collaboration.

It is intended for use by designers, manufacturers, and engineers, helping them and their team closely work together wherever they may be located since the software can be accessed from any web browser and used on any device. Onshape also comes with version tools and instant access to a single master CAD that eliminates the need for copying or duplicating files. Onshape provides cutting-edge parametric 3D modeling and comprehensive associative 2D drawings.

It allows for top-down design together with multi-part modeling and in-context editing. It offers a secure and centralized online database that allows authorized team members to see design changes made by colleagues. The software is free for educational use. Xara Designer Pro is a unified creative solution producing print and web designs.

It is an on-premise software for Windows PC but has a cloud add-on that allows you to edit and share your Xara files and projects using any web browser and device. The software boasts of speed and performance in renderings, creation, and adjustments. It has an array of tools for drawing, 3D extrude, text handling, blends, page layout, live effects, transparency and feathering, and shadows and contours. Aside from design tools, it has professional photo handling capabilities, web graphics and website creation and management features, and industry-standard compatibility.

Xara Designer Pro gives you a single integrated software for your graphic design requirements. No more using separate tools for image editing, illustrations, vector rendering, and web design. You get them all and more in one powerful package.