So first off, I have absolutely no problem with paying for software. I just like to pay one time and own it (or not pay anything if possible). For music making, I use Logic Pro and love it. One thing I love the most about it is that I don't have to continually pay for it each month. I paid one time like 10 years ago and I can still use it to this day.

That's what I majorly dislike about Adobe. I've had Creative Cloud on and off, but I cancelled it again recently. So I'm back to the open source offerings, which are honestly pretty good. They're VERY good actually. Here's what I use:

1. The Gimp

The simplest way to describe what this does is that it's a raster image (pixel based) editing software. It's not a 1:1 replacement for Photoshop, but there's a lot of overlap in what they give you. Now, I'll admit. The Gimp's user experience can be kinda frustrating sometimes, but in more recent versions it has got a lot better. Considering what Photoshop costs and that this is free and maintained by an awesome group of software developers who don't get paid. I'd say it's amazing. The Gimp is great for:

• Editing photos or raster images (any image made up of pixels)
• Adding text overlays to images
• Compositing images with layer overlays

It can do more than that, but that's basically what I use it for.

2. Blender

Blender is a 3d modeling and animation software. Also free and open source. Kinda like The Gimp, it used to be kinda tough for beginners to navigate, but it's also gotten a lot better in recent versions. Also, there's literally a ton of free tutorials all over the internet for how to do stuff in Blender. A great place to start is on Youtube. There's this guy who show's you how to make a donut. Forgot his name but his tutorials are great. There are a ton of other people with great ones too. So yeah, Blender is basically for:

• Making 3d models and scenes
• Making 3d animations

Even if you're not trying to be a '3d Artist', Making 3d stuff is a great skill to have because you can make your own assets for designs and illustrations. It's also a great tool for easily testing out different lighting setups for illustrations and stuff. As far as what 'paid' software it replaces, tbh. I've never used any other 3d software but maybe Cinema 4d? Actual Cinema 4d users would have to weigh in on that though.

3. Inkscape

Inkscape is for vector creation and editing, so it's most like Adobe Illustrator. I think you can do some basic vector stuff in The Gimp just like you can with Photoshop, but if you wanna have more control or you're strictly doing vector work, Inkscape is the way to go.

• Vector art
• Logos
• icons / custom fonts
• Anything that needs to scale arbitrarily

Don't make the mistake of designing things that should be vector images as raster ones. You'll find out the hard way when you try to scale up your design, like putting a logo on a billboard, and suddenly it has become pixel art. So yeah, use Inkscape when you need vector stuff.

4. Krita

Krita has a lot of overlap with Photoshop too, but I'd say it's more on the digital drawing and painting side of things. So if you wanna do 'digital illustration', it's an amazing option. Also free and open source, so big props to the people that put in work to give us this for free.

• Digital Drawing
• Digital Painting

5. Procreate

Ok so this last one is neither free nor open source, but I'm including it because I actually use it and their pay model is just 'pay once', not a subscription. I think it's only for iPad but honestly, having an iPad is a great alternative to having a PC and a Wacom tablet if you need a portable setup. I use both because you do get more freedom to go higher resolution with the PC and Wacom tablet setup, but if you only wanna do digital illustration and wanna be portable, the iPad + Procreate setup is kinda unbeatable. It's pretty much the same as Krita in that it's mainly for:

• Digital Drawing
• Digital Painting

6. Resprite

I think this one has a free and paid version but there's no subscribtion. And I can't remember the price but I do recall it being HIGHLY reasonable. It's basically for pixel art. You could technically make pixel art in The Gimp or Krita too, but if you wanna focus on pixel art, specifically creating sprites, this is a great option.

• Pixel Art
• Retro Game Sprites

So yeah, these are the programs I use for my design stuff. With all that said, I have no problem paying for creative tools (Lord knows how much I spend on music gear that I don't even actually need (⸝⸝- . - ⸝⸝) but let's be honest, some of the pricing strategies of companies like Adobe just feel predatory. On top of that, a lot of people don't need the full suite of 'creative design tools' for the rest of their lives. Sometimes you just need to do a little bit here and there. Having to pay for something every month for the rest of your life or you completely lose all access to it is not cool at all. That's not very Cash Money of you, Adobe. But yeah I get it, they're a huge Mega Corp and they must continue to create shareholder value. But that has nothing to do with creativity, it should be able to live outside of that. And thanks to all the people who create and maintain open source design software, it does! Just know, you are appreciated.

All of the organizations who offer the free, open source stuff have links for you to give donations if you find them useful and wanna support. You definitly don't have to but consider it if you want to help keep them going.

I'm sure there are a lot more that I didn't mention here, but if you can think of any other really useful ones, let me know in the comments!