Free and open-source, Inkscape is a vector image editing software used by game designers, artists, illustrators, and web designers. It is ideal for creating 2D game assets such as characters, props, icons, buttons, and even simple animations. You’ll love the fact that Inkscape is easy to use, yet very comprehensive in its feature set. Luckily, there are also many free applications out there that can do the same kind of job that Photoshop could do for you. This article rounds up the best 15 free Mac Programs for Graphic Designers. Some of these applications can even do stuff that can't be achieved using Photoshop, or are much more simple to use. Having a good drawing app for Mac is priceless. Retina screens, accurate touchpads, and native support for a variety of inputs make sketching on Mac a pleasure. But with so many drawing programs to choose from, how do you pick the right one? Welcome to the no-sweat guide to the best free drawing software for Mac!
Any software that allows you to make animations on Mac? The list of 2021 best animation apps can help you make 2D and 3D animations, gif pictures, short cartoons, and more easily on Mac.
I need to make a short animation, my goal is simple as follows. I need something simple but yet looks pretty decent. What is the best animation software for Mac, 2D or 3D is both OK:
1) making humans is easy, they don't have to look too real, just cartoony is fine
2) human dialogues, speaking gestures are important
3) being able to adjust the setting is important, create different settings
4) human movement does not need to be too complex, but basic things like walking ---- Online forum
Nowadays we see more and more people creating animated videos on social media. Short animated videos and gif pictures are funny and engaging, with information easily transmitted to viewers and catch the their attention. It is indicated that 65% of people are visual learners. Today's topic centers on the best animation programs for Mac users to make 2D or 3D animation. You can make short animated videos, gif pictures, funny cartoons and further get the avi, flv, quicktime animations upload to YouTube, FaceBook or other social sites, no matter you're a beginner or an advanced user.
Need animated video footage for your animation?
Free download animations from 1000+ sites with the free anime downloader >>
Top Best Animation Programs for Mac (2D & 3D)
Digicel Flipbook
For beginners starting with 2D animations, Flipbook is the very first 2D animation program to free download on macOS from 10.7 or later. This animation maker software for Mac makes it extremely easy to make great 2D animated movies, while being extremely easy. You can draw into FlipBook, shoot rough drawings, scan, add soundtracks, pan, zoom, rotate, import backgrounds, export movies (QuickTime, AVI) and do more.
Flipbook is available for free trial and the limited version is priced at $19.99. Note that this 2D animation software for macOS generates still image only, and won't support GIF pictures.
Anime Studio
Anime Studio has almost everything you need for creating amazing 2D animated videos. The software has both beginner and professional versions, with a massive mix of powerful 2D rigging system and useful animation tools. The animation movies created with this Mac animation maker software will be available in QuickTime, AVI or SWF.
The Anime Studio Debut, which is available for $69.99, has limits like a maximum size of 768 pixels x 768 pixels and 3000 frames, no support for image output etc. You can get the best animation app for Mac free download and trial for 30 days.
Pencil2D
Good Free Art Programs For Mac
Pencil2D is an open-source and free animation/drawing software for macOS which is by far the most comprehensive animation tool given that it's totally free. The Mac animation programs supports two types of layers, namely anime songs and sound, bitmap images, camera and vector images, which makes it easy to adjust frame timing. A big bonus feature of the free 2D animation software for Mac is that it can export animated files in FLV and GIF format.
Overall, Pencil2D is a good choice for beginners to start with free drawing programs, but it may not be suitable for professional projects.
Blender
Blender is an open source, free 3D animation programs for macOS to model, animate, render and edit computer-generated graphics and video. Given it's 3D animation freeware for Mac, it may not match with paid programs like Maya and Lightwave in certain aspects, but it has plenty of decent options for making professional 3D animation videos/3D movies (e.g. VR rendering, Modeling, Sculpt, UV etc). You can not only create 3D animations, but even develop video games, e.g., it can be used as a minecraft animation maker software for Mac.
Though this free animation software for Mac is quite popular among users, it's in fact complicated to use. Even advanced users can't get started with it immediately.
Maya
Maya is currently the king among high-end 3D animations software for Mac and Windows. Priced at $1,470.00/year, it has everything you need to create 3D animated movies, games, TVs or short videos. Maya is extremely powerful 3D software and is considered an industry standard in the film and video game industries. The program offers free 30-day trail, so you can free download it to Mac and try it out.
Considering the expensive price and complicated operation, Maya is not suitable for those who are beginners and may not use all its features. Maya is always up to date, so you need to keep learning and be patient if you decide to start with it.
You may need: top anime sites, free anime streaming websites
More Options of Animation Programs for Mac
Synfig Studios - Free. Open-source and free 2D animation maker software for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Easy to use.
Tupi - Free. User-friendly 2D animation software for Mac, Windows and Linux. Suitable for beginners.
Toon Boom - Paid (starting from USD $23 monthly) but offers free trial. A powerful 2D animation video software for macOS. Suitable for professional entry.
Cinema 4D - $190 for a month license. A piece of professional 3D anime studio for macOS and Windows. It has been widely used to make high budget box officehits. Free trial provided.
Lightwave - $695.00. One of the best 3D animation programs for macOS that will well fit high-end animators and movie makers. It offers a 30 day free trial.
K-3D - Another free anime software for Mac, Windows, Linux to make 3D animated movies/videos. It features full set of basic tools for general requirements.
Upload Animated Videos/Movies to YouTube, FaceBook
After you create your own 2D/3D animations, you may want to play on other device or upload to YouTube, FaceBook, or other social sites to share with others. As those animation maker software for Mac is very limited on the output formats (e.g., Flipbook supports QT and AVI, Anime Studio generates qt, avi or swf), you may need a third-party helper to convert it.
MacX Video Converter Pro will convert among any video formats for you. You can easily put your animated videos for YouTube, Instagram, FaceBook or iPhone, iPad, Samsung etc. The speed is quite fast and no quality loss is observed. Plus, it also help free download anime series, movies, videos or soundtracks from online sites (1000+ supported) to give you more choices on animation resources.
MacX Video Converter Pro - Convert/Download Animated Movies
MacX Video Converter Pro can easily convert animated videos created by any macOS animation software from AVI, QuickTime MOV, FLV to MP4, H264, 3GP, YouTube, FaceBook, iPhone, iPad, Android etc, and also free download animations from 1000 more video sites with high quality.
In recent years digital advancements have designers leaving pen and paper behind, allowing them to create visual image files using their computer mouse or Graphic Drawing Tablets.
if you are good at freehand pencil/drawing then a tablet is great to have your work already created in the digital realm without transferring it there later to work on more. sketching basically, i'm not good at it but a good sketcher would probably love a good tablet.
and, if you need to edit (especially for raster images) down to individual pixels and pixel groups then a tablet is very helpful.
tablets are great to have when you need to transfer a raster image into a vector environment and vice versa because you are definitely going to need to edit pixel by pixel to get edges to blend etc.
Almost any professional graphics software will work for Drawing tablets, as they have pretty much a stranglehold on the digitizer tablet market. So you should pick the right software for your needs and preferences.
I tried out a lot during the years: photoshop (cs2 - cc ), krita, gimp, paint tool sai, mypaint, corel painter, paintstorm studio and maybe more, just can't remember. I own a XP-Pen Innovator 16 graphics tablet with screen 15.6inch .
What I can say is that every software has their own advantages. The question is: what advantages are good for you personally. That's why I suggest to try different softwares before you decide which one is the best for you.
I can name some really-well known ones and I'll say my own personal opinion about them.
5 Best Paid Drawing & Painting programs for Artists :
On this side we've the comercial programs. They can be very pricey but they have the advantage in that you're buying a high quality product right out of the box made by paid professionals. They won't suffer from a lack of updates or bugs like most opens source programs do.
1. Adobe Photoshop CC - many tools
The king of photo editing, painting and hands down the best program. When you see an amazing painting eight out of ten times was made on photoshop. On the free side only Krita comes close to match it's raw power.
Get this one if you can.
This one is the favorite for all professionals mainly due to all the highly advanced tools it has and it's second to none brush engine.
No wonder it's the most pirated software ever.
Some people get intimidated by it, but it's actually very easy to learn. Because you won't be needing most of its tools as the majority are mainly used for photo manipulation —not for painting. In fact if you learn to use this program you'll know the basics of all the others.
All painting programs want to be as good as it (whether they admit it or not).
Most tutorials and learning tools are made for photoshop so it's ideal for beginners and pros alike. All painting programs owe something to this one.
It's main drawbacks are the fact that it's a very heavy program that will demand a lot resources from your computer, like memory and RAM. Not for the faint of heart.
Photoshop is the industry standard. It's easy to find tutorials, brushes, or anything else you need,
This is subscription based now. Has so much stuff featured and it's good at doing anything. There are different tiers starting from $15/month (Photoshop + Lightroom + other stuff) up to $100 (All adobe apps + adobe stock). It has everything. Tons of options like custom brushes, workspace customization, plug-ins, filters, effects, 3D support, and many more features. Not sure if you can buy older versions for a fixed amount... There's a trial too.
While it can be faulty, Photoshop is still 'the industry standard'. At some point you'll have to learn how to use it in one way or another. It can be complicated, frustrating and the default brush engine is not that good with lineart, but still, it's can be considered the best in everything overall.
2. PaintTool SAI:
Really popular and cheap for its capabilities. Has a free trial. It has a pretty good drawing engine overall.
This is the program all other “manga” painting software want to be. Manga artist love it. It's legendary.
It has an amazing watercolor brush and eight out of ten times most manga style art, on the internet, is made with this software.
It's very lightweight and very easy to learn and master. In fact the “easy” part of its name is not just a trademark; it really is easy.
Artist love it for it's lack of lag, great paint feeling and it's superior linear to even photoshop's.
However it does suffer from the drawback in that its developers are too content “being at the top” and they seldom ever (if ever) update or fix bugs for it.
3. Clip Paint Studio/Manga Studio - Windows/Mac
Taking advantage of Sai's lack of— “enthusiasm”— comes Manga Studio , especially for lineart. Has trial.
Clip Studio paint is a specific software to use for digital painting and comic drawing. This software offer a lot of easy method to drawing comic (something like comic panels, comic page, comic cloud etc) and have a lot of artistic brushes to help you on drawing. Any professional artist use this software usually have manga style drawing .
It's very similar to Sai. But it has much more features. It leans heavily on artist that want to publish comics/manga as such it has many features that help on it including vectors.
It's a bit pricer than Sai, but it,s development team is much more committed .
4. Corel Painter
a great realistic painting tool, bridging the gap between traditional media and the digital world.
Corel allows you to customize anything you want, be it brushes, palettes, papers, colors, patterns, gradients, etc. It has every professional tool to provide the user with a seamless drawing experience. There are over 900 brushes in Corel Painter with an addition of 36 new brushes for diverse drawing requirements. It also offers a range of amazing tools for creating the perfect composition. Additionally, you can also import content from others to complete your drawing.
This one is a favorite for many professionals due to it's power to emulate real life tools/ traditional media. The feeling of painting with actual oils and the like is second to none. If you come from a traditional background this one is the very best bet.
It's awesome - the real brushes simulating the real deal are uncanny, it's almost too good to be believed. However, some of the functions are extremely clumsy to use - resizing or moving images, rotating layers etc, small details which can frustrate the user or slow down the workflow.
Higher tier, expensive stuff . Just like photoshop, profesional love it but–
I personally don't recomend it for hobbyists, like me, due to the fact that it's too pricey (money you should be investing in learning)
It's also very complex and it has a high learning curve so it can be incredibly confusing specially for people that don't know anything about digital painting.
5. ArtRage
This full-featured digital painting software from Ambient Design, with new digital editing tools, provide improved performance. The advanced features make creating art a fun and easy activity.
On ArtRage, you can customize your paper to get the desired effect and allows you to design brushes, composition tools, pattern and gradient fill, filters, etc. The latest version comes new tools such as the natural pencil, flexible custom brush editing along with previous tools. The user can personalize everything and can adapt the software to one's needs.
Art rage is a cheap alternative for a program that emulates traditional medium like oils and water colors.
Free digital art software
First let's talk about the ones you can get for free “as in gratis.” It's said that there is no such thing as a “free meal.” But this is an exception as most of these were done by talented people that believe in freedom of software (open source) . Neat uh?
6. Gimp
Mac Os/Windows/linux. While it's free and has a lot of freedom, it's like linux. Can be complicated, faulty and frustrating.
Even painters that love it tend to heavily modify it to suit their needs. I was using gimp for Graphic Design for more than 2 years and I guess I'd say it's more of a Graphic Design rather than painting software.
It also suffers from the drawback that it's creators want it to be an image editor and painter features aren't a priority for them. Updates can take years to materialize.
Developers tend to care more about catering to other developers than the average users (hence it's weird version numbering and confusing “save as” option) .
But if you want a solid photoshop replacement this one is the one you should try.
Many incredible artist use this program. Once you get used to the UI you'll be doing amazing works of art in no time. Best of all, you'll get the best of photoshop at no charge.
The “underdog” feeling of creating art as amazing as photoshop is also priceless.
7. Krita - extended tool-set aimed at digital drawing
It's available for Mac/Windows/linux and some tablets. Krita seems to be one of the most underrated free and open source painting apps on the market, despite it being in development for over 10 years. Krita has an intuitive and customisable interface, where the dockers and panels can be set up to maximise your workflow.
Its free, open source, and very powerful. It is great for beginners who don't have the money for photoshop and you can do most things that you can do in photoshop. Have fun and enjoy!
This one is my personal favorite and in my opinion the best. The developers are hardworking knowledgeable individuals and in some aspects this software is even better than photoshop. This program was designed with 100% of painters in mind. It's been used by profesional artist as a serious alternative for photoshop and it has every tool you could possibly need and even more!
Looking for an amazing brush engine? Perspective tools? layers? Masks? brush customization? This program has you covered.
The tool offers nine unique brush engines, including a Color Smudge engine, Shape engine and Particle engine. You can also import brushes and texture packs or create and share your own. As an added bonus, you can use a brush stabiliser to help get those perfectly smooth lines every time.
Its developers made it possible to use photoshop brushes on this program neat uh?
8. MyPaint - basic tool-set
MyPaint is a free and open-source raster graphics editor for digital painters with a focus on painting rather than image manipulation or post processing.
has a lovely, endless canvas (raster) & nicely done brush engine. Free & open source. - Linux, macOS & Windows. Can require some technical knowledge to install on macOS (use MacPorts) & Windows.
This one's mains strength is that it's simplicity and great UI makes you focus on painting and let's you forget about everything else. It has great preset tools, like Krita, and you will be working right away expressing yourself. This program is the one that stimulates my imagination the best. They developers make you forget about the burdens of software making it one of the easiest programs to master.
Best Free Art Programs For Mac
Its main drawback is that it takes developers ages to update and they're focusing mainly on linux. It can be a pain to install in none linux platforms.
9. Medibang paint
Platform: Available for Windows, MAC, android and iOS.
If you're looking for a great, free alternative to Clip Studio Paint, have a look at Medibang Paint Pro. Medibang Paint Pro is a lightweight digital drawing tool with a strong focus on creating manga art and comic books. It comes loaded with 800 free pre-made tones and backgrounds that you can use. It also has more than 50 brushes, and a huge selection of free fonts you can use within your projects.
This one is a favorite of manga artist due to it's simplicity and the fact that it resembles the legendary Paint tool sai. It's not open source but it's still free.
It's strongest points are how lightweight it is, the fact that it's multiplataform, and it's free “cloud service.” This means that you could be working on any device and continue your project in any other. Say you sketch in your iPhone and finish in your Pc's tablet.
It also has tools for comics which makes it a serious contender. Lightweight digital drawing tool with everything you need to illustrate comics .
10. Autodesk Sketchbook
Autodesk SketchBook is available on iPad, Android , Windows and Mac OS. This is a very good software as replacement for pencil sketches. What you would do if you start completely digital is start in SketchBook with the basic setup of the page and then use tools like Photoshop (Procreate, Sketch Club) or Illustrator to fill in the details.
This sketching tool is free for personal use, which is a recent update by the Company, but a paid one for commercial purposes. The Autodesk Sketchbook is perfect for beginners as well as intermediate users as it comes with a lot of customization option. The exceptional interface helps in maximizing the drawing space of every device. The drawing engine of the sketchbook can handle 100 mpx canvas while maintaining the zoomed-in feeling you get when you work on traditional canvas. Professional artist choose Autodesk Sketchbook because it is fast and precise.
I used it for about three(ish) years without the Pro subscription and if you know what you're doing, it can still work fantastically without the subscription. It runs on Mac and Windows (not sure about Linux) and on most, if not all, mobile devices.
It has the basic tools plus some extra brush sets, and if I remember correctly without the subscription you only get three layers to work on, plus a background layer (color/transparent only) so that can be a bit limiting, but for basic sketching and painting, it works just fine.
On mobile there's an option to convert a paper image to a drawing so you can sketch on paper and then paint over it on your phone or tablet. With the subscription you basically just get some extra tools and brushes as well as unlimited layer space.
Conclusion
Afterward, go buy any tablet and app you wish, it does not matter. You will know how to draw on any of them. Without good basic drawing skills all of the apps in the universe will not help you.
Draw, draw incessantly.