In short, GIMP is to Adobe Photoshop as Inkscape is to Adobe Illustrator. Both GIMP and Inkscape are two programs that you should download for free if you’re an average person looking to create images and modify photos. Because both GIMP and Inkscape are free and open source, you can find a variety of YouTube videos and other tutorials on the web on how to do various things with each piece of software.

GIMP is going to be used more to do image manipulation and photo editing. This is why it’s called GNU Image Manipulation Program. I typically use GIMP to take an image that I have found and modify it in some way. This could be to change the colors or to add text or other components to the image. I might have several images that I want to tie together, so I’ll also use GIMP to do that. There are a ton of different manipulation features that you can use. GIMP will modify your PNG, JPG, JPEG, GIF and other files.

Inkscape will be used more to create vector images like logos. Vector images are images that can scale large or small without degrading the quality of the image. The standard output format for Inkscape is the Scalable Vector Graphics (.SVG) format. Beyond using Inkscape for logos, I also use it to quickly create call to action buttons for websites and advertising banners. Once you create the vector image you can export it in all the standard image formats like PNG, GIF, JPEG, JPG and even PDF.

Occasionally I will use GIMP to modify and image that I then import into Inkscape to add into an advertising banner. As free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, both GIMP and Inkscape are great tools for the amateur designer like me.