I've talked a lot this month about online tools that help you do a lot of business-ish stuff more productively, but what about the creative aspect of your work? There are a few apps for that, it turns out, all available exclusively online, and for free.
Note: this post is a bit of a departure from my normal policy of "only endorse stuff you personally use on a near-daily basis." I don't use these apps myself, yet, but I've been giving a lot of thought to converting to them because my copies of Photoshop and Quark are a bit long in the tooth, and upgrades ain't cheap.
I've read some pretty good stuff about GIMP, the unfortunately acronymed GNU Image Manipulation Program. Just by looking at its interface, I can tell that there will probably be a bit of a learning curve from Photoshop. (There's a modification to the GIMP code that makes the interface resemble Photoshop more closely, but I'm not sure it'll work on my old-ish Mac laptop. Plus, I'm enough of a curmudgeon to be wary of installing something that self-identifies as a hack.)
I've been hearing about Scribus for over a year now, and I really should look into this one, as my current copy of Quark is simply refusing to work. I've been trying to use Microsoft Word as a layout tool, and it's just not made for that. (Hush, Microsoft. You know I'm right about this.) This Web-based desktop publishing tool started out, as most of this stuff does, for Linux back in 2003, which gives it an impressively long pedigree for a Web tool.
Are either of these going to supersede Quark/InDesign or Photoshop for professional designers? Probably not, and for good reason: those tools are rich in features, relatively stable, and customizable. If you make your living by design or photo manipulation, the investment in professional software is well worth it. But if design and photo work is a side aspect of your business (creating quick flyers for a presentation, for instance), these web tools can get you much further than the stuff that came installed on your computer could.
What other Web 2.0 creative tools are you using? What do you love about them, and what do you hope Web 3.0 improves upon? Let me know in the comments!
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