The PC Utilities Guide to...

Art and design tools

Unleash your creative side with our selection of the best free digital artwork tools available for Windows

It's become common to use Windows software to retouch digital photos before printing or sharing them online. But are you really making the best use of your PC's creative potential? Whether you consider yourself something of an artist or are sorely lacking in talent, you'll find there are plenty of applications available to unleash your creative spirit.

If your experience of creating digital artwork on your PC starts and ends with Microsoft Paint, you may be surprised by what you can achieve using just your mouse or, if you want pinpoint precision, a graphics tablet.

Corel's Painter software has long been able to recreate the look and feel of real media like oil paints and chalks on the PC. At around £130 though, it's not a tool that many average home users will be installing. There's a more budget-friendly version on offer now — Painter Essentials, at £39 — but you don't need to pay a thing to gain many of the same features.

Tools like ArtRage Standard Edition and TwistedBrush Free Edition do a sterling job of recreating the feel of paints, pastels and crayons on your desktop.

Art and design software is not just about expressing your creative side either, there's a good selection of tools available to help you design graphics for your website or for use in print publications. A vector graphics tool like Inkscape, for instance, can be a useful accompaniment to your desktop publishing software.

— Gavin Burrell. This article is an excerpt from a larger article in issue 108 of PC Utilities magazine. Each month PC Utilities magazine reviews scores of great new programs. Have you considered taking advantage of our no-risk subscription offer?

This page was last updated on 12 Jun 2009

# Name
1

Ambereh PIC
Put together your own drawings with this online and offline paint tool

2

ArtRage Free Edition REVIEW PIC
Play with paint pencils and crayons without the mess using this art program

3

Artweaver PIC
Create your own digital artwork using a range of natural-style materials, such as chalks, charcoal and pencils

4

Inkscape REVIEW PIC USER
Design and edit vector graphics, and create vector designs by tracing bitmaps - Open Source

5

Pixia PIC USER
Create impressive images using layers, masks and customised brushes

6

Project Dogwaffle REVIEW PIC USER
Create your own digital graphics and natural media-style artwork with this powerful free graphics suite

7

Tux Paint PIC
Help your children to get creative with this simple drawing program

8

TwistedBrush Free Edition PIC
Recreate such mediums as watercolours and pastels using virtual brushes