Ubuntu Wiki

We recommended the following tools for creating artwork. They are all free software (free as in speech) and can be obtained by everyone at virtually no cost without any licensing-hassle. This simplifies sharing files and working together.

Promoting free software is one of the goals of Ubuntu and to do so, you should use free software yourself wherever you can.

Raster Image Editing

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) should be installed by default and accessible via Applications > Graphics > GIMP Image Editor. It is a full-featured raster graphics editor, comparable to Adobe Photoshop. http://www.gimp.org

Imagemagick

This is an amazingly powerful toolset. It is command line driven, but you will soon learn that you can do things with the toolset that you cannot do with anything else. For those of you out there who know about pixel bit depth limitations, Imagemagick let's you work at a plethora of depths including colourspaces and such. It can also render SVG and a very large file assortment. It is wonderful for creating, altering, and adjusting files.

Install imagemagick

Complete documentation is available at http://www.imagemagick.org

Icon Library

This is a python script which nicely displays an entire icon theme, including fall backs on different backgrounds with search function, etc. It is currently only available on the ubuntu forum in this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=912934&highlight=icon+library&page=2

Be sure to download the latest version (near the bottom of the second page)

pngcrush

pngcrush is a command-line utility that optimizes Portable Network Graphics (PNG). http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/

Install pngcrush

Wiki Scripts

Two useful scripts to deal with images for this wiki.

X11 Mouse Cursor Theme Creation

Feedback on how well these work or what the limitations are will be appreciated.

• Gursor Maker – a cursor editor for X11 using GTK+.

• XCursorGen – commandline tool to create an X cursor file from a collection of PNG images

Vector Graphics and Desktop Publishing

Inkscape

Inkscape is a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) editor. You can also use it to export raster type images. http://www.inkscape.org

Install inkscape

Scribus

Scribus is a QT-based desktop publishing program (DTP). Its awesome, and features the best PDF support this side of the free world. http://www.scribus.net

Install scribus

3D Graphics

Blender

Blender is a cross platform suite of tools for 3D modeling, animation and rendering. http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/

Install Blender

Wings 3D

A subdivision modeler.

http://www.wings3d.com/

Video

PiTiVi

PiTiVi is a free, intuitive and featureful movie editor for the Linux desktop.

http://www.pitivi.org/

Open Shot

http://www.openshotvideo.com/

Audio Routing, Recording and Editing

Audacity

Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Ardour

Ardour is a multi-track audio recording and non-destructive editing application. For example, you can record an entire band, arrange the material, use effects and export a mix-down as single audio file. You can find out more at: http://ardour.org/

Jack

JACK is system for handling real-time, low latency audio (and MIDI). It can connect a number of different applications to an audio device, as well as allowing them to share audio between themselves.

http://jackaudio.org/

Audio Synthesis and Processing

Bristol-Synths

Bristol is synth emulation package for a diverse range of vintage synthesisers, electric pianos and organs. The application consists of a multithreaded audio synthesizer and a user interface called brighton.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bristol/

Supercollider

SuperCollider is an environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition. It provides an interpreted object-oriented language which functions as a network client to a state of the art, realtime sound synthesis server.

http://supercollider.sourceforge.net/

Pure Data

Pd (aka Pure Data) is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio, video, and graphical processing. It is the third major branch of the family of patcher programming languages known as Max.

http://puredata.info/

Composing music

Lilypond

LilyPond is an automated engraving system. It formats music beautifully and automatically, and has a friendly syntax for its input files.

http://lilypond.org

Denemo

Denemo is a free software (GPL) music notation editor for GNU/Linux, Mac OSX and MS Windows that lets you rapidly enter notation for typesetting via the LilyPond music engraver. You can compose, transcribe, arrange, listen to the music and much more.

http://www.denemo.org

CategoryArtwork