Lately I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons for using Open Source software for my future business. Keeping costs down is really important, although I don’t want to cut corners or hinder my progress unnecessarily.
I’ve been using Blender for years now, and with Cycles and Vray 3, that end is covered. It’s the vector and image editing that is still worrying me. I’ve tried to plan for all eventualities, but who knows what a client may throw at me.
Hopefully I’ll be able to manage with Gimp, Inkscape, and Raw Therapee for most things, I could always use the Adobe subscription for the month if I get something from a client that I can’t read.
So far the missing Features in Gimp are:
CMYK, for Print Shops (I know of some of the plugins, but they may be more hassle than they’re worth).
16 Bit Editing, For wider quality editing (Raw Therapee can cover the camera RAW features), although that does not include 16bit layers for compositing which would br nice obviously.
PSD Import, for importing full Photoshop PSDs with Adjustments etc. It’s not likely that it will be an issue, but it depends on the client.
For Inkscape, I can’t find anything that’s really a deal breaker, although other than Logo ID design and help with my textures, I don’t really need many features with Inkscape.
Although .ai files that don’t have the illustration on the artboard can be cropped off in Inkscape. I’ve never used Inkscape for Print Shops, so I’m in the dark here.
Of course after all this I may find that a large majority of clients will expect me to be organised for Adobe - I have to be versatile.
For the sake of a £1200 quid approx for PS and AI CS6, am I wasting my time with Open Source software?(I’m not interested in renting software full-time yet).
Does anyone here have any knowledge of running a design business with open source software, if so, have you any tips?
Cheers, Jay.