I have worked as a proffessional Graphic Artist for 30 years and specialize in illustration. I also run my own Sublimation printing and embroidery business as well as teaching and writing. I have used both Illustrator and Corel Draw since their introduction and have taught them both and written published training manuals on all the major desktop publishing packages. I have been a big supporter of The Gimp and have written a book that has been published on that too.I am very impressed with Inkscape and the approach that has been taken to user ergonomics. I am now using Inkscape professionally and actually prefer to use it over all other packages for many illustration tasks. The programmers should be very proud of what they have done because I regard Inkscape as a superior Illustration package to Illustrator and equal if not better than Corel Draw for many Illustration tasks. In particular the ease of use and control over the drawing tools is fantastic. I have timed myself over specific illustration tasks (Like illustrating a racing car for instance). I can work considerably faster in Inkscape. This relates directly to productivity. I think the design team at Adobe should take a good look at Inkscape AND ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRAGIC ERGONOMICS of their so called industry standard program. Far more professionals use Corel Draw for serious illustration work than people think, they just don't tell anyone because of that Mac - Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark express standard in the industry rubbish. This has far more to do with the conservative nature of Graphic designers and the inability of training organizations and tertiary institutions t o provide alternative training. IGNORANCE IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR SHEER LAZINESS. I constantly monitor and test new programs and will provide training and support for any one of them that proves to be useful. SCRIBUS, THE GIMP and INKSCAPE have at last provided a serious working solution for desktop publishers. Linux is at last a viable alternative to the Mac or Windows. (Not that these programs don't work well on the Mac or Windows). And all this for free !!!!!!!!! I do a lot of consultancy work for printing organisations and will be pushing Inkscape and it relative merits extensively. I will also provide support and training to any of the organizations I train for or deal with. WELL DONE INKSCAPE!!!!!!
Wow, that's quite a background. :) I had never used Illustrator before, and the first time I tried out Inkscape several years back, I couldn't figure it out (that and... it kept crashing. It was a long time ago XD ). I've only rediscovered Inkscape recently, and damn I'm also impressed now.
I must admit I'm impressed to hear that it's faster to illustrate a racing car in Inkscape than in most commercial softwares. XD
Just out of curiosity, what features in Corel Draw do you think are missing in Inkscape? I'm not a programmer, but it'd be interesting to hear the opinion of a professional. :)
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