so, I need to help my sister out with getting two programs that exactly (or almost exactly) do what photoshop and autocad can do

 

I was thinking qcad and the gimp, but I'm not familiar with either of the main programs that she needs so I can't honestly say to her that the programs are equivalent.

 

she needs them for college, so they do need to be pretty much the same as photoshop and autocad, and fully copatible

 

any suggestions?

whats wrong with those two..?

I use qcad and the gimp 2.

 

The gimp 2 isn't as good as photoshop but it's close and it's free, there are some good tutorials around for it (I read one on paths the other day, very insightfull)

 

QCad is excellent, it's been years since I used autocad but from memory it is just as good... But it was a long time ago now :|

Everyday we have to use autocad in shop class. I can't stand it. The single reason why? Becuase the damn object snap feature, where your cursor will "snap" to a corner or somewhere. Its a good feature, but it is way to sensitive, and its "field" of autosnap to whatever is way to big and i cant make my desired figuer, but turning of object snap sucks becuase you need it. just needs a way limit the object snap.

are qcad and the gimp 2 compatible with photoshop and autocad?

the gimp 2 is compatible with most file formats.

 

As for qcad I've never tried but reading:

 

http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad_doc_faq.html

 

It looks as if it is...

The Gimp isn't that bad, once you get used to it. However, it's not a real substitute for Photoshop in my eyes - I'm just too used to it being really easy for me

CP Luke, a similar program to photoshop is Paint Shop Pro 8.0, its by Jasc software. A program similar to Autocad is Microstation 8.0. Microstation will open autocad files and you can also save files in Autocad format. You can export your files in IGES also which can be opened by most design or drawing packages. Microstation is by Bentley, they do a student package for about $60 and it can be used for about 2 years.