Software costs money.  Actually that’s not true – there’s plenty of free software out there for artists, and the ones detailed below are just as good as the expensive versions.

Browsers

Web browsers are usually free (or their costs are “hidden” within the cost for the operating system, as is the case with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer) so this is an easy place to start.

There are two main browsers that will work on Windows PCs, Apple-Macs and Linux PCs:

• Mozilla’s Firefox
• Opera Software’s Opera

I prefer Firefox, but Opera is just as good. You can also find some browsers which work on some, but not all, operating systems.  These include Apple’s Safari (Apple & Windows only) and Google’s Chrome (Windows only).

But free software doesn’t only stretch to web browsers…

Graphics Software

Adobe Photoshop is great, but it comes with a huge pricetag of around $699/£557 for the initial software and then additional costs of around $199/£160 per upgrade to keep up with the latest version.

If you’d rather spend that money on other things (art materials, rent, food, beer…) then there is an alternative, the strangely named GIMP.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP runs on Windows PCs, Apple-Macs and Linux PCs and is completely free (as are all the upgrades). In addition it can read and write most Photoshop native PSD format files

There’s also an official site called the GIMP Plugin Registry where you can download hundreds of plugins to extend GIMP’s functionality.

There is one major area where GIMP falls behind Photoshop:  CMYK color space – the GIMP only handles RGB. Actually there is a plugin that offers basic CMYK support, but it’s certainly nowhere near the full support that Photoshop offers.

This is fine if you’re creating images for the web or for printing on your own printer, but if you want to send images to a professional printhouse then it’s a problem.

Other people have different issues and opinions.  If you want to see a range of opinions and more detailed comparisons (interspersed with the occasional silly flamewar) then just Google “GIMP vs Photoshop”.

There are other free graphics packages aimed at vector graphics and page layout – if there’s sufficient interest I’ll do a write-up of them in a future post.

Office Software

Word Processors and Spreadsheets are a necessity, whether you’re writing letters to galleries, typing up your artist’s statement/bio, or laying out budgets for grant applications.

If your use of Word Processors and Spreadsheets doesn’t involve many specialist features then it might be worth not installing any specialist software and instead using Google’s GoogleDocs – a free web-hosted application that allows you to create and edit your documents from anywhere in the world on any computer.

You can upload your existing documents to GoogleDocs – it will import and convert files created in Microsoft Word, StarOffice, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Excel, as well as PDFs, RTF files, and plain text files.

If you use some of the more advanced features on Word Processors or Spreadsheets then you probably need Sun’s free OpenOffice.org suite of software.

OpenOffice.org is a more traditional suite of office software, comparable to Microsoft Office, that includes Writer (a word processor, like Microsoft Word), Calc (a spreadsheet like Excel), and Impress (PowerPoint-like presentation software).  It also comes with Draw and Base – Draw is a basic drawing package, a little amateur for artists, and Base is a database package.

As with GoogleDocs, you can open all your Microsoft Word and Excel documents in OpenOffice.org, and you can choose to save documents in Word/Excel formats if you need to send them as .doc or .xls files to galleries or funding agencies.

OpenOffice.org is available for Windows, Apple OSX, and Linux platforms – and it’s all completely free.

Going the whole way – Linux for Artists

A few years ago I decided to ditch Windows and switch to Linux. It felt like a huge decision, but it was actually very easy.

Linux is an operating system – like Windows or Apple’s OSX. The difference is that it’s completely free of charge. And, in my opinion, it’s better than the others.

There are plenty of different types of Linux (each with their own advocates).  I’m going to recommend a flavour that I use, and one that’s becoming very popular for its ease of use.

Ubuntu and Kubuntu are two different flavours of the same Linux operating system.  The only real difference is the actual desktop – Ubuntu uses something called Gnome and Kubuntu uses something called KDE.  My preference is Kubuntu, but that’s just a personal preference.

There’s also a version called Ubuntu Studio which is specially pre-loaded with everything an artist could want:

Our aim is to assemble suites of applications aimed at creative people. Suites including the best open-source applications available.

For instance, Ardour 2 – A multitrack recorder/editor geared toward people familiar with Pro-Tools.

Graphic design and modeling applications including The GIMP, Inkscape and Blender. Along with plugins like dcraw to help with RAW camera files and wacom-tools for people with Wacom drawing tablets.

PiTiVi, Kino, Cinepaint are included for video creation. We hope to provide a creative environment to people as well as give a spotlight to some amazing open-source applications.

Let the creativity fly…

You can get all these software packages on Ubuntu or Kubuntu as well – Ubuntu Studio just has them all pre-installed for you, which might be handy if you’re just starting with Linux.

Twitter is the rising star of social media at the moment, and is a surprisingly good tool for artists.

From US President Barack Obama’s use of Twitter throughout his election campaign to the UK comedian Stephen Fry’s high-profile use of Twitter, it’s clear that it’s gaining a lot of ground and breaking into mainstream use.

As such, as well as using it myself (you can follow me & my art projects on Twitter!) I’m going to be embeding Twitter’s functionality into the open-source Artists Website Software that I’m currently developing – not only easily allowing an artist’s Twitter feed to be displayed on the website, but also mechanisms to easily post items to Twitter feeds.

If you’re new to Twitter then Squidoo has a very good Artist’s Guide to Twitter that explains everything from an easy to follow explanation of what Twitter is and how to use it, to arts marketing strategies using Twitter.

I’ve been looking for articles specifically about Artists using Twitter and have found a few good pages:

• 5 More Twitter-Specific Marketing Tips for Artists who Tweet
• Arts Organizations and Artists 2.0: Social Media for Arts People
• Twitter Search: How to Directly Market Your Art (or Anything Else) on Twitter
• Twitter – How to Use it?
• Twitter for Artists

I’d be very interested to hear how other artists have used this new tool.

In my last post I talked about the Artists Website Software I was planning.

It’s been a busy few months (both with my day-job and with moving house) but I have made some progress, and I hope to have an alpha version available in the new year.  At that point I’ll probably upload everything to SourceForge to take advantage of their tools for Open Source projects (hosting, CVS and bug tracking).

I’ve been coding the project using object-orientated PHP5.  As well as being easier to maintain, this also makes the code easier to extend.  It does mean that it won’t work on an old PHP4 installation – but from what I can see most hosting companies offer PHP5 as standard now, so hopefully that won’t be a problem.

I’m avoiding using various (potentially time-saving) PHP PEAR Extensions even though I have them installed on my server – mainly because I want this software to be usable on a standard PHP5 installation which doesn’t have PEAR.  Similarly, this means I have to eschew MySQL Stored Procedures in favour of SELECT queries, as many webhosts don’t allow their users access to Stored Procedures.

As soon as the alpha version is ready I’ll be looking for people who have some spare server space where they can install and test it.  At this stage the preferred testers would be people with a strong technical (PHP/MySQL) background as the alpha testing will very much centre around the security and optimisation of the PHP code.

My website has grown organically over 12 years, but the code is looking very messy and unmanageable, so I’m thinking of recoding it from scratch (while adding a lot of improvements).

I decided that I may as well make any such “artist’s website application” available as a free open-source application for anyone else who wants to download it for their own use.  It’ll be PHP5 (object-orientated) with a MySQL back-end.

The main core of the script would be the galleries (gallery add-on modules for other applications like blogs always seem to leave a lot to be desired for a serious artist) with a strong emphasis on search engine optimisation.

There’ll be a “leave comments” function for each image in the galleries, integration with PayPal and/or Google Checkout for online sales, automatic thumbnail creation, and RSS feeds of new work in the galleries. There will be a facility to add a few static pages (artist’s statement, front page, contact form etc).

There’ll be an exhibitions/events listing function – with incoming and outgoing iCal feeds for calendars and geo-tagging of galleries/venues (so I can integrate it with Yahoo/Google Maps).

Rather than trying to write a blog application, I’m going to concentrate on writing “bridges” that allow the galleries to integrate with existing blog software (Wordpress etc).This is because there’s no way I could write blog software that’s anywhere as near as good as WordPress.

The same applies to discussion forums – I’ll just write bridges for SMF and phpBB. I am thinking of writing my own email newsletter application, though (because I’ve never found one that I’ve been 100% happy with).

I’m also going to investigate some ways to allow it to integrate with social networks, Flickr, etc.

So, my question to you is this:

What features and functionality would you suggest I include?  What’s important for you in an ideal artist’s website?

Another follow-up post, this time following up my post on Self-publishing your art books on Lulu.

From http://www.lulu.com/content/2709735:

“Dear Lulu” is a test book researched and produced by graphic design students and Prof. Frank Philippin at Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany, during an intensive two-day workshop with London-based designer James Goggin (Practise). The book’s intention is to act as a calibration document for testing colour, pattern, format, texture and typography.

Exercises in colour profile (Adobe RGB/sRGB/CMYK/Greyscale), halftoning, point size, line, geometry, skin tone, colour texture, cropping and print finishing provide useful data for other designers and self-publishers to judge the possibilities and quality of online print-on-demand — specifically Lulu.com, with this edition.

The book’s price is set at Lulu.com’s exact printing cost per unit.

The paperback version (96 pages, 5.83″ x 8.26″, perfect binding, full-colour interior ink) is £10.47 and the ebook version (62501 KB) is downloadable free-of-charge.

A great resource to see the quality of printing that Lulu.com can offer the artist wanting to self-publish books of their artwork.

Lauren Simonutti is a Baltimore-based artist/photographer. Having been told that her work didn’t “fit in” in the US (and having more positive experiences in European and Australian markets), she turned to the web—more precisely, to self-publishing her artwork in print-on-demand books through Lulu—in order to reach her audience.

I’ve been interested in using print-on-demand for some time, so I contacted Lauren who kindly agreed to answer my questions about her experiences (and for me to publish her answers here – thank you, Lauren).

Lauren, how did you go about promoting your books on Lulu?

“sorrow…and the end of sorrow” by Lauren Simonutti – available on Lulu.com”

Promotion is always difficult for me. I would rather work than spend time on marketing and I have very few outside resources so I have to find them myself.

Initially my promotion always begins with imagery/layouts that I create and post on deviantart and flickr. The majority of my sales have come via deviantart.

My work seems to hold much greater appeal in Europe and Australia than it does in the States, and in my home city of Baltimore I have been refused for every single thing for which I have applied and just this week was actually refused as a volunteer to work a photobooth at an arts festival (Artscape).

It’s become rather amusing but I have been told in no uncertain terms that here I simply do not fit in.

I mention all this because that is what brought me to the web in the first place. I make considerably more sales in prints or handmade artists books but Lulu.com does provide an alternative.

How easy was it publish your book with Lulu?  What did the process entail? Were there any problems?

Lulu is free which was its first appeal as I have no money.  The process of signing up was simple, it is best to give them a PayPal account for revenue payments as they are faster and require no minimum amount.  I had no problems.  I am adept at design so while it was time consuming that was because of my pickiness.

Now here’s the main issue.  When I signed on and for my two extant books there was the issue of starting with a blank slate – a simple white or black page.  Your picture placements were somewhat limited but not beyond reason and I opted to include the text into my JPEGs as opposed to using their text option.

They have since changed their options to themes – they have pre-ordained themes from which you can not alter page colour or even have a blank background.  This also leads sometimes to unwanted cropping.  I wrote them about this change (they do answer questions quite readily) and replied that the themes were greatly preferred by their clientelle.

Now keep in mind they keep good records, they pay revenues directly and without fuss and their Calendars which I make seasonally are really very nice.

After trying another option I have since gone back to Lulu and believe that using their ‘Portfolio’ book option I can get what I want, it will just take some tweaking and again the text will have to be incorporated in the JPEGs.  But I think it will work and there is the option of hardcover.

Important Note: I have noticed, not just with Lulu but with overnightprints.com and a few others that you should lighten your JPEG in levels about 15 to 20% lighter (using the midtone arrow) than you want them to look.  Digital printing tends a little towards the dark side.

So that has been my experience.  I am working on the new portfolio book selection at this time.  Again, there is no financial outlay and no obligation and if you use the themes it is very fast and easy.

You can see Lauren’s work on her deviantArt account, her Flickr account, and, of course, her Lulu account.

I wanted to take a short break from writing long articles to provide a quick list of links to various sites and online tools which can help artists with selling art online.

So, in no particular order, I give you:

Strategies & tactics for selling art online

• Empty Easel – Selling Art Online: a selection of articles about designing artist’s websites, Google Adwords/Adsense, etc.
• Art Biz Blog – Selling Art Online: Emarketing for Artists.
• The Artrepeneur: seven tactics for online art marketing.
• eHow: selling/trading ACEO art online.
• Online Arts Marketing: this post is about using social networks to sell art, but there are many other useful articles.
• YourArtMarketing: artists’ discussion forum concerned with online sales & marketing strategies for artists.
• Technium – 1,000 True Fans: Kevin Kelly’s article about working as an artist in a long tail market.
• ArtMarketBlog – how artists can get noticed (plus many other relevant posts).

Please feel free to add a comment to provide more relevant links.

You may get a message saying your comment has been held for spam (because comments with links in them often trip the spam filters) – don’t worry, I’ll be manually checking all comments flagged as spam and will “un-flag” any false positives.