Drawing doesn’t need definition. Still, it is the game of pencil and few colors operated by one’s mind and heart. In the world of digital technology, can’t we draw online with the help of software? So the answer to this question is Yes. You can draw and color them online with the help of amazing software. Painting software is not at all new. It has measured a very long distance in the past few lucky years. Now, there are superb programs present in the technology world completely free which will provide you with a realistic simulation of watercolors, oils, pastels, charcoal, and many more. Probably the most recent painting programming additionally gives you a chance to work in three measurements, making your very own models and after that applying your very own surfaces and paint impacts. You can consolidate these with 2D outlined components to make fabulous scenes.
So, to cut your long chase short, here is a list of the 15 best free drawing software for Mac in 2021. Krita is a free open source drawing program that offers all the necessary tools to make a smashing art. Despite being free, Krita is a darling to most professional designers looking to create unique illustrations, comics, arts, and more. If your needs are modest, almost any application will do. If by drawing you mean traditional drawing (preferably with a tablet), there are a bunch of art applications which can fit the bill. Photoshop does a good job and is an industry standard, b. Clip Studio Paint. Platform: PC, Mac, iOS, Android. Clip Studio Paint (previously known as Manga Studio) is one of the most popular drawing software used by many professional digital artists. The app is not only available across all mobile and desktop platforms but also comes at a very affordable price. Apr 18, 2020 Best Free Drawing Apps for Mac, like Adobe’s Illustrator and Procreate, have made it so that anyone with a computer or tablet and some decent talent can start crafting some fantastic pieces. Still, unfortunately, the price of both parts of the software can stop incredible artists from getting to share their ability.
Digital Painting Or Traditional Painting?
So the biggest question in every mind reading this link. Why should I opt for digital painting? What is the difference between traditional and digital painting? The answers to your basic questions are given below. Firstligital painting is considered as a non-linear process. That is an artist can simply arrange his painting in layers and it can also be edited without any complications. The best thing we like about the digital painting is that one can easily undo and redo so that the change in the process of creativity doesn’t lead to a wastage of the whole process. There are disposal several tools available for a digital artist like a virtual palette consisting of millions of colors, almost any size canvas or media, erasers, pencils, spray cans, combs, brushes, and also a variety of 2D and 3D effect options.
Now let us see a few best free drawings software available for Windows and Mac:
1. Vectr
The first drawing software available is the popular Vectr. Most designers might have surely heard of this software and used on a daily basis. The Vectr have real-time sharing i.e. it provides with a URL for every new Design. Other users can conveniently observe you make and edit designs live, whether you’re in the web application or desktop version. The application is very simple to utilize pen apparatus – make bent and straight ways and alter them in free of cost. Not only this but the application also provides you with an Intuitive freehand illustration apparatus – draw custom shapes. Okay, you saved your art and now you want to add some more shapes into it. Don’t worry, you can include lines, circles, square shapes and control them even after saving them. Grouping layers is no more a tough task. Thus it is one of the Best Free Drawing software.
Platforms: Windows/Mac
2. GNU IMAGE MANIPULATION PROGRAM (GIMP)
Coming to GIMP, it is considered one of the best free drawing software for mac. Though, it works properly in every kind of system. The application is basically a free, open-source option to Adobe Photoshop and has been formulated around 1995. It packs everything you need to edit and modify your amazing photographs and save your vector-based art for added effects and for making the picture look more realistic. You can even make ravishing paintings from scratch in a digital way. It’s an application every artist trying to modernise the painting way should not live without. The app has a total complete graphic design solution for all of your requirements. The toolbox offers you with the features like a pencil, blurring, sharpening, smudging, cloning, erasing, and much more.
Platforms: Windows/Mac.
3. Medibang Paint
If you really love manga books and comics, then pause for a second. This application available on digital technology is made just for you. MediBang Paint is a great drawing program and is considered as one of the best free drawing software due to the exclusive features available in the app. The application offers different devices including more than 800 tones/foundations, brushes which are more than 50 brushes, and 20 textual styles style. It’s a basic and integral asset for individuals who are simply beginning with their funnies or manga maker’s voyage and need an apparatus which can enable them to learn and move forward. The application likewise offers cloud matching up crosswise over stages. It makes your work is adjusted crosswise over gadgets. It’s certainly a decent choice for a growing manga or funnies maker.
Platform: Windows, Mac
4. Microsoft Paint 3D
Everyone has heard of Microsoft! Isn’t it? So Microsoft paint was used and liked by many users and is thus considered as best free drawing software for windows. Now here comes the second version of the same known as Microsoft Paint 3D. Paint 3D makes it very simple to unlock your amazing creativity and bring your ideas to real life. This software will basically allow you to download even the simplest design and in any dimension. If the collection of artworks including the shape and you wished to add some filters then you can simply enter options which include matte, gloss, dull metal, and polished metal. Multiple models can also be made at different depths and densities which can be combined very conveniently to make a fabulous screen. The thickness of the 3D effect is still left for that perfection.
Platforms: Windows 10
5. Autodesk Sketchbook
The next software is Autodesk Sketchbook. It has a very wonderful user interface. The UI is incognito unless you’re completely ready to drag a pencil, pen, marker, or paintbrush and start painting. Even if you are a designer, or an illustrator, or an animator this software will help all of them to make amazing art. There are endless features available in the software which surely makes it one of the best free drawing software. The support for unlimited layers, extraordinary blending modes, the grouping of layers, and many more options are available for an artist. Not only this but you also have access to more than 140 designer brushes. What else you’ll wish for? There is also high-class support for rulers, custom perspective guides, predictive stroke, and more to help you in your imaginative creations.
Platform: Windows/Mac.
6. Krita
Krita is one of the amazing and best free drawing software available throughout the technology world. Well designed brushes and tools are present in the software which attracts the majority of the population. There are an accessible interface and handy drawing aids. Krita is the proficient quality painting programming made by a group of specialists with the respectable point of putting first-class inventive instruments inside the reach of everybody. There is the feature of panel templates, halftone filters, and perspective tools in addition to the usual brushes, fills and pens. Each paintbrush available is completely customizable, and you can also save your favorite brushes to use again later. You also avail the features like layers, masks, various transform tools, HDR support, without paying any charges. This software, in short, is a destination for all type of artist.
Platform: Windows/Mac.
7. RawTherapee
RawTherapee is firstly a free and open source software which has some exclusive features. It empowers clients to address distortion, help in changing the colors of the image, recoup details and substantially more, which means clients can make changes to their photographs until the point when they’re looking precisely how they need. This free, open-source programming likewise accelerates your work process by enabling you to cluster process pictures. You can likewise send pictures to other programmings softwares, for example, GIMP, on the off chance that you wish to. Lastly, you can easily save the images in the form of 16-, 24- and 32-bit raw HDR DNG images, as well as standard JPEG, PNG (8- and 16-bit) and TIFF.
Platforms: Windows/Mac.
8. Inkscape
The eighth app in the list is Inkscape. Even if you are an illustrator, designer, web designer or just someone who needs to produce some amazing vector imagery, Inkscape is surely made for you! The features of this software include Flexible drawing tools, Broad file format compatibility, strong text tool, Bezier and spiro curves. It does not end over here. There are some broad options too available for dear artists which includes object creation, object manipulation, color selector, node editing, path conversion, multi-line text support, support for almost all the major file formats,anti-aliased display, and more. It can work as an alternative to illustrator. Being less popular software, it is completely available for free. So you don’t need to worry if the features were less for your hunger.
Platforms: Windows/Mac.
9. FireAlpaca
There are few customers who don’t like to upgrade the computers, so, if you’re one of them, then FireAlpaca is made for you. It is a lightweight tool with some extremely basic features. Being light in terms of weight and features, it can be run on old computers efficiently. While the more dominant applications like Illustrator and Corel Painter offer huge amounts of highlights, they additionally require a calm competent PC or Mac to run. Then again, FireAlpaca may be light on highlights when analyzed the heavyweights however it can likewise effectively keep running on more established equipment. I observed this to be an extraordinary device for novices who can’t bear to purchase an amazing PC or Mac. Likewise, the apparatus itself is totally for nothing out of pocket so you don’t have to spend a dime to begin.
Platform: Windows/Mac.
Final Words
Best Free Photo App Mac
So we have come to an end of our wonderful discussion. We have seen various amazing free software available through the electronic world. They all provide various features and charge nothing for it. Now you must enlist your requirements and try to match with the features of the software. If the software is able to comply and provide your all necessary requirements, you must surely opt for that respective software. Now let us wave a goodbye hand to each other. Keep Painting!
Are you a teacher looking for strategies to make your online classes more visually engaging? Trying to replicate the functions of your beloved physical whiteboard in your now virtual classrooms? Still unsure which online whiteboard tool is most compatible for your Mac? This article is for you!
The whiteboard is the quintessential fixture of any classroom. By allowing teachers and students to pen down their thoughts, whiteboards encourage spontaneity which makes classes more interesting and help students visualise concepts better which improves their knowledge retention. Just because the outbreak of COVID-19 had schools switching to remote-learning overnight does not mean you and your students must accept anything less than a fully-equipped learning environment during this pandemic moving forward.
Thanks to technology, there are a plethora of great whiteboard apps you can utilize to incorporate in your online teaching. However, not all whiteboard apps are created equal. Besides having an acceptable price point and comprehensive features, a well-chosen whiteboard app should also be made compatible for your Mac so that it runs smoothly on your most-preferred device. With lesser time wasted on worrying and troubleshooting before each lesson, educators can in turn offer more guidance to their students.
We know it can be arduous to sift through the multitude of options out there. Hence, this article has put together a list of 6 best whiteboard apps for mac users to help you find the perfect solution that not only lets you present your curriculum online effectively, but also provides you and your students with an overall smooth-sailing and fruitful learning experience.
1. OPENBOARD
Image: Source
OpenBoard is an interactive whiteboard designed specifically for teaching. Hence, it is a popular software among many schools ranging from pre-school to universities. It is most ideal for educators who prefer a dual-screen setup with a pen-tablet display and a beamer. OpenBoard is easy to use and accessible as it requires no registration. Simply download it for free directly from their website and you can start using it on your Mac immediately. However, some OpenBoard users have observed some drawbacks such as the quality of the whiteboard’s pen. When annotating, sometimes smeared letters are produced while other times, what you’ve written may not be detected and reflected on the screen. Notably, OpenBoard is already working hard to improve the writing experience. You can learn more about OpenBoard here.
2. MIRO
Image: Source
Drawing Apps For Computer Free
Miro is a fast, free and simple-to-use digital whiteboard mainly designed to facilitate collaboration among remote and distributed teams in the workplace. The features that make it stand out are its many pre-built templates and its moveable sticky notes function. They help projects get started quickly and stay organised along the way. For teachers, the mind map templates could be particularly useful to help students visualise concepts better and draw more connections between topics. Miro also has an infinite whiteboard so you will not run out of whiteboard space, allowing for more freedom and less disruptions when teaching. Additionally, hosts can make good use of the video conference, screen sharing, and presentation modes to keep meetings engaging. The free version offers three whiteboards per account and no sign up required for viewers, making this app convenient and accessible. It is available at the Apple App Store. However, to have infinite canvases to work with, the ability to export your whiteboard in high definition for your students’ reference, and access to the video chat function, the paid version would be required, starting at US$8 per month. Check out this YouTube video to learn more about Miro.
3. ZOOM
Left: Demonstration of Zoom’s online whiteboard. Gif created by the writer with imgPlay.
Right: User annotating on Zoom’s screen share using a tablet. Photo by Zoom.
Zoom is a video-conference platform well-liked by educators because it can accommodate up to 100 participants and they can use the nifty features like the breakout rooms, polling, and hands up function to stimulate their students. However, being primarily a video-conferencing platform, Zoom’s basic built-in whiteboard function is not its main selling point. Nevertheless, Zoom’s whiteboard is unique as it allows participants to annotate anywhere on the screen in the middle of a screen share and not just on the whiteboard. The free version is available at the Apple App Store. However, note that it only allows 40 minutes of lesson time for calls with more than 2 participants, which is an uncommonly tight restriction among similar services. To conduct full, uninterrupted lessons, paid zoom plans may be necessary (starting at US$14.99 per month), resulting in lessons being less accessible for you and your students. Furthermore, security could be an issue as Zoom does not have functions that allow you to prevent unwanted interlopers from disrupting your online classes.
4. INKO
Image: Source
Inko is an interactive whiteboard that lets you draw using multiple iPad, iPhone or Mac devices, and even interact on Apple TV. You can choose to connect with up to 12 devices using nomadic collaboration, or unlimited people using remote connection over the internet without the need to create any accounts. It offers unlimited canvases and a variety of drawing tools including the ephemeral highlighter which helps you catch your students’ attention to a particular place in the canvas. Your annotations will also stay sharp at any zoom level. Inko is suited for a school setting as the reusable groups of participants feature makes it easy to quickly start a session with the same people again. After class, hi-resolution PDF exports are available for long-term digital archiving of your course notes. Inko’s unparalleled integration with Apple technologies allows it to provide a superior experience on Apple devices with heightened security and privacy settings as well. However, the main downside is it’s price. The free app is extremely limited, providing only drawing capabilities in single user mode and nearby collaboration for 5-minute time-limited sessions. The fully functional app offers a 7-day free trial before charging $1.99/month for the Nearby plan, and $3.99/month for the Remote Plan. Inko is available for download here at the Apple App Store.
5. LIMNU
Screenshot of video chat superimposed on Limnu’s online whiteboard. Photo by Limnu.
Built for teams in the workplace, Limnu is a traditional online whiteboard that offers basic sketching tools and an expandable canvas so that users can zoom out to reveal more empty spaces to write on and will never have to worry about running out of whiteboard space. Limnu is nevertheless suitable for educational purposes because of its accessibility; the free version is available at the Apple App Store for teachers and students to download and use without the need to register for an account and without a limit on the number of whiteboard collaborators as well. However, each whiteboard is only accessible for fourteen days and its security features seems to be lacking for free users (some parents may not feel at ease with their children using it for online lessons). Furthermore, the video-chat features are only available on the paid version (which means that you might need to supplement this app with another video-conferencing app which can be inconvenient). Educators at public school may be able to obtain the Free Pro Plan. Otherwise, the paid version starts at US$5 per month.
6. HEYHI
Screenshot of HeyHi’s online whiteboard
Now that you are aware of 5 conventional whiteboard apps for Mac, it is our pleasure to introduce HeyHi’s online whiteboard, a one-of-a-kind online teaching tool through which teachers can host virtual classes with a shareable whiteboard as its dominant feature. Specially designed with educators and students in mind, HeyHi is free for download and users on the free subscription plan can set up a virtual classroom for up to four participants, making this the ideal app for facilitating in-depth discussions and small group consultations. You can invite up to 100 participants for webinars.
With online learning, HeyHi Whiteboard allows teachers and students to continue reaping the benefits of the traditional whiteboard with even higher levels of efficiency. For example, unlike traditional whiteboards, HeyHi’s whiteboard is expandable so that teachers can create more space for notes by simply swiping to shift to another section of the board, or by zooming out. You can also create new whiteboard pages without affecting the original whiteboard that you and your students have been working on. After class, students can download everything that has been written on the whiteboard for easy future references. This also helps them learn better as when they are no longer pressured to hurriedly copy notes that risk being deleted as the class moves on, they are reassured and can pay full attention to the lesson content.
User shifts to another section of HeyHi’s online whiteboard to continue writing. Gif created on imgPlay.
What sets HeyHi apart from other whiteboard apps is also its unique user interface. Upon entering a lesson on HeyHi, students will immediately see a gridded whiteboard that occupies much of the screen with the video image of their teachers and classmates on the right margin of the screen. This deliberate placement is specifically designed to help students focus better. With the video images of participants being less conspicuous, a more conducive learning environment is created where students are less likely to be distracted by the faces and videos of their peers and teachers during lessons.
HeyHi’s online whiteboard. Photo by HeyHi.
Besides providing students with the opportunity to collaborate with their classmates which makes classes more engaging, HeyHi’s whiteboard app also fosters their creativity by allowing students to create mind maps, a tried-and-tested strategy that reliably enhances students’ learning by drawing connections between concepts.
Screenshot of HeyHi’s online whiteboard
Beyond delivering quality tools for online classes, developers at HeyHi also take security seriously. HeyHi Whiteboard app mandates all online lessons to be accessible only by a Meeting ID and access code to ensure the safety of online classes. Parents need not worry about their children being affected by hackers with malicious intent.
HeyHi’s incredible versatility as a whiteboard app makes it the perfect all-in-one stop for your online teaching needs. Beyond being a whiteboard, HeyHi is also an app that helps lighten educators’ workload by automating administrative matters. Teachers can leverage HeyHi’s calendaring feature to deconflict and schedule online consultations. During video conferences, HeyHi also records students’ attendance effortlessly for you. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic, HeyHi whiteboard can remain useful as a tool to produce educational videos that can be used in conjunction with physical lessons. On HeyHi’s whiteboard app, teachers can write and illustrate their ideas to create pre-recorded videos of lesson contents which can then be easily played back to aid your students’ revisions at home.
Left: Student books an online consult with the teacher. Gif created by the writer on imgPlay.
Right: Screenshot of HeyHi’s attendance taking tool.
At the end of the day, the most crucial feature of HeyHi is its accessibility. HeyHi’s application is compatible with Macs and is free for download at the Apple App Store. You can refer to HeyHi’s pricing page for more information on the different subscription tiers.
SUMMARY
If you are an educator looking for a whiteboard app to facilitate your virtual classes on your Mac, we hope that this curated list has provided you with some useful suggestions. Among these apps, most have a unique selling point that can enhance both your students’ and your own virtual classroom experience in some ways. However, the best features are often made exclusive to paid users only.
In contrast, HeyHi’s whiteboard app is a uniquely multi-purpose software that offers some of its best features to all users regardless of whether they are on a paid subscription or not, making it one of the most affordable, accessible and attractive solutions.
Sounds good? Come on board then! If you are interested in giving HeyHi’s online whiteboard a go, feel free to request a demo or even experience the user interface for yourself.