Documentation and tutorials

What resources exist to help you learn how to use the software?

Of the packages we’ve looked at, we consider Krita to have the best documentation available overall, particularly when considered as, specifically, an art package. The official website contains a full online user manual. The tutorials selection is also excellent. Searching around on YouTube shows that it’s well supported in the area of screencast tutorials made by the wider community.

The Inkscape website features a full online manual, a beginner’s guide (downloadable) and various illustrated tutorials. Searching around on YouTube revealed a healthy selection of tutorials covering most areas of the software. Due to its inherently technical nature, you’ll almost certainly need these resources.

GIMP is one of the most famous and widely used open source applications, and this means that there’s a lot of support for it online. The website contains a number of tutorials along with a full online manual. Searching around on YouTube reveals many tutorials for most aspects of the program, but bear in mind that they’re not all aimed at explaining the art creation side of GIMP.

MyPaint may not have the instant name recognition as a Linux program, but it’s well known on other platforms and an online search revealed plenty of video tutorials. It may even have a slight advantage over some of the other programs, such as GIMP, because a large proportion of the tutorials are made by artists, painting in the software. There is an online manual, but it’s a bit on the brief side and some missing sections.

Compared to the other programs in this month’s Roundup, Karbon is let down by an overall lack of documentation – both officially and from the online community.