Hari's Corner

One of the things I've attempted recently is to switch from a raster-based image manipulation program to a vector drawing software to create my comics. Based on my own experience of using Inkscape, as opposed to the GIMP, I have compiled a short list of pros and cons of both approaches.

Obviously I am no guru at using any of these tools and I'm no expert artist either, so many of these points may not apply to the power users. Nevertheless, for what they're worth, I thought I'd share my thoughts on them.

First the pros:

• Extremely flexible drawing ability. Modifying line thickness is a breeze, as is adjusting contours and shapes. Small corrections which would involve considerably painful pixel manipulation in a raster tool can be achieved with ease in an vector drawing tool.
• A variety of pre-built shapes available (including stars and regular polygons).
• The ability to edit a picture does not diminish after saving and reloading a file from disk.
• The option of exporting the drawing as a bitmap at whatever resolution/DPI you wish without loss of quality. This makes it a great option to use as a source for both online and print publishing (printing requires a much higher DPI count for quality.)
• Finally makes it much easier to draw without an external pen/tablet as curves can be smoothened automatically at whatever level you wish. As a result, lines look much smoother than lines drawn in a raster image editor.

Now, the cons:

• Detailing the image requires more vector objects, adding complexity to the existing drawing and making it much more cumbersome to edit.
• Use of layering can be awkward and not always obvious. This might be specific to Inkscape, I suspect, but because of the complex relationship between objects which already have an existing Z-order, layer management is a tad cumbersome.
• Adding effects like gradients require more thought. Also it's not trivial (though possible) to add realistic shading, lighting and other special effects to a vector drawing.
• Too much flexibility in editing can actually turn out to be a drawback as you can keep on tweaking a picture to achieve perfection losing productivity in the process.
• Last but not least, the sheer enjoyment and fulfillment of drawing naturally will be missed.

I personally think that the pros outweigh the cons. In the final analysis I believe in using whatever tools do the job well and if that involves using both, I would gladly do it (I already post-process an Inkscape-exported bitmap to add shading using the GIMP)