New to Digital Cartography? Software General Information

[skaForge]

Welcome.

As to the learning curve for CC3, I have heard it is steep, but I just don't see it. Not to sound facetious or anything, but I have a harder time trying to grasp the concepts of photoshop

If you pick up CC3, my biggest word of advice is this. Follow the Tutorials that come with it, (or locate the tutorials for CC2, only difference between the two is the look of the map), and you should do fine.

My tool set: GIMP, Inkscape, Affinity Suite, ancient Wacom Bamboo (any recs on what I should replace that with? Linux & MS os's in house). Trained on Qgis/GRASS, and then ArcGIS academically, and then used both in business. But those two have little cross-over into this type of cartography! I hear you on that PS learning curve. Used to use PS, LR, ID, but when they went to the SaS model, I started looking for alternates, and their deep-dive into AI sent me running from them completely. Learning Adobe, especially for use in my photography, was painful, and ongoing. Nope, I'm over that.