Beginner seeking recommendations for inexpensive software to start

[Juan Swaz]

Hello!

I'm new to this, and I'm looking for recommendations on inexpensive to free software to dip my toes in the water. My main points of interest are historical maps, geology, and topography. I have access to a PC running Windows 10.

Thanks in advance!

Best regards,

Juan

[Falconius]

I think there is a sticky probably some where, but here's a List of the ones I know about:

Painting/Raster Free:
Krita
GIMP

Painting Paid:
Paint Studio Pro
Procreate

Vector Free:
Inkscape

3D Free:
Blender

[Kellerica]

The Affinity software might be worth checking out too. Affinity Photo is a software in vein of Photoshop, so should be good for painting and drawing in raster format.
Affinity Designer is a vector software I can personally vouch for, I kind of prefer this over Illustrator even if I am generally Adobe's b*tch.

[Sapiento]

Affinity Photo is very good, it does more or less everything Photoshop does. Affinity Designer is OK, but it does not support real vector brushes, which is a big downside for a vector software.

[Juan Swaz]

Thank you all for the information. I will look into these that you've mentioned.

Another related question (please excuse me, I don't know if it's best to follow up here or to make a separate post): I have several maps of the same area, all from different sources and with different features, which I would like to use to make a composite map that includes the features from each of them. My maps are in pdf form currently.

I have looked myself, and I have contacted certain state, federal, and private agencies, but none have identified any maps already made which include all of the characteristics I need, so I am on my own.

Are there any good programs (on the inexpensive side) that would allow me to construct a composite map from multiple files?

Thank you again to those of you who have replied.

Best regards,

Juan

[ChickPea]

Just a quick comment about Affinity... they're currently offering a 90 day free trial (I think the usual is something like 10 or 14 days), plus 50% off the normal purchase price, so it's a good time to take a look at their software, if it appeals. https://affinity.serif.com

About your 2nd question, I should imagine any software that supports layers and blends (which is pretty much all serious image editors/painting software) would enable you to make a composite. I suspect your PDFs will be raster-based (i.e. pixels, rather than vector) since they're of historical maps, so something like Gimp (free) or Affinity Photo among others would do the trick. Without seeing the type of images you have, it's difficult to offer more advice. I've made composites from different photos in the past, mostly using the Pen tool to cut out the relevant parts, but I'm not sure how that will work with maps.

[Tiana]

Photopea is a great in browser free Photoshop knockoff with basic functionality, really does have its moments, it might do the trick for your needs. Affinity has a sale right now which would make it a worthy contender, though, I must say it has a few features that are superior to Adobe and it has some other features which ... are not. And their staff have no intention of ever improving workflow for anyone who doesn't work exactly like they do. For example, I would like to be able to copy and paste a layer style. It is possible to SAVE a layer style and reapply it later. But it's not simply possible to hotkey "copy the layer FX" to a keyboard shortcut, and for some weird reason it only has "paste FX" in the dropdown menu and only lets you do it once. The staff don't give a crap though because tHeRe's A wAy To Do It. Right, but with several more clicks than I want.

It's good for the price. If you're only planning to do this once, try Photopea or Gimp first.