Silly Question of Which Program to Use

Illustrator is a vector application.
Photoshop is a raster application

Your question is a little like
"I’m hungry, should I eat an apple or an orange?" The answer is… it depends on what you need.

Most serious illustrators make fruit salad– and use
both or either– (they have very different feature sets
and very different outputs)– as appropriate to the job at hand.

Suggest you find a copy of
—Photoshop, Painter, and Illustrator Side-by-Side (Crumpler) —Bert Monroy: Photorealistic Techniques with Photoshop & Illustrator —4×4 Photoshop and Illustrator: Light/Dark (Friends of Ed) or some such book to get a handle on the strengths and uses of each

"Tin Ear" wrote in message

I’m new to the full feature set for PhotoShop and I’m confused on an issue of what program to use for a give task. Prior to getting CS Premium, I

used

PSE to enhance and correct my digital still photos. With PSCS, I am

getting

much further along with my photo enhancement skills.

I see a lot of posts dealing with using PS as a primary tool to create graphics. In my Creative Suite learning, I see Illustrator being suggested as the tool of choice for that type of work. I say suggested because obviously PS is quite capable of doing the job. I’m not one to argue with success: if you create a successful end product, it really does not matter what tool you used to create it.

Therein lies my confusion. If I’m creating, for the sake of an example, a graphic that will be used as part of a slide show (Power Point or

similar),

which is the preferred tool: Illustrator or PhotoShop? The same question again for designing a logo or other piece of decorative art (not wall hung picture)?

Or is the real answer the amount of experience with one program over another?

Hopefully I don’t touch any sensitive spots here, this is just a confusing point for me.

"Tin Ear" wrote in message

I’m new to the full feature set for PhotoShop and I’m confused on an issue of what program to use for a give task. Prior to getting CS Premium, I

used

PSE to enhance and correct my digital still photos. With PSCS, I am

getting

much further along with my photo enhancement skills.

I see a lot of posts dealing with using PS as a primary tool to create graphics. In my Creative Suite learning, I see Illustrator being suggested as the tool of choice for that type of work. I say suggested because obviously PS is quite capable of doing the job. I’m not one to argue with success: if you create a successful end product, it really does not matter what tool you used to create it.

Therein lies my confusion. If I’m creating, for the sake of an example, a graphic that will be used as part of a slide show (Power Point or

similar),

which is the preferred tool: Illustrator or PhotoShop? The same question again for designing a logo or other piece of decorative art (not wall hung picture)?

Or is the real answer the amount of experience with one program over another?

Hopefully I don’t touch any sensitive spots here, this is just a confusing point for me.

Roughly: Photoshop = Pixels, Illustrator = Vectors
What you have to take in consideration is your output.You can create your graphic in both for your show but you are stuck with the original size it you use PS
When it comes to the creative part of the process what tool you use is your problem, I have seen someone "paint" with a metal grinder and this someone’s art was beautiful
Some people use $600 software plus plug-ins to produce 0.2 cents art work and others produce real art with a crayon or a throw away camera

Stephan

Tin Ear wrote:

I’m new to the full feature set for PhotoShop and I’m confused on an issue of what program to use for a give task. Prior to getting CS Premium, I used PSE to enhance and correct my digital still photos. With PSCS, I am getting much further along with my photo enhancement skills.

I see a lot of posts dealing with using PS as a primary tool to create graphics. In my Creative Suite learning, I see Illustrator being suggested as the tool of choice for that type of work. I say suggested because obviously PS is quite capable of doing the job. I’m not one to argue with success: if you create a successful end product, it really does not matter what tool you used to create it.

The difference is that Photoshop is mainly a raster (pixel based) program and Illustrator is mainly a vector program, though there is some overlap on both sides. Photoshop graphics are resolution dependent where Illustrator graphics are not (meaning they can be any size without losing detail)

Often an artist will use both in the creation of a single piece.

Therein lies my confusion. If I’m creating, for the sake of an example, a graphic that will be used as part of a slide show (Power Point or similar), which is the preferred tool: Illustrator or PhotoShop?

Either one depending on what the graphic is and where it’s being used. If it’s mainly photographic or "painted" Photoshop is the choice. If it’s clean, smooth, diagrammatic Illustrator might be your best bet.

The same question

again for designing a logo or other piece of decorative art (not wall hung picture)?

Illustrator usually preferred for logos. Since it is a vector program the type will be smoother and more scalable. If printing to a postscript printer Illustrator is going to do the job.

Or is the real answer the amount of experience with one program over another?

More like you get a feel for which is more appropriate for each situation.

Hopefully I don’t touch any sensitive spots here, this is just a confusing point for me.

—
Comic book sketches and artwork:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/edjh.html
Batman art for sale:
http://www.sover.net/~hannigan/batsale.html

I use Corel Draw and Photoshop to produce magazine style brochures and PageMaker to create whole magazines. I have done for about 11 years now. I am always amazed at what people do with Photoshop and the lengths they go to to do it when other products are eminently more suitable.

A professional Photographer I came across last year complained the 1 gigabyte of RAM he had in his P3, 1.1 GHz PC was not enough for the work he was doing. He was trying to create a wall poster in Photoshop and by the time he got all the images he was working on and the final poster open, he had run out memory and flooded his scratch disk. Corel draw with 128 meg of RAM breezes through these jobs.

Corel draw and (I suppose) Illustrator makes easy work of such tasks. As a general rule of thumb, use a graphic assembly application like Corel Draw of Adobe Illustrator to create items like advertisements for later inclusion in books and magazines or for creating wall art or brochures.

Use Photoshop for producing photographic like images to be included in the art piece and to manipulate photographs. Of course the line of separation where each product is ‘better’ than the other is quite blurred. Until I converted to 100% digital photography, I thought Photoshop to be overpriced and (relatively) featureless compared to the (sometimes poor) features of other programs.

Now that I can use the real power of Photoshop to process 100s of images in one session, I can see the value of the product and the features I never before used have all of a sudden become essential tools not available in other programs. I guess this is why it is considered a professional program! DM

"Tin Ear" wrote in message

I’m new to the full feature set for PhotoShop and I’m confused on an issue of what program to use for a give task. Prior to getting CS Premium, I

used

PSE to enhance and correct my digital still photos. With PSCS, I am

getting

much further along with my photo enhancement skills.

I see a lot of posts dealing with using PS as a primary tool to create graphics. In my Creative Suite learning, I see Illustrator being suggested as the tool of choice for that type of work. I say suggested because obviously PS is quite capable of doing the job. I’m not one to argue with success: if you create a successful end product, it really does not matter what tool you used to create it.

Therein lies my confusion. If I’m creating, for the sake of an example, a graphic that will be used as part of a slide show (Power Point or

similar),

which is the preferred tool: Illustrator or PhotoShop? The same question again for designing a logo or other piece of decorative art (not wall hung picture)?

Or is the real answer the amount of experience with one program over another?

Hopefully I don’t touch any sensitive spots here, this is just a confusing point for me.

Douglas MacDonald wrote:

I use Corel Draw and Photoshop to produce magazine style brochures and PageMaker to create whole magazines. I have done for about 11 years now. I am always amazed at what people do with Photoshop and the lengths they go to to do it when other products are eminently more suitable.

Main reason most people use the "wrong" application, is that they know one better than the other and they tend to stick with which one that they are proficient at. Most professionals don’t usually feel like they have time to experiment with a different program (especially when working on a commercial project) and they tend to dread the time/effort it sometimes takes to get up to speed with the new stuff.

Martin

A professional Photographer I came across last year complained the 1 gigabyte of RAM he had in his P3, 1.1 GHz PC was not enough for the work he was doing. He was trying to create a wall poster in Photoshop and by the time he got all the images he was working on and the final poster open, he had run out memory and flooded his scratch disk. Corel draw with 128 meg of RAM breezes through these jobs.

Corel draw and (I suppose) Illustrator makes easy work of such tasks. As a general rule of thumb, use a graphic assembly application like Corel Draw of Adobe Illustrator to create items like advertisements for later inclusion in books and magazines or for creating wall art or brochures.
Use Photoshop for producing photographic like images to be included in the art piece and to manipulate photographs. Of course the line of separation where each product is ‘better’ than the other is quite blurred. Until I converted to 100% digital photography, I thought Photoshop to be overpriced and (relatively) featureless compared to the (sometimes poor) features of other programs.

Now that I can use the real power of Photoshop to process 100s of images in one session, I can see the value of the product and the features I never before used have all of a sudden become essential tools not available in other programs. I guess this is why it is considered a professional program! DM

"Tin Ear" wrote in message

I’m new to the full feature set for PhotoShop and I’m confused on an issue of what program to use for a give task. Prior to getting CS Premium, I

used

PSE to enhance and correct my digital still photos. With PSCS, I am

getting

much further along with my photo enhancement skills.

I see a lot of posts dealing with using PS as a primary tool to create graphics. In my Creative Suite learning, I see Illustrator being suggested as the tool of choice for that type of work. I say suggested because obviously PS is quite capable of doing the job. I’m not one to argue with success: if you create a successful end product, it really does not matter what tool you used to create it.

Therein lies my confusion. If I’m creating, for the sake of an example, a graphic that will be used as part of a slide show (Power Point or

similar),

which is the preferred tool: Illustrator or PhotoShop? The same question again for designing a logo or other piece of decorative art (not wall hung picture)?

Or is the real answer the amount of experience with one program over another?

Hopefully I don’t touch any sensitive spots here, this is just a confusing point for me.

Coreldraw is awesome, Version 9 is a workhorse for me. Plate preview, impositioning, it’s all there. Actually being able to preview fonts, and having a longer visible "pick list". not to mention being able to quickly choose from the last several fonts used in the document. An intuitive, completely customizable interface.

I’ll say that HALF the people who have PS loaded on their systems don’t know the difference vetween a raster and vector object. Every day bus cards/brochures come into the shop with lousy typesetting, everything rasterized at 150 ppi.

JD

Stephan wrote:

Some people use $600 software plus plug-ins to produce 0.2 cents art work and others produce real art with a crayon or a throw away camera

Stephan

A particularly insightful comment. I consider the WORST insult people throw at me when complimenting my photographs goes something like this…

"Oh look at these wonderful photographs, you must have a really good camera"

I just bite my tongue. They mean well.

JP

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 02:43:54 GMT, "Douglas MacDonald" wrote:

Corel draw and (I suppose) Illustrator makes easy work of such tasks. As a general rule of thumb, use a graphic assembly application like Corel Draw of Adobe Illustrator to create items like advertisements for later inclusion in books and magazines or for creating wall art or brochures.

No, not Illustrator. Would you believe the latest version *still* only allows one page at a time. Multipage art in Illustrator? Maybe next century 😉

My favoured combination is actually Corel Draw and Freehand, but then you use what you’re familiar with 🙂
—

Hecate

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I looked at Freehand for the first time this week, out of curiousity. I have some experience with Flash.

After only 20 seconds, Freehand felt more "like home" to me than Illustrator ever did, or probably ever will.

JD

My favoured combination is actually Corel Draw and Freehand, but then you use what you’re familiar with 🙂
—

Hecate

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On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 23:16:48 -0700, "Jeff H." wrote:

I looked at Freehand for the first time this week, out of curiousity. I have some experience with Flash.

After only 20 seconds, Freehand felt more "like home" to me than Illustrator ever did, or probably ever will.

Yes, the latest version is so far ahead of Illustrator – the only reason it;’s still on my hard disk is in case I have any compatibility problems. I haven’t yet 🙂

—

Hecate

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My workhorse remains CorelDraw, more than capable for my extensive needs. But I think I could get into Freehand more readily than illus.

Looking at Illus.’ UI reminds me of flipping through an algebra textbook for the first time. Layer styles are cool, the program will be dependable… but my God, I couldn’t work with that for 8 hours a day like I can with Draw. The UI sucks the life right out of me. I know I’m not alone, at least one company has created a thirdy part solution for a variety of Adobe UI’s.

http://www.globalshareware.com/Utilities/Other-Softwares/Ado be-Illustrator-I nterface-Improver.htm

JD

Yes, the latest version is so far ahead of Illustrator – the only reason

it’s still on my hard disk is in case I have any compatibility problems. I haven’t yet 🙂

—

Hecate

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On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:51:13 -0700, "Jeff H." wrote:

My workhorse remains CorelDraw, more than capable for my extensive needs. But I think I could get into Freehand more readily than illus.
Looking at Illus.’ UI reminds me of flipping through an algebra textbook for the first time. Layer styles are cool, the program will be dependable… but my God, I couldn’t work with that for 8 hours a day like I can with Draw. The UI sucks the life right out of me. I know I’m not alone, at least one company has created a thirdy part solution for a variety of Adobe UI’s.
http://www.globalshareware.com/Utilities/Other-Softwares/Ado be-Illustrator-I nterface-Improver.htm

The real killer for me is the lack of multipage. You can only do one page at a time and that’s useless.

—

Hecate

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Wow, that’s a lot of material to digest. I’ve been playing with Illustrator some and I’m coming to like it. Mind you, I said "playing", as in getting a feel for what it can do. This is a new world for me, so I’m going slowly. So far, I have not run into any barriers with either PhotoShop or Illustrator, but I have not tackled any real complicated jobs yet.

Thanks for the information everyone!

"Hecate" wrote in message

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:51:13 -0700, "Jeff H." wrote:

My workhorse remains CorelDraw, more than capable for my extensive needs. But I think I could get into Freehand more readily than illus.
Looking at Illus.’ UI reminds me of flipping through an algebra textbook

for

the first time. Layer styles are cool, the program will be dependable…

but

my God, I couldn’t work with that for 8 hours a day like I can with Draw. The UI sucks the life right out of me. I know I’m not alone, at least one company has created a thirdy part solution for a variety of Adobe UI’s.

http://www.globalshareware.com/Utilities/Other-Softwares/Ado be-Illustrator-

I

nterface-Improver.htm

The real killer for me is the lack of multipage. You can only do one page at a time and that’s useless.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

Useless to us, but not Adobe 🙂

How can a company be profitable by putting relevant tools and resources in one place, instead of having users bounce around from app to app to app to get anything done? The money’s in the multiple apps at multiple prices. Adobe excels at this. They package it all together in sales bundles like CS and prev. the Designer Collection and are able to make people feel like it’s a "good deal" relative to the competition.

What would be interesting is seeing Macromedia throw a page layout app into the ring. They have the engineering talent to do it. I have a feeling Version 1 would be more useful and productive than Quark version 6.

The "round-trip workflow" between Draw and Photopaint is awesome. It allows designers to design, not open and close 4-6 programs all day, hunting and pecking for linked files. And you can have multiple pages! With Adobe, that "feature" is 300.00 more!

JD

The real killer for me is the lack of multipage. You can only do one page

at a time and that’s useless.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 01:10:52 -0700, "Jeff H." wrote:

Useless to us, but not Adobe 🙂

How can a company be profitable by putting relevant tools and resources in one place, instead of having users bounce around from app to app to app to get anything done? The money’s in the multiple apps at multiple prices. Adobe excels at this. They package it all together in sales bundles like CS and prev. the Designer Collection and are able to make people feel like it’s a "good deal" relative to the competition.

Yes, I agree 🙂

What would be interesting is seeing Macromedia throw a page layout app into the ring. They have the engineering talent to do it. I have a feeling Version 1 would be more useful and productive than Quark version 6.

That would be nice, but I think Macromedia have decided the electronic, i.e. web world is where they will concentrate their efforts. You only have to look at Freehand where they have heavily developed the web side whilst hardly doing anything with the print side. Having said that, anything has got to be better than Quark (and InDesign definitely is). However, I don’t need all the features of InDesign and as they will no doubt be adding activation to that in the near future I’ve been looking at other options. Basically, anything that isn’t Quark 🙂 And there seems to be a nice alternative if you’re interested. Take a look at Serif’s PagePlus v.9 It can output in all versions of Acrobat and even comes with two PDF/X1a presets.

You can find it at: http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplus9/index.asp

The "round-trip workflow" between Draw and Photopaint is awesome. It allows designers to design, not open and close 4-6 programs all day, hunting and pecking for linked files. And you can have multiple pages! With Adobe, that "feature" is 300.00 more!

Yes, I find that useful although, I have to say I use Photoshop more than anything. But when I don’t have much manipulation to do it’s easier to just drop something into Photopaint. What worries me however is that, since Corel collapsed and got taken over by Venture capitalists, nothing much seems to have been done. The last review I read of Draw 12 concluded that the Draw Suite "seems to be dying on it’s feet". 🙁

—

Hecate

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That would be nice, but I think Macromedia have decided the electronic, i.e. web world is where they will concentrate their efforts. You only have to look at Freehand where they have heavily developed the web side whilst hardly doing anything with the print side. Having said that, anything has got to be better than Quark (and InDesign definitely is).

*** I was reading yesterday about Indesign CS’s ability to create "rich media" pdfs – that have embedded video right inside a PDF file. That’s really something…

However, I don’t need all the features of

InDesign and as they will no doubt be adding activation to that in the near future I’ve been looking at other options. Basically, anything that isn’t Quark 🙂 And there seems to be a nice alternative if you’re interested. Take a look at Serif’s PagePlus v.9 It can output in all versions of Acrobat and even comes with two PDF/X1a presets.
You can find it at: http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplus9/index.asp

*** Someone I know across the pond bought it recently and found it surprisingly capable, for 1/10th the price of Quark..

The "round-trip workflow" between Draw and Photopaint is awesome. It

allows

designers to design, not open and close 4-6 programs all day, hunting and pecking for linked files. And you can have multiple pages! With Adobe,

that

"feature" is 300.00 more!

Yes, I find that useful although, I have to say I use Photoshop more than anything. But when I don’t have much manipulation to do it’s easier to just drop something into Photopaint. What worries me however is that, since Corel collapsed and got taken over by Venture capitalists, nothing much seems to have been done. The last review I read of Draw 12 concluded that the Draw Suite "seems to be dying on it’s feet".

***Some of the more interesting things happening in the Corel community lately are VBA Macros that do unique things. Check out the link if you are bored. The securidesign plugin is pretty cool.

http://oberonplace.com/

Also, this guy has a nifty site and tool.

http://www.isocalc.com/

A unique thing about the community of Corel users is the enthusiam to assist other Corelians. Sincere and useful help is only a newsgroup post away.

JD

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:13:20 -0700, "Jeff H." wrote:

***Some of the more interesting things happening in the Corel community lately are VBA Macros that do unique things. Check out the link if you are bored. The securidesign plugin is pretty cool.

http://oberonplace.com/

Also, this guy has a nifty site and tool.

http://www.isocalc.com/

A unique thing about the community of Corel users is the enthusiam to assist other Corelians. Sincere and useful help is only a newsgroup post away.

Thanks for the info. 🙂

—

Hecate

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