You were doing okay til you mentioned opening is office level applications.
If you use shapes and text and save as PDF the vectors and text will remain, but you won’t be able to do much with that in Word or PowerPoint.
Bob
I’m just trying to create a logo that I can use multiple places in a resolution independent manner. EPS SHOULD be the way to do it but there seem to be real limits on EPS creation. WMF would be ideal. All this is simple with Illustrator, I know but…
Bottomline is that you’re driving drive nails with a screwdriver. There are proper tools for everything and Photoshop is not the right tool for this.
Bob
Thanks. That’s what I was afraid of but why support vectors, changing tyhpe to shapes, etc., if we can’t really use it?
You can use it, but it has specialized uses…not to be used in place of a vector program. The benefits are for use with PDFs or placing images in InDesign.
Bob
If it’s for a one-off job and you don’t want to splash out on a professional vector program there are plenty of Shareware/Freeware programs which would do a good job of a basic logo in vector format.
Companies like Serif <
http://www.serif.com/DrawPlus/DrawPlus7/index.asp> also offer good stuff at a low price and you can get previous versions on cover CDs for free.
Or download a trial of something.
Be enterprising, you may never regret it!
Thanks. Yeah, I’m not really in the logo biz, just trying to help out a friend.
Don’t know if you have tried it, but MSWord has a pretty good vector drawing applet included, (select Draw from the toolbars menu) if one takes the time to explore it’s capabilitites. If you are familiar with the likes of CorelDaw, etc., you should little difficulty in finding your way around it.
HTH
TMH
can you save stuff easily from there? I’ll take a look. Thanks. I forgot about it. J
J,
I’ve only ever saved them within the Word document and on occasion pasted them into other Office applications, PowerPoint mainly. I’ve just pasted an image into PS but it looks a bit jaggy and I can’t do anything with it as a vector.
HTH
TMH
Smartest thing?
Stay the hell away from MS Word.
For graphics, yes. But to make that a blanket statement is just wrong. The entire MS Office suite is comprised of excellent programs when they’re used for their intended purpose.
Bob
" For graphics, yes"
That’s pretty much a given, and assumed, considering the venue, and what Jonathan is asking in the first place.
Still, even people I’ve dealt with who are considered well-seasoned and adept with the Office Suite still manage to output crap most of the time, especially if there’s any chance it needs to be repurposed for any other applications.
I just wanted to be clear. For you it may be a given, but not for everyone else.
Bob
Hmmm – PowerPoint? It depends which version you have I suppose?
<
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1dKoipLkkQ1wqVmwH5 kpxgF8dc4NS1>
<
http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1dKoipLkkQ1wqVmwH5 kpxgF8dc4NS1>
Assuming PowerPoint try:
1 – empty the slide of all content boxes
2 – describe a rectangle (add fill if you wish)
3 – draw into the rectangle
4 – group all the objects then
5 – File > Save AS > key in filename > change filetype (I chose TIF) > OK
6 – close PowerPoint then in Photoshop open the destination image
7 – add an extra layer
8 – open the TIF created in PowerPoint
9 – move it to the new layer in the destination image
I tried WMF first but photoshop didn’t like that but it seemed to be ok about the TIF
Phosphor,
What do you recommend for poison pen letters then? 😉
TMH
Hey, composing in PPT worked pretty well!
"What do you recommend for poison pen letters then?"
Depends on how "poisonous."
For the really bad ones, I’d suggest an old typewriter which then immediately gets melted down as scrap.
Robert Levine wrote:
"Bottomline is that you’re driving drive nails with a screwdriver. There are proper tools for everything and Photoshop is not the right tool for this."
Sometimes the "screwdriver" works pretty well.
I would never suggest using Photoshop by itself for all vector-drawing purposes. It’s as nutty an analogy as all those Fireworks fans trying to say it’s a better drawing program than Freehand.
Still, Photoshop’s has some key advantages in creating vector paths.
Photoshop’s pen tool has, in my opinion, better keyboard shortcuts than any other drawing program. I can manually digitize and adjust paths while still digitizing them more easily in Photoshop than I can in any other program. On top of that, the Ctrl, Alt and Spacebar keys still work for zooming and hand panning across an image while that path is being actively digitized.
Photoshop has better path to pixel registration than dedicated vector drawing programs. It also has a faster screen refresh rate -the difference on this was huge in previous software generations. AI CS2 has made the difference on refresh quite a bit closer.
What this gets down to in vector logo design is Photoshop can allow one to manually digitize "organic" types of shapes faster and better. What I mean by "organic" is scans of hand drawn or painted items or silhouettes of natural photographic items, such as a leaf.
The pen tool is mainly designed for drawing clipping paths. But those paths can also be used as logo elements. Commonly I digitize some elements within Photoshop and put together other elements in other applications and then eventually assemble it all together as a finished layout in Illustrator.
Photoshop’s disadvantage to Illustrator (and more technical oriented programs) is lack of numerical control on path creation. For technical looking logos featuring more geometric shapes a dedicated draw program like Illustrator is clearly the better choice.
"The tool is only as good as the hand that wields it, though he that hath skill can improvise mightily" yea verily.
TMH
