Folks Of Interest PhotoShop or Corel??

I'll agree on the Adobe stuff if you're going to be going to school for this. There are still a few Corel DRAW holdouts in sign making and some mom & pop screenprinters, but even many of these seem to be inching toward Adobe Illustrator.

If by "Corel" you mean "Painter", it's a VERY nice program, but hardly an industry standard. For drawing & painting, there is nothing in the digital world that comes as close to mimicking traditional media (for the artist and for the viewer). But I'm so used to Photoshop (used it daily since about 1992) that it's hard to get used to doing things differently than that. I will say that the last couple versions of Painter have been increasingly better about playing nice with Photoshop. I find myself taking some illustrations back and forth between the two programs several times before I call them "done". That said, if Ps had Painter's ability to align a stroke to a vector path (a "virtual french curve"), I'd prolly ditch Painter altogether. (I'm just trying to make good art, with no intentions of trying to make it look like it was done with a particular traditional medium.)

Regarding the tablet. Wacom is very much where it's at. I've known several people who have purchased other brands, and they always end up in a desk drawer or the trash can after a couple months (the tablets, not the people, LOL). Every art-minded person that I know that's tried a Wacom still has one on their desk. I'll sorta agree with Rob about the size, unless you got a big monitor with a fairly high resolution. In that case, a 6x11 or 9x12 tablet might be better for you. (but they take up A LOT of desk space, so...) Get the Intuos line if you can afford it, but I've heard good things about the 6x8 Bamboo line.

 

I want to know when this one is going into print???

 

I love Photoshop. It rools.


But seriously, right now the industry seems to be heavy on the Adobe product. You should definately learn your way around Corel but I think the Adobe products will be your main tools. You alse need to have "the eye" for it. Being able to draw/paint is a huge plus. Even though everything is done digitaly you still apply some of the same principles you would if you were painting or drawing. I have found there are Graphic Designers and Graphics Artist. I tell everyone I am a designer but I really feel I am an artist.

 

It's almost ready!

Printed with archival inks on 13 x 19" watercolor paper.
Image size is smaller to allow for matting and framing
Signed and numbered limited edition of 20.

 

Im my opinon, Photoshop is better than Corel Photo Paint for image editing, but I prefer Corel Draw to Illustrator. It feels more user friendly than Illustrator. So far, I haven't really seen any Vector stuff done on Illustrator that I don't think could be done on Corel Draw (not saying I could do it, or that I'm so talented, just know what Corel can do). Now if your going to export it and start doing airbrush and freehand drawing stuff to it, I move it over to Photoshop or Corel Painter. If your wanting to do work more like natural painting and less like "photo retouching", then Painter is incredible, especially with a tablet. For what it's worth, Adobe Creative suite costs about $1000 last time I checked (updates are cheaper, but you gotta bite the bullet the first time, no matter which brand you choose), but Corel's package is only about 350. Corels package dosen't include Painter, that is a seperate program, but they allow you to purchase the update of Painter instead of the full program (much cheaper) if you have one of the more recent versions of Corel Draw. The updates are exactly the same as the full program, your basically buying the serial number with that first full package (Corel and Adobe). Point is, you could buy the full package of CorelDraw, and the update of Painter and have all the programs for less than the cost of the Adobe package. Incidently, Adobes tracing program for vectorizing used to smoke Corel, but the most recent version of Corels trace seems to caught up. In the end, it's what your comfortable with and, if your in cl***, what the cl*** uses. If your just wanting to play around on your own and get your feet wet, Corel would be the more cost effective choice. I will also mention though, that Adobe it by far the standard in the industry, so if your working with alot of other outside companies, it might be nice to work in AI as your native format, but Corel does a petty good job of exporting to just about every file format known to man.

 

Hey - there's still some weirdos that use Freehand! LOL!

~Jason

 

We're a printin' town here in Kansas City. And it's STILL prevalent... especially for archived stuff that needs dug up again and re-formatted.

~Jason

 

Hope some of that info helped, Dane.

 

of yeah man its helped alot. I worked at a sign company as an installer they used both programs but mainly Corel because the "lead designer" said it was easier but i have not had any cl***es in design and i feel that i thought i could design better signs than her so...

i draw by hand all the time.never really painted always thought of doing it but never have.

i was thinking about getting like a 6x11 im a big guy big hands and i do have a long sweep sometimes. i mean i could buy the CintQ WX. But if the Intous3 does the same thing it will work then.

Would an older version of Photo Shop and Ill. be okay?

Thanks a bunch for your help guys

Dane

 

If you're gonna be taking cl***es, you might better check with the school/instructor to see if there are any req's on this issue. But for what 95% of what most people use Ps for, almost any version from about 5.5 on up will work. (If you're on Mac OS X, then you better go with 7.0 or higher.)

For Illustrator, version 8 or higher (version 10 for OS X).

the CS4 versions of both just came out a couple weeks ago... so you might be able to find a deal on an older version.

 

speaking of Aldus, Freehand was the best vector program ever.
It was originally an Aldus product before Macromedia.
I miss freehand

 

6.0 is where i might start. Reason being that 5.5 doesn't allow you to edit your brush [right-click/select brush size and shape], without going back to a drop-down menu. It's really clunky that way if you are doing illustration and such. I use 6.0 w/ an Intuos 2 no problem.

..That's on a PC, though-- not sure about Mac.

 

Thanks, I think it's just what an artist learns on and gets used to. These were colored completely in Photoshop over scanned in line drawings. I think it has more to do with what you start with than what program you use. It's like PC versus MAC, you are just more comfortable using one tool or the other.

 

wow!

 

What school are you going to? I'm going to Art Ins***ute Hollywood and everything we have done is with Adobe. Adobe is pretty much the standard. I think the 3d modeling stuff is the next big wave like the program Rhinoceros.

 

I emailed the head of the department and he said they touch on Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver
the suite of CS3 or 4 is high as hell. Can everything be done in Illustrator? or PhotoShop?

Okay well i found this stuff:

http://www.apc-usa.net/ssproduct.asp?pf_id=1011616066



http://www.academicsuperstore.com/products/Adobe/Creative+Suite+Design+Standard/933311

is this what i need or is this like an upgrade???

 

Having gone to a Professional Arts School (Art Ins***ute of Colorado)...I can guarantee you you'll want the Adobe products ie- Photoshop & Illustrator. Even the editorial design is switching in the industry from Quark to InDesign. I majored in Graphic Design for 3 years and didn't complete due to a bad curriculum, and too much money for not being taught anything I didn't know.

Here's what you do...

Buy Photoshop & Illustrator...

...then go to good-tutorials.com and follow through step by step.

It make the programs really easy to learn and you'll be able to work your way in and out of the programs like a professional.

 

Im emphasize on graphic design at this point but there is that chance i may change my mind and do illustration.

 

Sorry I didnt mean to piss you off or what ever i have done.
I draw daily as it is now. I know thats the only thing thats goin to improve me skills. Im just looking to you guys that do this every day for a living for your opinions i guess if i cant take the heat i should not have asked?
I want to better my self in anyway i can.

 

Sorry Jeff I didnt mean to stir up **** or nothing. I love your work!!! I would give anything to do stuff like that!

 

Definitely check into the student discount! Another angle might be to find an older version of Photoshop for cheap, and get the upgrade to the whole CS4 suite. Adobe's running some kind of deal for the next couple months where you can get regular upgrade pricing on stuff that's a few versions old.

You CAN do a lot of "design" work in Ps and Illustrator, but each product has its own strengths & weaknesses. If you buy just Photoshop + Illustrator, you've pretty much just bought the "Design Standard" suite, which includes InDesign and Acrobat Pro and some other stuff you might use.

But please don't do multi-page layout do***ents in Photoshop (or pre-CS4 Illustrator). Sorry... pet peeve that's been popping up at work lately.

 

Stick with Adobe products. I've been a graphic designer for 15 years and have used all of them. Adobe products are industry standard, better supported, and more user friendly. And though things are more compatible now than they were in the past, Corel's postscript is not as stable as Adobe's. Years ago when I did a lot of prepress Corel files were a nightmare. If you're looking to do vector illustration Adobe Illustrator is the only way to go IMO.

 

Photoshop is your best bet.

 

Those look like the full versions at academic prices to me. Definitely check before you plunk down the plastic, though. (Oh, and you have to prove your studenthood before purchasing...)

Make sure you get the right product for your computer (Mac vs. Windows), though. They are different disks, but the programs run pretty much the same once they are on your computer.

Not sure how it is now, but it used to be such that the academic versions were still the fully-functioning commercial product, but they just didn't include as much extra sample files, fonts, etc.

 

Back "in the day", my "student discount" involved working in the computer lab part-time, with access to a T-3, newer software, and some CD/DVD burners... and what I couldn't get my hands on physically, I could download! Man, it was beautiful!!!

I wasn't a very nice boy back then... Hey - I was rebelling against THE MAN, all right?

I hit my point of satiation about a year into it. I had **** I'd never even use - not in a million years. I eventually quit, and it became kind of lame. Plus, whenever my parrot squawked people stared at me funny with my floppy disk eyepatch and tri-corner hat.

Now I just buy what I need. It's good karma, and it's hella easier.

It's kind of like years ago - with AV equipment, I never needed an adapter. I had a Swiss Army Knife and some time - I could splice ANYTHING together. Composite-to-S-Video? No prob. DB-15-to-HDB-15? I can do it! Need a 3-into-one splitter? I got it covered!

Maybe I got old. Maybe I got a clue. Maybe I pussed out. But these days, I just buy a $3 adapter at Radio Shack and am done with it. I figure that if time is money, then with all the ******** I used to do I'm probably money ahead just buying what I need sometimes.

So yeah - take it from me. You're a good man to just go out and buy a copy. Many of the folks I know from way back when that were rockin' eyepatch special editions of Photoshop have gone on to be real art studs and given back to Adobe by purchasing real, honest-to-God CS4 suites. And in doing so, have given back to the company tenfold!

I guess we all come around, eventually.

~Jason