M
Mr Bean
Which one is most widely used?
TIA
TIA
G
GuyBrush Treepwood
The best and the most widely used might not be the same one.
M
Mr Bean
GuyBrush said:
So which one is the most popular?
A
Adrienne
So which one is the most popular?
Most popular is not necessarily the best. The best program is the one that
works best for you.
Adobe Photoshop is costly and very good, the "industry standard". A lot of
people like Gimp, and others like Corel Painter, or Ulead PhotoImpact or
Paintshop Pro.
S
SpaceGirl
Mr said:
eesh you'll never get a straight answer in here!
The one used by the majority of professionals is Adobe PhotoShop, but it
depends what you are doing. Animations may be done in Macromedia Flash
or Adobe ImageReady, and if you are incorporating video you may use Sony
Vegas or Adobe Premier Pro. Vector images (for use in Flash, or as base
art for PhotoShop) are generally done in Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia
Freehand (although, I wouldn't bother learning Freehand now, as it wont
exist in a years time).
My essentials;
Adobe PhotoShop CS2 (for jpegs, gifs, image edit and layouts)
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (for animation)
Adobe Illustrator CS2 (vector art for use in Flash, and shapes for
PhotoShop)
Corel Painer IX (fine art)
....and Macromedia DreamWeaver MX 2004 for sticking it all together on a
page
--
x theSpaceGirl (miranda)
# lead designer @ http://www.dhnewmedia.com #
# remove NO SPAM to email, or use form on website #
M
mbstevens
You'll need to make a distinction between
freehand vs vector vs completely generated,
and between 2D vs 3D.
Why don't you re-as as...
"What is the best program to make art that
looks like the stuff [X] does." (Where X
is some well known artist.)
T
Toby Inkster
M
Mr Bean
SpaceGirl said:
So true...
Vector images (for use in Flash, or as base
Illustrator is what I need I think. I have Photoshop and some problems
with drawings.
...and Macromedia DreamWeaver MX 2004 for sticking it all together on a
page
OMG. What gods on this NG wi say about DW?
You should use Notepad!
BTW. Did you said Flash?
That's blasphemy on this NG!
N
Nik Coughin
Mr said:
For raster stuff I use a combination of Paint Shop Pro 8 (haven't played
with 9 yet), Adobe PhotoShop CS2 and the Gimp 2. I prefer PSP for most
stuff, having used it at home for years, though at most of my places of work
I've used Photoshop, so I am comfortable with that as well, and prefer the
way it does some things. The Gimp has some great features and once again I
prefer the way it does some things to both PSP and PS, and I particularly
like ScriptFu so I use that a lot too. I very occasionally use MS Paint as
well if I want to do simple stuff at a per pixel level; dunno why but I just
like it as a per pixel editor. I also generate graphics with
PHP/GD/ImageMagick, good for doing things on the fly or for processing
graphics for use in content management systems.
For ease of use, I would recommend PSP first, followed by PS and then the
Gimp. PS is far and away the most polished but PSP has been catching up in
recent years. The Gimp is also coming along very nicely.
For vector stuff I like Adobe Illustrator, though I also occasionally use
the vector tools in PSP. I bought a Corel package last year but was never
really able to get into it, I just don't like the way Corel programs do
things most of the time, which is a pity because the last time I used
CorelDraw, around 10 years ago, it was really good. Corel Painter is pretty
cool.
For animation I like Flash but I rarely use it, no call for it in most of
the sites I do. I have also been playing with doing Flash-like transitions
and effects with JavaScript (ie sliding panels in from offscreen etc.).
This is very cool because in a lot of cases the things that Flash are used
for are overkill, and if you keep your wits about you then you can do it
with JavaScript in such a way that a page still looks and works perfectly
with JavaScript disabled but doesn't do the clever transitions etc. An
example of this is, having a page where all the elements slide in from
offscreen in a nice slick manner, but if JavaScript is disabled they just
load in their normal positions, because putting them offscreen was done with
JavaScript in the first place.
I also render some graphics with 3D modelling tools (3DS and Bryce). It
makes it a hell of a lot easier to do some things than it would be using
painting programs. I probably don't do this as much as I should, but I've
been thinking about making a little OpenGL application for doing buttons
etc. in 3D (there are probably programs like this already but I like doing
things myself).
Very occasionally I will get down and dirty and write a quick little custom
application to create an image or series of images, or to process images
I've done in something else. I could do all of this sort of thing in PHP if
I wanted to but I am more comfortable manipulating graphics in a more
traditional programming environment.
In summary I'd recommend getting your hands on as much different stuff as
possible -- most software has trial or demo versions, some of it is outright
free (like the Gimp) -- and figure out what you're most comfortable with and
buy the full version of that. If you find that a particular graphic is
difficult or labourious to do in your package of choice, try doing it in
another package. You'll soon get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses.
Wow, what a rant, but toys are fun.
C
Carolyn Marenger
Toby said:
And by me. I used to also use Corel Draw and Corel Paint. Stopped those
when I switched to linux.
Carolyn
S
SpaceGirl
Mr said:So true...
Vector images (for use in Flash, or as base
Illustrator is what I need I think. I have Photoshop and some problems
with drawings.
OMG. What gods on this NG wi say about DW?
You should use Notepad!
BTW. Did you said Flash?
That's blasphemy on this NG!
Perhaps so, but the reality of the commercial sites (for bands) I
build... it's what my clients want!
M
Mr Bean
SpaceGirl said:
AMEN