hey graphics people, what do you prefer to use?

[jefhatfield]

i only dabble in the graphics end of computers, but my wife has macromedia freehand, adobe illustrator, pagemaker, photoshop, and i have microsoft front page 2000

what do you find best for beginners? pro users?

[timbloom]

Photoshop and a good photoshop how-to book, ... by the fire..

[D0ct0rteeth]

Illustrator and Photoshop are of course indespensible. InDesign is basically replacing quark lately.


As far as web development; I find frontpage to be useless... I was a longtime handcoder; but dreamweaver is just too smooth of an application to ignore.

Im a dreamweaver lover; but with all code I find it necessary to edit by hand - passing variables and any serious code requires a code only view.

Many larger clients; HP, Comaq and so on actually hire people to go through and read each line of code to ensure that it meets their standards. I bang out the html in design view then build the php in code view.

Its like butta :)

-Doc

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by D0ct0rteeth



As far as web development; I find frontpage to be useless...

i have only met one person who likes it ;)

i just bought it because the college gave a course on it

[Mr. Anderson]

photoshop, illustrator, golive and flash

but lightwave is my main app - all the others I use more as utilities to lightwave. :D Which doesn't mean I'm ignoring them - I have to really master each to use them effectively (still working on being better with all of them).

D

[janey]

indesign -> piece of crap (sorry but even though quark ain't os x native yet, i still like it and it still has the cooler name!)
i like photoshop the most, for web development dreamweaver is also cool ;)

[D0ct0rteeth]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
i have only met one person who likes it ;)

i just bought it because the college gave a course on it

Its fine as an entry level app - like .mac's homepage; but it writes the worst code ever... i'm just bustin your chops jef :)

I coudn't tell you the number of times I had a consultant give me a frontpage file that I had to completely redo because of the 87 font, layer and table tags :)

Good times, baby

-Doc

[howard]

i don't think anyone could even think of topping photoshop and illustrator. i love adobe's programs. there so thorough and easy to use. and for web design its dreamweaver all the way. i don't think macromedia's programs are quite as easy to use as adobe but they are definitely just as thorough

[Computer_Phreak]

well, im no pro

but Photoshop is THE standard.

I even know a little of it myself:D

[shakespeare]

Totally InDesign for layouts. I don't know what's the deal with Über. It is a gorgeous program and it does everything I always wanted Quark to do. I am now Adobe across the board and I'm very happy about it.

[janey]

Originally posted by shakespeare
Totally InDesign for layouts. I don't know what's the deal with Über. It is a gorgeous program and it does everything I always wanted Quark to do. I am now Adobe across the board and I'm very happy about it.
i love adobe
I HATE INDESIGN!!!!! QUARK IS SO MUCH BETTER AND COOLER.
i did go indesign for a couple of weeks and i hated it.

[D0ct0rteeth]

Why do you stay with quark? What does it do that inDesign can't?

-Doc

[FlamDrag]

Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, Sorenson Squeeze 3 and FCE, Acrobat. Freehand is nice to have around.

[shakespeare]

Cooler? Most of its features are hidden several levels deep in the menu hierarchy!

Or wait.... is this sarcasm?

[janey]

Originally posted by D0ct0rteeth
Why do you stay with quark? What does it do that inDesign can't?

-Doc
InDesign sucks. Adobe makes great products but InDesign ain't one of them :rolleyes:
I just wanna stay with Quark and if you have a problem with that...

[janey]

Originally posted by shakespeare
Cooler? Most of its features are hidden several levels deep in the menu hierarchy!

Or wait.... is this sarcasm?
so? one of the most underrated programs ever is ImageReady because nobody knows that it comes with photoshop :rolleyes:

[D0ct0rteeth]

Originally posted by übergeek
InDesign sucks. Adobe makes great products but InDesign ain't one of them :rolleyes:
I just wanna stay with Quark and if you have a problem with that...

I don't own stock in adobe man, I was just asking. My preference comes from just my prior experiences and frustration with quarks "lack of features"

I was looking for a reason or two to give quark another look as I haven't used it since InDesign went OSX, and lately the printers i use have embraced InDesign and erased any advantage Quark once had.

Its cool man... I'm not insulting your preference, but stating mine (osx, rapid updates, and photoshop/illustrator integration) and asking for a reason to give quark another look.

Have a good night.

-Doc

[jethroted]

I've been doing this crap for 5-6 years now, and I use Quark, Photoshop, Freehand, Illustrator, and Acrobat.

[bousozoku]

I will use practically anything but PageMaker.

I've been using Adobe GoLive, LiveMotion, Photoshop, and Illustrator at home lately, along with the occasional use of the Corel Graphics Suite 10 since Illustrator doesn't do multiple page documents. I don't have a desktop publishing application at this time. Quark XPress works okay although it should be named Quirk XPress instead. I hope that they get the new version done before I take the class at school. I don't want to deal with Mac OS 9 again. :D

If I could afford Studio MX, I would, but the more I use DreamWeaver, the more I appreciate GoLive. The only difference is that MM supports ColdFusion and that's huge right now.

[eyelikeart]

I've been hooked on Freehand for a few years now. Macromedia went south with it when v.10 came out...shouldn't have changed it as much as they did after v.9.

I use Photoshop a lot. I'm not intensely skilled in it, but can do what I need with decent results.

Prefer InDesign over Quark, not just for OS X's sake, but it's more compatible with Adobe's other software.

I also use iVieMedia Pro for setting up image galleries.

Otherwise...I dabble with Dreamweaver & Fireworks some.

[robotrenegade]

My prefs:
Print: Adobe Photoshop 7
Adobe Illustrator 10
InDesign 2.0.1

Web: Adobe Photoshop 7
Adobe Image ready
Transmit
BBedit
Dreamweaver MX
Flash MX
Fireworks MX


Multi-media: Drector MX
Photoshop 7
Flash MX
Peak LE3.10
Lightwave 7.2b
Swift 3D

If you get that you will be set for a while.

[e-coli]

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NEVER EVER EVER USE MICROSOFT FRONT PAGE :mad:
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[DavidFDM]

I prefer . . .

Illustrator to Freehand

I need to spend more time with InDesign before I can definitively say which i prefer. However, I was having a seriously hard time making a simple PDF in Quark 5 today. A font would not download. I opened the document (as Quark 4) within InDesign, fixed two line breaks and exported as PDFs. I am planning to do a big project in InDesign to really get a feel for the program but I am just so fast in Quark, I haven't had the extra time to spend learning the program.

Photoshop

Dreamweaver over GoLive, mostly because of the large amount of Dreamweaver Extensions but GoLive handles tables better.

Flash

VueScan

FireWorks over ImageReady

Hope this helps.

- David

[DreaminDirector]

I use Photoshop (there is no equal), illustrator, Golive, Flash.

I used to use Quark, then got into InDesign. Now can't go back to Quark. Quark is dying. I loved it for a long time but I just cant stand for the (old) constant updates (3.31, 3.32, 4.0, then back to 3.32) with no real feature changes and the lack of the update to OSX (yes, I know it's in the works). I don't hate Quark, and I see no need to take sides, because for a very good long time Quark was king. Slowly the torch is being passed. Adobe does an amazing job of intergration. Sure, InDesign 1.0 has some MAJOR flaws, the fixed most of them in 2.0. Now it's a good layout program.

I was taught in my design classes that it's not what programs you use to get the job done, but rather that the final product that comes from the job grabs attention and provokes thought.

[Nemesis]

Originally posted by übergeek
i love adobe
I HATE INDESIGN!!!!! QUARK IS SO MUCH BETTER AND COOLER.
i did go indesign for a couple of weeks and i hated it.

Uber, you're out of your mind.
QuarkXpress is an ice-age app with an outdated interface and crippled functionality. Change and serving better their customers also is not their religion.

You're on crack, Uber :-) InDesign is a modern app. Works excellent.

[Vlade]

Originally posted by D0ct0rteeth
As far as web development; I find frontpage to be useless... I was a longtime handcoder; but dreamweaver is just too smooth of an application to ignore.
-Doc

I still use Claris Home Page hehehe.... for once I didnt pirate a program i desperitly need!

[Giaguara]

If you can't legally afford Photoshop, I'd suggest GIMP or MacGIMP.

So far my preferred coding thing has been BBedit.

And now Bluefish.

[jethroted]

Originally posted by Nemesis
Uber, you're out of your mind.
QuarkXpress is an ice-age app with an outdated interface and crippled functionality. Change and serving better their customers also is not their religion.

You're on crack, Uber :-) InDesign is a modern app. Works excellent.

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. I am in the printing/design industry, and evryone I talk to from design houses, or other print shops pretty much feel the same thing. "Indesign sucks, and will never take Quark." I never get ID files to output. When I ask them why they don't switch, they said they tried it, and it stunk. I have no opinion on the matter as I have not tried it yet, but the people I talk to say the same thing.

[backspinner]

Originally posted by übergeek
i love adobe
I HATE INDESIGN!!!!! QUARK IS SO MUCH BETTER AND COOLER.
i did go indesign for a couple of weeks and i hated it.

from the profile of ubergeek: Birthday February 24, 1989

Doesn't look like she's a long time user...

[Nemesis]

Originally posted by jethroted
I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you there. I am in the printing/design industry, and evryone I talk to from design houses, or other print shops pretty much feel the same thing. "Indesign sucks, and will never take Quark." I never get ID files to output. When I ask them why they don't switch, they said they tried it, and it stunk. I have no opinion on the matter as I have not tried it yet, but the people I talk to say the same thing.

You just confirmed something that is not an issue regarding InDesign's capabilities and it's modern architecture.

If printers rely on openning original Quark files and then ripping them, I only have to say they still live in stone age. That's a very, very, very old practice that yields poor results, because so many factors can ruin your design and final output. Missing or different font descriptions are just one issue.

Today, hi-quality printing houses accept PDF as a standard. It's platform independent, all design content you produce is inside of it, fonts, pics, page info, everything. It's perfect.

You're a designer, you should also know more about creating postscript files from any DTP applicaton, QuarkXPress, PageMaker, Illustrator or InDesign... So if you're able to create a correct PS files using settings provided to you by your printer, it really doesn't matter which tool you're using. You just provide them PS file (because they have to do the same thing from your Quark file, get it?) and that's it.

So, you see, we were actually talking about funtionality, which app is really better and more user-friendly in many different senses.

Printers, specially small printers, are people opposed to any positive change, and generally they are not ready to upgrade their services. They run ancient hardware, even more ancient software and they never upgrade their rip software. Screw them. They'll all die like dinousars did.

[Macette]

i haven't really used InDesign much. I keep intending to switch - it's on my hard-drive! - but I'm so much quicker with Quark, and in this business time is money...

However I won't be upgrading to Quark 6 when it goes OS X native. I think Adobe need to be rewarded for developing a superior tool and for treating its customers with respect. I just need a spare weekend to sit down and get used to it.

I use Dreamweaver and BBEdit for (X)HTML/PHP etc. I use Flash and Fireworks for most other things. Except i edit pics in photoshop rather than Fireworks (because it's what i know best). I never use ImageReady; it takes forever to launch, and often crashes.

I hate M$ HTML.

[jefhatfield]

does anybody have quark and indesign?

i have illustrator and freehand

[Kid Red]

Photoshop for beginners or pros. For pros, Illustrator. I'm not a beginner by any stretch but I just can't seem to get a grasp on illustrator so I do it by hand in photoshop.

[alkil47]

I am a graphic designer and have been for 5 years , stuff that I use in no order ,

OS 9.2 , Photoshop 5.5 cus six sucks up to much ram for whats its worth and seven i don't have a need for, Illustrator 9 cus i don't have ten , Quark cus I am faster in that than Indesign , fontographer , Streamline , Flash 4-5-MX , Fireworks MX , Dreamweaver , BB edit 6 , Director , ei 5 and up , suitcase 10 , netscape 4.7 and up and a **** load of others such as after effects , reason , final cut pro , Deck , peak , Premiere, and much much more ... :o

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Kid Red
Photoshop for beginners or pros.

maybe it's like playing tennis or basketball

anyone can learn to play relatively quickly, but it takes many years to be a master

the crazy thing about learning microsoft windows is that it takes too long just to learn the basics and as for mastery, i don't know anybody who cares to go that far with the thing

the more i see people learn about windows, and see its quirks and weaknesses, the more they seem interested in trying out a mac, linux os, or chucking the windows machine out the window:D

[alkil47]

Originally posted by Kid Red
Photoshop for beginners or pros. For pros, Illustrator. I'm not a beginner by any stretch but I just can't seem to get a grasp on illustrator so I do it by hand in photoshop.

You have to be kidding , illustrator is piss easy , " by hand in photshop you must be crazy , what do you do your logos in? Lol bitmap logos out of photoshop ... dude learn illustrator you will never look back ...

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by alkil47
You have to be kidding , illustrator is piss easy , " by hand in photshop you must be crazy , what do you do your logos in? Lol bitmap logos out of photoshop ... dude learn illustrator you will never look back ...

neither program is as easy to use as microsoft works word processor, for instance, but i also find photoshop easier to use than illustrator

maybe i am just not that artistic:D

[trebblekicked]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
neither program is as easy to use as microsoft works word processor, for instance, but i also find photoshop easier to use than illustrator

maybe i am just not that artistic:D

ii've been messing around with illustrator for about two years now, and just decided to get serious about it. i've begun working with zaxwerks in AE, and i needed to learn illustrator in order to have source material to use in zaxwerks. it's a very cool program. i'm still a huge fan of photoshop, though. i just love the interface. it was my first "real" program back in the day, so i guess it will always have a spot in my heart.

[rt_brained]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
does anybody have quark and indesign?

I have both. I've been called a couple times in the last year to freelance on-site
for companies that use InDesign and I was able to learn it overnight on one of those on-line self-paced learning sites. Sure, there's a lot that's different from Quark, but if you're a die hard and don't want to learn new keystrokes, you can easily set up InDesign's keystrokes to emulate Quark's.

I can understand the resistance to change. But to say InDesign "sucks" just shows the level of maturity of the user. Guess what? Compared to Quark, Dreamweaver and Flash suck too. So does Final Cut. They're different too.

I'll admit that InDesign is much easier to output PDFs from (of course). And I never have a problem outputting files because I rarely send native Quark or InDesign files anyway. Mostly PDFs.

Naturally, Quark is the standard. But there's nothing wrong with InDesign. In fact, there's a lot right about InDesign. Namely, OS X functionality.

[iGav]

Originally posted by Kid Red
Photoshop for beginners or pros. For pros, Illustrator. I'm not a beginner by any stretch but I just can't seem to get a grasp on illustrator so I do it by hand in photoshop.

But they're 2 totally different programs, that do 2 totally different things.....

I can't believe you'd have so much problem learning any Adobe software... they all share a similar inherent GUI that means that it's easy to learn and to intergrate with other Adobe packages.... unlike Macromedia that really doesn't have a clue when it comes to GUI intergration amongst its products.... :p :p :p

[jaguarx]

But they're 2 totally different programs, that do 2 totally different things.....

Beat me to it!
Illustrator has it's uses and so does photoshop, sure there can be overlap, but if you look at any one task, one or the other is better for it.

Illustrator requires a basic understanding of vector theory to make use of it properly whereas photoshop at the start has a slightly less steep learning curve in terms of theory(on the other hand if i see one more lens flare i'm going to be tempted to ram the sun up the designers ass and tell him to look at the pretty lens flare).

Like programming languages power often equates closely to ease of use. Perl is piss easy to learn, but limited, C++ on the other hand is a MoFo to pick up but once you do, you can do anything. Photoshop though can accododate any level of experience quite well, it's getting better too, Actions rock =)
Indesign is nice, damn nice, as a long time photoshop and illustrator user i found it dead easy to pick up, was able towork efficiently within a couple of days.

[alkil47]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
neither program is as easy to use as microsoft works word processor, for instance, but i also find photoshop easier to use than illustrator

maybe i am just not that artistic:D


Illustrator is easy any muppet can use it . If you are serious about getting it the creative media industry you need to learn Illustrator or freehand or some kind of vector application , being artistic has nothing to do with it , its a tool and a very easy one at that ... if you can't get your head around vector applications and there uses and know how to use them I would re think your career path. 2400 dpi Bitmap logos at 5000mm x 2000mm would love to see that :p

[alkil47]

Originally posted by jaguarx
(on the other hand if i see one more lens flare i'm going to be tempted to ram the sun up the designers ass and tell him to look at the pretty lens flare).

People who use photoshop filters make me sick ... :p

[trebblekicked]

Originally posted by alkil47
People who use photoshop filters make me sick ... :p

like foreground to background gradients? ugh. disgusting.

[zarathustra]

I skimmed this post and had to remember a Dilbert cartoon:

The girl holding her fist back saying: "Must control Fist-of-Death!"

I work as a designer and know design and layout programs on a very high level. I beta test InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop - a lot of fun.

The programs listed here are tools - nothing more. When someone says Quark rules and InDesign sucks, or that they prefer to draw everything in Photoshop vs Illustator, is like comparing a utility knife to an exacto knife, or a Rotring pen to a compass. They are all designed and updated to do a specific task.

That's why I cannot understand why people insist designing a brochure in Illustrator, or a whole book in Freehand or CorelDraw (multipage support i guess) - these things will have to be output to a device independent PS file, plate by plate. But how you get to those plates matters. USE THE MOST EFFICIENT TOOLS!

If you prefer Quark, that's fine - but if I am your client and ask for a PDF of the 250 page book you were working on - how long does it take for you to produce that?

If I can learn a set of keyboard commands I will be many times faster and more productive than going through menus and windows - and if I can use the same shortcuts in my most frequently used applications, it's a win-win situation.

If I can avoid using clipping paths and have soft feathered outlines - that's a life saver and a money saver. In Quark, you have to have a clipping path to knock out the background of an EPS - in InDesign, take a tranparent background image with layers, place it, and the soft feather to transparent will remain.

And I could go on.

From personal experience: Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10 and InDesign 2 are the way to go for print.

PS:

Quark is coded in India by coders that have never worked in the industry and have a hard time communicating with beta testers. The program is a spaghetti of legacy code, and is almost impossible to implement new features. The best comparison I heard came from an ex-Quark programmer:

"Quark is like an old house, remodeled numerous times over the decades, but the blueprints were misplaced. When you walk in and turn on the lights, the toilet flushes."

[alkil47]

Originally posted by zarathustra
When you walk in and turn on the lights, the toilet flushes."

Or an Alien comes out and blows up your blocks hehe ... :p I am pretty sure Adobe uses monkeys to program some of their product , don't get me started on macromedia ...

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by alkil47
Or an Alien comes out and blows up your blocks hehe ... :p I am pretty sure Adobe uses monkeys to program some of their product , don't get me started on macromedia ...

or when you open the app, your name, address, and likes/dislikes are sent to the fortune 500 and all the major porno websites

oops, that's not quark...that's microsoft;)

[alkil47]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
or when you open the app, your name, address, and likes/dislikes are sent to the fortune 500 and all the major porno websites

oops, that's not quark...that's microsoft;)

I don't mind the prono sites , but not those fortune 500 wankers.

[loveshismac]

Nemisis sad it all.
Thank you very much,
I have been in the field for 9 years now.
Deal with printers in Honk Kong, LA , NYC.
all accept the same file. - PDF
And if you want to make all those extra steps to simply import a file with transperancy go for it. waste your time, in the mean time im five designs ahead of you and stole your business.

indesign will take quark.

have you seen the beta of quark 6?
how long has it been around compared to indesign. wait till indesign is at version 6.
lol

[Jaykay]

Originally posted by übergeek
so? one of the most underrated programs ever is ImageReady because nobody knows that it comes with photoshop :rolleyes:

I never use Image Ready (even tough i do know it comes with photoshop) what exactly is its purpose (that cant be sone in photoshop), because if its useful i might use it.....

[junkionxl]

Me personaly I like to use Illustrator, Pagemaker, Photoshop and Indesign. I am a printer and thats all I really use when I have a job that needs to be done by a client.:p

[New Guy]

As a designer I mostly use PhotoShop and Quark 4. See no need to upgrade to 5 when 6 will be OS X native. I would like to try InDesign if I can convince the boss to purchase a copy. I know Illustrator better than Freehand but every few years, when we get a new version of one or the other, I switch. Right now I am trying to brush up on Freehand again but I have no real preference or loyalty to either one. It's best to know both if you can. I use DreamWeaver and love it but haven't tried GoLive so can't compare. Flash is a great program.

I guess the main point is to try and learn as many different apps as possible. Not only will it help use the right tool for the job but it will help you become a better more marketable designer.

Just my 2 bytes.