Hi,
I am looking to find out what the best graphics design program is for web developers who have a hard time developing/drawing their own web graphics. Any help would be appreciated.
Photoshop - Professional, Impressive, Loaded, Comes with Imageready
PhotoImpact, PSP, Fireworks, etc... - Amatuerish and incomplete
OK, so I was raised on Photoshop. But nothing compares, unfortunately. It's the leader for very good reason, it does just about everything easily. That is, unless you have an underpowered computer. You should have at least a 1.8 GHz machine with 640MB min to really take advantage of it without slowing yourself down. The more RAM, the better. If you can't meet those requirements, you'll have to use something that doesn't quite allow for professional work.
That said, a creative mind can use just about anything. But it isn't limited in Photoshop.
I forgot the one other PROFESSIONAL quality image processing and manipulation program that actually makes sense...
GIMP
Gimp is FREE under the GNU license and usually acts like an older version of Photoshop. This is a very advanced open source program available on a very wide variety of platforms.
Plus, the price is nice: FREE!
You won't find a great deal of documentation with it, but there are whole books on GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) and there is a wealth of info online.
It doesn't look like Photoshop, but it is that advanced (minus a few versions). A Photoshop user would feel right at home with it after getting the differences in icons and menu locations down.
Good one to think about. Please excuse my lack of thought when responding the first time.
Some also like PSP, but as a Photoshop user, I think Photo Studio Pro sucks beyond belief. It just doesn't do simple things that a pro requires.
I will always stand behind Photoshop, I've been using photoshop since the days of 4.0...however, it's very cost prohibitive (although, you can get great discounts if you're a college student - I abuse my husband's student ID ).
Which is why I recommend Macromedia products as a secondary option. They usually run a couple hundred dollars cheaper than Adobe products, and work just as well (in some cases, like Dreamweaver, better than Adobe GoLive IMHO).
Fireworks is Macromedia's alternative to Photoshop. I have only messed with it on a few occasions, though. So I couldn't even begin to comment on ease of use vs. features, etc.
And Flash MX for vector graphics and animation.
).
