I decided to sign up for
Adobe Creative Cloud and I spent the past week playing with Illustrator, which is something I always wanted to do.
For years I have been using PaintShop Pro, which I love for many reasons and I use fairly well. I am, however, limited on what I can and can not do in PaintShop. I can't do certain effects without having to convert my vectors into raster images which I don't want to do. I get sharper and crisper lines from vector images which is perfect for designing. I also have difficulty converting my images if I need to use them for certain things that require adobe image files. I really only use half of the program because I don't use any of the raster or photo tools that are available. They are all probably excellent tools, but I like to be able to change things and create variations so that people have more options. I find that this program works well for me when it comes to designing and well, I already have all my templates set up so I plan to continue using it for designing purposes.
What is the difference between art and designing? Well, I may be wrong on what the difference is but I would say that is has a lot to do with technique, style, and placement. For instance, all of my designs made on PaintShop are intended for printing purposes and they all are created as vector objects on transparent backgrounds so that they can be placed on shirts and things. I add background colors, patterns, and different elements to make other products such as binders, stationery, and business cards. Here are a couple products that I have designed using PaintShop Pro:
My art on the other hand is not designed for anything specific. It can be used for printing purposes and it will have to be adjusted in order to fit products. My art doesn't always have a transparent background and may not be available for printing on shirts. My art also may not be the correct size for all of the same products that my designs can be printed on. However, art is fun, relaxing, and gives that extra randomness that all types of art needs.
In Illustrator I feel more creative, less limited, and I think less about what products I need to design for. I can just relax, draw, and watch the art unfold. Obviously Illustrator is great for printing as well, it is the industry standard, but for me it feels more like an art program than a design program. I simply love that Illustrator can handle larger images and that there are effects that can be used while the images stay vector. I feel like I can finally do some of the artwork on the computer that I have always wanted to do because of all of the options available and the fact that Illustrator can handle so much more. I think that my least favorite thing about Illustrator is the image size
issue that I ran into this week. If I want an ending image that is
3000x3000 px and has a resolution of 300ppi, then my starting image in
Illustrator has to be set to 720x720 points or 10x10 inches. Resolution
doesn't seem to matter until you save the final image which ends up
being 3000x3000 px. This is quite strange and really messes with my
sizing that I normally use. In PaintShop Pro, my image is the exact size
that I want from start to finish. There are many great tutorials out there to help a person who is new to Illustrator learn to use it, it can seem quite complicated and overwhelming at first glance. You can appreciate some of the abstract artworks that I made this week while playing with Illustrator here:
Fun Abstract Art
I will be adding those to products in the coming weeks which I will post here for you to see.
So, I have decided that I love both programs and plan to continue using PaintShop along with Illustrator. I do wish the two companies would get together to make them more compatible with each other and I really am going to miss my scrolling wheel for zooming since Illustrator is missing that option. Otherwise, I think that both programs are great in their own ways and perfect for whatever you wish to use them for.
How do I feel about Creative Cloud? I am liking it so far. I like that I have access to programs that I would not normally have access to. I am curious to try out dreamweaver for the first time ever. I have been coding by hand for many years and I can't wait to see how much more effective webdesigning might be with this program. Coding by hand can be very time consuming. I will let you know what I think once I get around to trying it out.
