After working for an Adobe Authorized Training Center for the past 10 years, students are often asked what the difference is between Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
First of all, let say that all three programs are owned and developed by the company, the world leader in web development, graphic design, and learning software. All three programs are also included in Adobe’s Creative Suite, which is an excellent and affordable way to purchase this software.
The part of the confusion is that certain tasks can be performed in more than one of these programs. For example, you can find vector drawing tools available in Photoshop and InDesign, although Illustrator is the predominant vector drawing program. The key is to make the most of these three programs understands what the key functions are and how they can be used together.
Adobe Photoshop
Let’s look at each program separately. We will start with Adobe Photoshop, which is probably the best known of the three. It is a professional image editing software used for bitmap image editing and image manipulation. Images are images, which are defined by pixel structure. Bitmaps can be divided into millions of small pixels, and every pixel has its own attributes. Images are sometimes also called raster images.
The common type of bitmap image is a photographic image. Whether taken on film, scanned on the computer, or taken digitally, photos are made up of millions of tiny pixels. Photoshop is a tool used to edit images. It also has the ability to do many things, but Photoshop’s main function is to edit photographic images.
If you go to your local kiosk and pick up a magazine, chances are the images in that magazine have been edited or altered with Photoshop. Sometimes the settings can be minor, like subtle lighting or sharpness settings, and other times they can be important, like applying a filter or special effect. Photoshop is used for retouching, always wondering why models and movie stars never have cellulite or double chin, the answer is Photoshop. Often an image can comprise a few different images that have been merged to form a montage.
Illustration and graphics courses
Illustrator is a vector drawing program. Vector is the other main type of digital image. Unlike bitmaps, vectors made up of a series of lines and shapes, which are defined as mathematical formulas. Vectors are great for creating images, containing large sections of the color. A navigation button on your site, your company logo or any non-photographic image would be better to create it as a vector.
Illustrator is the world’s leading vector drawing tool, so if you were tasked with creating any type of ‘flat’ art, such as a corporate profile, including logos, signs, letterheads, etc., you’re likely to use Adobe Illustrator.
InDesign
InDesign is the newest programs and is a page layout or publication program. InDesign is used to put together things like corporate brochures, documents, magazines, newsletters, or announcements. InDesign’s is working with documents that contain an amount of text or type.
Often designers will use all programs on the same project. We recently created new course outlines, so we used Illustrator to create our logo and some vector graphics, used Photoshop to apply a shadow effect to some images, and we imported all those elements from Illustrator and Photoshop to InDesign where we add the copy and define the design.
Illustration in simple terms is the interpretation of an idea, concept or content written in the form of art. Today, publishers and publishers appreciate the importance of illustrations and 3D illustrations as they want to publish their content on the Internet or in magazines. Good illustrations can grab attention quickly and can take deep root in people’s minds; more and more writers are turning to illustrated art to complement their writing.
The use of illustrations is extensive in children’s books, as the elaborate illustrations that accompany writing, stories, and poems are interesting and can have a great positive impact on children. However, it is crucial that the illustrations are of the highest quality and precision to provide a positive impact on the written content. If the standard illustrated arts below are accompanied with written content, you would not get the results you expect. Perfect illustrated, which can easily convey the correct idea in the clearest way, is the most vital aspect of any illustration. With various art forms, including sketches and drawings, an illustrator can enrich the concept of any piece of writing, be it a representation of a story for a children’s book or a representation of a theory for physics or scientific writing.
Computers triggered the development of many wonderful tools, and graphic design packages are among the most popular. But buying a copy of Publisher or Adobe InDesign doesn’t make the owner a graphic designer any more than owning a mable brush, and a cobalt blue tube would make him a great oil painter.
That doesn’t stop organizations from allowing employees without graphic design training to create their brochures, flyers, and other materials. (“She always makes such cute signs!”) Lacking the sense and skills of a designer, they make basic mistakes that compromise the effectiveness of the pieces they design. Worse yet, many of the users rely on pre-installed templates, so what they produce looks like what everyone else does, and most of those templates aren’t that impressive to start with.
While working with a graphic designer involves an additional investment, it can be very smart. Designers have all the skills to help you achieve your goals much more effectively (and often cheaply). They understand how type, color, paper, images, and all the elements work together, so their combinations add impact instead of creating clutter. They will help you do your best and ensure that each piece you make has a consistent approach that strengthens your image.
Are you still convinced that you or your employees can do a good job using that graphic design program? Are not you willing to pay a little more for an expert to make you look better?