confused newbie

[MAKADON]

id say im an entry level person in to graphic design as i only got into it last year. completely different to my degree.

i love using photoshop and use it to design posters (A5 size) BUT hate using illustrator and in-design!

So would photoshop be sufficient enough for designing posters, or do i have to use illustrator and in-design?

[NeedForBleed]

In theory, you could get away with just photoshop. But in reality, you'll need to learn both Illustrator and InDesign, as they're actually key in this industry. Many printers will ask for either an InDesign file or Illustrator (if it's not quark). Some will say a TIFF will suffice, but you're limiting yourself by purely using photoshop. If ever you do need to increase the size of your posters from A5, things could get a little messy unless it was done in Illustrator. And then there are colour matters which just aren't worth the hassle in photoshop. The filesize will be smaller with Illustrator made files too.

I was in a similar situation too, my degree wasn't graphics based, and I only knew photoshop. But sooner or later, you'll need to learn the others, and it's only because I didn't appreciate the true power of vector based graphics, that I refused to learn. Now I only design in Illustrator and use photoshop for cropping images and altering elements in photos.

If you feel a little lost in Illustrator and InDesign at the moment, I would suggest getting some tutorials from google and generally play about with the tools. Give it a while though, persevere, and you'll be wondering what all the fuss was about.

[bigdave]

Rule of thumb: Photoshop for photos, Illustrator for illustrating and InDesign for wacking the whole shabang together! I know its a bit of a twat to learn illustrator but it opens up a whole new world.

[MAKADON]

Btw, i have only doe posters for the web, as its my online portfolio and have no idea what things to look out or when and if it goes to print apart from using cmyk and bleeds. i wish there was an easy way to learn about this step by step vid tutorial, rather than reading.

yeh i knew what the programs were for, but thought using only photoshop, there could be an easy way out lol

could i still get away with doing my posters in photoshop even though are somewhat simple, like these: Blue Sky Church Poster Template | Flyer Templates

and not complex like the movie posters u see on billboards.

thks for ur input

[Katedesign]

I concur with bigdave - learn the programmes - lynda.com does some good video tutorials. Other reasons are that you will be easily able to make changes, scale artwork, use pantones, smaller file sizes and more. Printers generally prefer pdfs nowadays btw.

[MAKADON]

Wow, inDesign doesn't seem that hard, BUT Nigel French goes turbo mode about lines, margins, gutter etc and his accent puts me of lol. SO CONFUSING! Im British, but an American accent would be better in explaining this lol like Deke McClelland, his videos are so easy to understand.

Correct me if im wrong, but:
Photoshop - pics
Indesign - Text/Layout
Illustrator - Drawing

1 - So, indesign seems same as photoshop, by which i mean, i can lay out all the text and image with ease, but when i zoom in, it pixelates, but not in illustrator (i knw the reason why, but why do ppl still insist on using indesign to design posters). im still finding my feet, but as for now im using indesign. So would it b best to make the poster in indesign eg insert pics and text and then export to photoshop to do outer glow, blend modes etc?

2 - on my background layer,i have inserted 3 pics in indesign and i want to blend all of them together seamlessly to make it look like one background. How would i blend 3 pics in a background when i export from indesign?

3 - Btw is it ok to not use illustator for designing posters/business cards, as im NOT drawing anything. I am ONLY placing a background, with text on top and adding some layers styles in photoshop?


thnks guys!!!!!!!!!!!

[Logopro]

3 - Btw is it ok to not use illustator for designing posters/business cards, as im NOT drawing anything. I am ONLY placing a background, with text on top and adding some layers styles in photoshop?

It's not really ok.

You see, as soon as you want to make anything bigger than it was when you designed it your making it pixelate and distort.
The point of Illustrator is that, with vectors, there is no knock in quality when resizing.

If you feel that you'll NEVER need to resize anything (and how can you be totally sure what your clients might want it for after the initial job?) then you could probably feel quite safe in using just photoshop - otherwise, I think you'll struggle as soon as somebody needs to put your poster on a billboard :icon_tongue_smilie:

[bigdave]

Wow, inDesign doesn't seem that hard, BUT Nigel French goes turbo mode about lines, margins, gutter etc and his accent puts me of lol. SO CONFUSING! Im British, but an American accent would be better in explaining this lol like Deke McClelland, his videos are so easy to understand.

Correct me if im wrong, but:
Photoshop - pics
Indesign - Text/Layout
Illustrator - Drawing

1 - So, indesign seems same as photoshop, by which i mean, i can lay out all the text and image with ease, but when i zoom in, it pixelates, but not in illustrator (i knw the reason why, but why do ppl still insist on using indesign to design posters). im still finding my feet, but as for now im using indesign. So would it b best to make the poster in indesign eg insert pics and text and then export to photoshop to do outer glow, blend modes etc?

Anything that needs blending modes should be done BEFORE working InDesign. if its text that needs working on and you cant get the effect right in InDesign, produce the text at the correct size and resolution in photoshop and save it as a .TIFF or .EPS then import it into InDesign as an image.

2 - on my background layer,i have inserted 3 pics in indesign and i want to blend all of them together seamlessly to make it look like one background. How would i blend 3 pics in a background when i export from indesign?

Use photoshop! you can blend the images in InDesign but its easier and will look better done in PS!

3 - Btw is it ok to not use illustator for designing posters/business cards, as im NOT drawing anything. I am ONLY placing a background, with text on top and adding some layers styles in photoshop?

Photoshop does bad things to text! If you want a bit of an experiment, paste a picture into photoshop and type some wording over the top then save it as a tiff. open a new file in InDesign, and do exactly the same. same pic same size same font same words. Place the TIFF you made in photoshop onto the InDesign document so youve got both on one page and print it.

Photoshop will have converted the stroke of the text into an image which visibly reduces the printed quality.

thnks guys!!!!!!!!!!![/QUOTE]

[bigdave]

as an example of the differences between text produced in photoshop and the text produced in indesign, I've done that little experiment for you:

[LovesPrint]

Wow, inDesign doesn't seem that hard, BUT Nigel French goes turbo mode about lines, margins, gutter etc and his accent puts me of lol. SO CONFUSING! Im British, but an American accent would be better in explaining this lol like Deke McClelland, his videos are so easy to understand.

Correct me if im wrong, but:
Photoshop - pics
Indesign - Text/Layout
Illustrator - Drawing

1 - So, indesign seems same as photoshop, by which i mean, i can lay out all the text and image with ease, but when i zoom in, it pixelates, but not in illustrator (i knw the reason why, but why do ppl still insist on using indesign to design posters). im still finding my feet, but as for now im using indesign. So would it b best to make the poster in indesign eg insert pics and text and then export to photoshop to do outer glow, blend modes etc?

2 - on my background layer,i have inserted 3 pics in indesign and i want to blend all of them together seamlessly to make it look like one background. How would i blend 3 pics in a background when i export from indesign?

3 - Btw is it ok to not use illustator for designing posters/business cards, as im NOT drawing anything. I am ONLY placing a background, with text on top and adding some layers styles in photoshop?


thnks guys!!!!!!!!!!!

Coz it's a page layout programme and you are laying out a page.