Photoshop v Illustrator v InDesign – are you sure you’re using the right software for your design? How do you know? And if you don’t know – how on earth do you find out????
Well, unless you’re a Graphic Designer with years of training and experience under your belt, you might not even have known that all three of these Adobe programmes existed: Photoshop v Illustrator v InDesign. So, in order to make things easier for you and to clear up (hopefully) all of your questions, read on to discover what programme you should be using when.
Knowing When to Use Photoshop
When you think about photos think Photoshop! Creating and editing photographs is Photoshop’s speciality. It’s especially useful when the image you are using needs adjusting – and there are endless ways of doing this. Even the pro’s will admit it’s near impossible to master everything that Photoshop can do.
The Golden Rules of Photoshop:
NEVER create logos in Photoshop – InDesign is the specialist software you need for this task.
NEVER set text in Photoshop – it will pixelate.
Knowing When to Use Illustrator
Illustrator is the programme of choice when it comes to designing and editing logos and other illustrations, shapes or graphics.
It creates images in vector form which means that the image will remain clear at whatever size it is scaled to – it simply won’t pixelate. This is ideal particularly for logos and brand images which often need to be printed in a range of sizes from a few centimetres on a business card to a few feet on outdoor banners.
Knowing When to Use InDesgin
InDesign is the specialist Adobe programme used for laying out your printed material. This means anything that uses a range of text, images, logos or other artwork to make up it’s design can be put together in InDesign.
For example:
- Business Cards
- Brochures
- Books
- Brochures
It draws together all the elements you have used the other programmes for – Photoshop for editing photos and Illustrator for creating logos – and allows you to put them on the same page with all the other elements you need for your particular design. You can then save the file as print ready artwork – which does exactly what it says!
Top Tip:
InDesign is the go-to programme when you need to add copy to your artwork. Unlike other programmes, the text won’t pixelate when you use InDesign.
Summary
Knowing when to select Photoshop v Illustrator v InDesign is not always straightforward! With our guide pointing you in the right direction you should now be well on your way to a better understanding of what you need to complete your design task in the best programme.
Key points to remember:
- Photoshop is for photos, don’t try and create your full design in it.
- Illustrator is for illustration – for example creating logos which are saved as vectors so can be scaled to any size.
- InDesign takes all of your creations from Photoshop and Illustrator and allows you to put them in one place, along with text and other elements to create your print design ie business cards or magazines.
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