non-artistic question
Neil Marko
field. I am a bit-head. She insists (somebody told her) the following and
I am trying to confirm the following questions:
1. Serious work is only done on the Mac! My take - PC's are cheaper, more
cost effective and more configurable.
2. The style with which work is done on the Mac is different than on the PC,
so colaboration is difficult. My take - Different OS and different GUI mean
different work flow, but a TIFF is a TIFF.
3. Adobe Photoshop, Quark, and a few others are the software to use. My
take - Are there any other cheaper photoshop clones or knockoffs that will
give equal results? I have noticed some vendors compare there product (ie.
Ulead Photoimpact) with Photoshop and they are substantially cheaper, or is
this not the spot to be cheap?
They are just starting out in this field and have resisted for as long as
they could but they need the money. I would help them out with machines but
when it comes to the Mac, there are not too many options.
Thanks in advance,
NM
TacitR
>cost effective and more configurable.
No, serious work is not done only on the Mac--some serious work is done on
Silicon Graphics and Sun workstations.
Seriously, though, in my ten years of doing professional high-end graphics work
digitally, I can say that the overwhelming majority of serious, high-end work
is done on Macs, for a number of reasons.
Traditionally, Macs have halways had the cutting-edge graphics and prepress
hardware and software. That is no longer as true today as it was, say, five
years ago, but even today there are more plug-ins for Photoshop, XTensions for
Quark, and dedicated high-level trapping, imposition, and other special-purpose
software packages on the Mac side.
Also, Macs are easier to upgrade and configure. No Registry settings, no
Windows Install Wizards; they all come with 100base-T networking at a minimum;
and the Windows PostScript printer drivers just plain suck. When you work for a
trade shop that will spend about $50,000 a month on software and hardware, and
you charge about $200 an hour for your services, you do not want a computer
that you have to tinker with all the time to make it work, and you do not want
a computer that it takes you an hour to install and configure new hardware for.
Can you do serious work on a PC? Absolutely. But there are more obstacles in
your way--problems with the PostScript drivers, no robust and universal color
management standard, programs that can't display an EPS file with a clipping
path correctly on your screen...
>2. The style with which work is done on the Mac is different than on the
>PC, so colaboration is difficult. My take - Different OS and different GUI
>mean different work flow, but a TIFF is a TIFF.
Absolutely right. A TIFF is a TIFF; a Quark document is a Quark document.
Collaboration is not always perfectly smooth, but it is not *that* big a
hassle.
>3. Adobe Photoshop, Quark, and a few others are the software to use. My
>take - Are there any other cheaper photoshop clones or knockoffs that will
>give equal results?
Quark, Illustrator, and Photoshop are the Holy Trinity. Nothing else compares
to them, at any price point (with the possible exception of FreeHand, which is
a capable vector editor).
The advantages that these programs have over their cheaper "competition" are
subtle, and not likely to be noticed by an amateur user or someone just
fiddling with the software. But they are absolutely critical for high-end work.
Example: Trapping. Not even InDesign gives you direct control over trapping on
an object by object basis, though InDesign 1.5's trapping is better than it
used to be. Until it does, most of my clients won't even consider using it.
Trapping is something that somebody making, say, ink-jet-printed flyers for a
local church group does not need to worry about, or even know about, but a
professional designer *must.*
Another example:
Yes, tere are cheaper alternatives to Photoshop. But almost all of
them--PhotoImpact, Corel PhotoPaint--suffer from the same flaws. They work fine
for doing low-end stuff or Web graphics, but their high-end capabilities are
sorely lacking.
PhotoPaint has the worst color separation engine and the worst CMYK rendering
engine I have ever seen. It is so bad that color separations made in PhotoPaint
are virtually unprintable, and the user can't directly specify the separation
setup.
I once stole a client from one of my "competitors" just because I use Photoshop
and not PhotoPaint. The client always supplied his own images, in RGB, and my
"competitor" saved a few bucks by using PhotoPaint. I showed the client a
MatchPrint proof of a Photoshop and PhotoPaint separation, side-by-side, from
the same RGB image. You would swear thy were different images; the PhotoPaint
separation was *that* bad. My "competitor" saved $300 on the cost of Photoshop,
and then lost a $20,000-a-year client.
Also, the cheaper alternatives do not give you the functionality of Photoshop.
PhotoPaint and PhotoImpact do not support spot-color separations, for example.
Nor do they support all of Photoshop's image-editing features, such as
Selective Color; and their controls for color correction are less
sophisticated.
The image processing engines tend to be similarly crude in these low-end
programs. PhotoPaint's image interpolation routines are extremely primitive,
and so are its selection feathering routines. Feathered selections in both
PhotoPaint and PhotoImpact tend to suffer from banding and harsh breaks.
I could go on, of course, but I'm sure you get the point...
------
Onyx, the game of sexual exploration; Xero, the industrial magazine
of art, fiction and photography; and online photo gallery--all at
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html
john blair moore
take on it. It is drawn from
some popular mythology.
You're right about PCs being cheaper and tiffs being tiffs.
The problem is that the printing and publishing industries got
established with macs, and a lot of them
still buy into the same mythology mentioned above. It's a practical
workflow matter of doing things their way.
Macs do have some advantages. Color management is implemented better.
People who dont want to do much
to manage their computer have an easier time with them.
Much the same reasons apply to using Photoshop and Quark. Photoshop is
a superior, one stop program that puts out files the industry knows how
to handle.
This is not a matter of which is superior, but more of how many
peripheral issues you're willing to deal with.
jbm
--
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http://www.3guys.com
RossF
wrote:
>I have an artist friend who is starting to get into the digital graphics
>field. I am a bit-head. She insists (somebody told her) the following and
>I am trying to confirm the following questions:
>
>1. Serious work is only done on the Mac! My take - PC's are cheaper, more
>cost effective and more configurable.
>
Nonsense. "Serious" work is done on all kinds of systems. There are
some advantages to Macs in the desktop publishing world, but you can
certainly get by without one.
>2. The style with which work is done on the Mac is different than on the PC,
>so colaboration is difficult. My take - Different OS and different GUI mean
>different work flow, but a TIFF is a TIFF.
>
It's more difficult to implement color management across platforms,
but the programs work the same.
>3. Adobe Photoshop, Quark, and a few others are the software to use. My
>take - Are there any other cheaper photoshop clones or knockoffs that will
>give equal results? I have noticed some vendors compare there product (ie.
>Ulead Photoimpact) with Photoshop and they are substantially cheaper, or is
>this not the spot to be cheap?
>
It depends on what you need. If you don't take advantage of the
benefits of industry-standard software, then you might as well buy a
cheap alternative. If you're truly getting into the "digital graphics
field", then it makes sense to know how to use the software that
everybody's using. My suggestion - don't scrimp.
>They are just starting out in this field and have resisted for as long as
>they could but they need the money. I would help them out with machines but
>when it comes to the Mac, there are not too many options.
>
Here's the very best advice I can give you: Get a system that the
person will be happy with. If somebody goes into it thinking that Macs
are better, and PCs aren't adequate, then they will never be happy
with a PC, and blame everything that goes wrong on you. And things
WILL go wrong. :)
Ross
>Thanks in advance,
>
>NM
>
>
twelve
difference when using photoshop. The only difference between the diferent
platforms is that the O2 is better at 3D than NT is.
Sir Speedy Printing
> 1. Serious work is only done on the Mac! My take - PC's are cheaper, more
> cost effective and more configurable.
First, no - serious work can be done on either platform. But, second, no - PCs
are not cheaper, etc... than Macs. At least not the kind of system you would
want to do serious graphics work on. At first blush Macs seem more expensive,
but that is because they come with more - networking protocols, scripting
software, etc. - than base model PCs.
Third, many PC standard devices can plug into Macs such as PCI cards, hard
drives, RAM, and so forth (depending on the Mac model, of course), which keeps
expandability up and cost down.
And finally, look at the industry. Print and web design are Macintosh dominant.
Macs were the first great graphics machines and the industry has stuck with
that investment ever since. You can easily work cross-platform in Photoshop,
but you should have fewer problems when you are working on the same platform as
your vendors.
> 2. The style with which work is done on the Mac is different than on the PC,
> so colaboration is difficult. My take - Different OS and different GUI mean
> different work flow, but a TIFF is a TIFF.
Yes, a TIF is a TIF. (Though, you have to decide Byte Order - PC or Mac.) Even
work flow will not be that different. Heck, most major league, cross-platform
programs like Photoshop distribute the same manual to Mac and PC people. Only
the keyboard commands are different.
> 3. Adobe Photoshop, Quark, and a few others are the software to use. My
> take - Are there any other cheaper photoshop clones or knockoffs that will
> give equal results? I have noticed some vendors compare there product (ie.
> Ulead Photoimpact) with Photoshop and they are substantially cheaper, or is
> this not the spot to be cheap?
Don't be cheap, you will get what you pay for. Plus, if you are trying to be
compatible with other vendors, you have to use their programs. The biggies are
Photoshop for image manipulation; PageMaker, InDesign, and Quark XPress for
page layout; Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia FreeHand for vector
graphics/illustration; BBEdit, Adobe GoLive and Macromedia Dreamweaver for web
design.
Cross-platform compatibility is pretty good between most programs (of the same
version), but the stickler is still the use of fonts. Postscript fonts (the
fonts of choice in Print and service bureaus) are the same on PCs and Macs -
even if they have the same name - so you cannot just give them with your files.
In Illustrator and FreeHand you can overcome this by converting the fonts to
paths or outlines (making them graphics). In page layout programs, you will
either have to make sure the other guy has the same fonts on his system,
substitute fonts they do have for the fonts you have used (can cause formatting
changes), or submit a Print to Disk file with font info included.
> They are just starting out in this field and have resisted for as long as
> they could but they need the money. I would help them out with machines but
> when it comes to the Mac, there are not too many options.
They want to make money AND be in the graphics field?
My recommendation would be:
Invest in a good, fast Macintosh PowerPC - a G3 or G4. It should have a good
sized hard drive (9 Gigs or up) and as much RAM as they can afford.
Then buy software like this:
Adobe Photoshop - still the best program out there
One Page Layout program - I would suggest Adobe PageMaker (my preference), but
download a tryout of whichever program you want and give it a whirl. Again,
check with the vendors you intend to work with and see what they use.
One Illustration program - I would suggest FreeHand, others will suggest
Illustrator, but I like that you can use FH to make Flash graphics for the web
(addl functionality).
An additional thought:
If they are thinking about buying a scanner, see if the unit comes with
Photoshop already. Many scanners are bundled with Photoshop or Photoshop LE.
And remember, this is just my two-cents.
Diane Wilson
> One Illustration program - I would suggest FreeHand, others will suggest
> Illustrator, but I like that you can use FH to make Flash graphics for the web
> (addl functionality).
A Flash export module for Illustrator is available from Macromedia.
Neither one is all that good for Flash, though. They aren't designed
for animation or interaction design, and they both have lots
of features beyond what Flash format can cope with.
Currently there isn't an alternative to Flash for developing
Flash content, but Adobe's public beta of LiveMotion is looking
very, very competitive as a Flash development tool.
Back to Illustrator vs. Freehand, in recently releases, Illustrator
has been getting some great new drawing features, while Freehand
hasn't. FH9 is particularly disappointing; other than 3D guides
there doesn't seem to be anything new in its vector tools. All
the rest of the new stuff is half-way efforts at things which
other programs do better. I've been a Freehand user since version 2,
but this looks like the end of the road. Illustrator wins
easily in what used to be a close race.
--
Diane Wilson (di...@firelily.com, anon-...@anon.twwells.com)
Web design: http://www.firelily.com/
Personal: http://www.firelily.com/goddess/
It is neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never
question anything. (Joseph Heller)
howldog
Neil Marko <nma...@isyssoft.com> wrote in message
news:0oOA4.4693$S4.2...@news1.rdc1.nj.home.com...
> I have an artist friend who is starting to get into the digital graphics
> field. I am a bit-head. She insists (somebody told her) the following
and
> I am trying to confirm the following questions:
>
> cost effective and more configurable.
More and more people are doing hi end graphic design on PC now. I worked
exclusively on Mac for over 10 years, now I'm on PC. there are some
advantages with Macs. especially for print work. But sure, it can be done on
the PC. I do it everyday.
PC's are definitely NOT more configurable tho. Macs are a million times
easier to troubleshoot and do system-maintenance etc
at least from my experience. My Mac at home acts up, I can fix it. This PC
here at the office acts up, I have to call somebody. Ever looked inside a
PC's Windows folder? ICK. Holy crap.
>
> 2. The style with which work is done on the Mac is different than on the
PC,
> so colaboration is difficult. My take - Different OS and different GUI
mean
> different work flow, but a TIFF is a TIFF.
aye. I work cross-platform constantly. a tif is a tif, a Quark file is a
quark file..... one real problem area is fonts. As long as you know your
three letter suffix for the PC file names, you're ok.
>
> 3. Adobe Photoshop, Quark, and a few others are the software to use. My
> take - Are there any other cheaper photoshop clones or knockoffs that will
> give equal results? I have noticed some vendors compare there product
(ie.
> Ulead Photoimpact) with Photoshop and they are substantially cheaper, or
is
> this not the spot to be cheap?
naw, i'd stick with Photoshop. For various reasons. You dont see any
alt.photopaint
newsgroups do ya? ;-)
Quark is also wonderful, altho a bit flaky on the PC side. Still, any
printer/service bureau in the world can easily take your Quark file. that's
reason enough right there.
Vector art programs, I use Illustrator, Freehand, and Corel. After all this
time I actually prefer Corel. Personal preference tho.
Corel does give you a helluva deal for the money. You get the CorelDraw, a
boat load of fonts and clip art, a 3 D rendering program, and a Photoshop
clone, PhotoPaint. Altho I hear PhotoPaint has its problems. However, if you
go with Corel, prepare to be incompatible with the zillion Mac artists in
the world... they all use Freehand or Illustrator.... if my files are going
to a Mac vendor, I often will use Freehand or Illustrator.
>
> They are just starting out in this field and have resisted for as long as
> they could but they need the money. I would help them out with machines
but
> when it comes to the Mac, there are not too many options.
that's just cos they dont have the experience. 90% of all the other artists
in the world use Mac. there's a reason ;-)
and here I am banging this out on a PC. lol.
howldog
--
remove NOSPAM in email address to reply
howldog
Diane Wilson <di...@firelily.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1340a2221...@news.mindspring.com...
I've been a Freehand user since version 2,
> but this looks like the end of the road. Illustrator wins
> easily in what used to be a close race.
Interesting. I've been using Freehand since 3. I hated 8. I went over to
Corel at that point but still use Freehand 7 or even Illustrator 6.
Does the new version of Illustrator have instant dropshadows? Freehand 8's
were terrible.
Kronos-San
1) Many of the graphics programs in use today were developed on and for
the Mac platform, years ago. Since then, many have been successfully
ported to the PC side. While I personally prefer to work on the Mac,
Photoshop and Illustrator work nearly identically on the PC side. The
real question to consider is the installed base of service bureaus to
whom your friend's files will be given. If they are strictly a Mac
house, better to go with that platform. These days, however, most good
service bureaus are cross-platform.
2) Yep, a TIFF is a TIFF. Again, I have a Mac bias, so I think that
working on a Mac is easier and more enjoyable overall (and I do work on
both platforms). If your friend has no preference between the two (and
those who have worked on both seem to form a preference), then the
cheaper cost of a PC is probably going to win out.
3) Many low-end products mimic Photoshop's features. You can save some
money there. But, if this is a TOOL with which your friend is going to
make a living, sooner or later she'll want/need to learn and use
Photoshop. It's just the best there is in the image-editing area. It's
expensive but worth every penny.
Hope that helps.