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1. Re: Is it frowned upon......
Wade_Zimmerman Nov 2, 2012 8:05 PM (in response to mhossey)I can fly through creating what I want in PS, but AI it seems like it takes me twice as long easy. I mean simple things like PS has innershadow, and pattern overlays on layers etc... I know their are workarounds, but every click matters when I'm trying to get done quicker to spend time with the family
This is the problem. your way of thinking is off a bit. The idea that you call working in a different way a workaround demonstrates a lack of understanding that what he real difference is that illustrator has different work flow once you understand the difference between the two programs then you will be able to work well with Illustrator.
First of all it sounds to me like you do not appreciate when you should do something in PS and then when you should use AI and rather than have to two apps working together you have them competing which they were never intended to do.
Also you leave out the option to work in ID which should be part of the mix as well.
If you can move things around in Photoshop than you csan in AI nd ID then there is something seriously wrong with your understanding of AI and the fact yiou did not mention ID shows you really ddo some exploring and watch a few tutorials etc.
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2. Re: Is it frowned upon......
[scott] Nov 2, 2012 10:15 PM (in response to Wade_Zimmerman)It really doesn't matter if output is all PDF. In many cases you'd be hard-pressed to tell the creating app for a PDF without looking at the PDF properties.
It may matter if A) you need to get a job and your employer has existing files you must work with or B) you need to pass off files to others. In those cases, you'll want to show a good understanding of all the apps, not just Photoshop. I, personally, would never hire anyone who only knew Photoshop well. It shows a very narrow sense of the tools available.
In the long run, you really may be making things much harder on yourself by only using Photoshop. A good understanding of all the Suite apps can GREATLY increase work proficientcy.
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3. Re: Is it frowned upon......
Silkrooster Nov 2, 2012 9:47 PM (in response to mhossey)I have to agree with Wade and Scott. There is no reason to pick one over the other. Use the best of both apps and if you have InDesign, throw that in as well.
Its the end result that matters not how you got there.
If you could only pick one, decide on what you create the most, pictures or drawings. Thats the most simplistic way of choosing.
But if have both apps might as well use them and get more bang for your buck in what you create.
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4. Re: Is it frowned upon......
Monika Gause Nov 3, 2012 3:00 AM (in response to mhossey)mhossey wrote:
I realize that AI is vector and is great for scaling up when I need it, but when I do print in PS I stick to almost all vector elements as well as smart objects if not all.
Smart objects in Photoshop can be vector elements and are treated as such inside Photoshop. But they are rastered at the file's resolution every time the file is output. Which is normally not what you want to happen to fine detail and thin strokes.
This doesn't happen when you place the file in a layout application. Now you might be fast using only Photoshop. But if you get only some practice in other apps you will be fast there too. And then you will do everything in the app that's best suited for the task at hand and not the only app you know.
Get out of your comfort zone.
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5. Re: Is it frowned upon......
emil emil Nov 3, 2012 7:58 AM (in response to mhossey)The attributes of the native vector objects which including vectorized type in Photoshop have only outline properties. Said in other words vectors in Photoshop can't have a fill, stroke, or any of the more complex appearances possible in Illustrator, they can do only what you can see in Outline View in Illustrator. As such all other attributes that you see in Photoshop are made with raster images shown through the clipping mask of the vector objects.
To see an example of this, create some shape and text layers in Photoshop. Save the file as PDF with or without Photoshop editing capability preserved. Then open the file in Illustrator, go to the Layer's panel, expand all levels of groups, and you will see that everything is images with clipping masks which can be also seen in the Links panel as embedded images.
So the question is what would be the difference between using full featured vector objects versus vector paths used for clipping raster images? In illustrator often raster images are also used with clipping masks so I don't think quality wise there will be a difference especially if the raster images will be mostly one flat color. However I'm not sure and will anticipate performance and file handling problems especially if this is more than a simple graphic.
In Photoshop you can also use Illustrator files as pasted smart objects which basically embeds an Illustrator file into the Photoshop file. Such objects are rasterized at the documents screen resolution. This means that you can't take advantage of the vectors being resolution independent at print time. You can check this if you print such file as pdf and in the print dialog increase the size several times. Then when you open this file in Illustrator the smart object in Photoshop will become an embedded raster image with a resolution several times lower. So, in order to take advantage of the resolution independence of Illustrator smart objects in Photoshop you have to increase the actual file resolution. This means that body text that usually prints as line art on commercial press at 1200 dpi needs a Photoshop document with a resolution of 1200 ppi. Try to work with that resolution on a Photoshop document with average or larger size and let me know if your computer can handle it.
Also in regards to using only Photoshop versus more programs, there are plenty of things in the other programs that are simply not possible with Photoshop and by not knowing the other programs you can't tell what you are missing in your tool set. In order to evaluate the different programs you have to spend equal time learning and using them.
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6. Re: Is it frowned upon......
JETalmage Nov 3, 2012 8:23 AM (in response to mhossey)Get out of your comfort zone.
Or, better, broaden your comfort zone.
Is it frowned upon to create print documents in PS rather than AI?
Of course not. Every CMYK image you process in Photoshop is a "print document", even if it's going to be imported into a conventional-wisdom so-called "page layout" program, or if it's going to be imported into a conventional-wisdom "illustration" program.
It's really comical that some of the very same people who for so many years vehemently (and often venomously) argued that it's entirely inappropriate to do whole-document assembly in (for example) Illustrator rather than (for example) InDesign (really just because Illustrator was so very late to the game in multi-page capability), now argue that it's perfectly appropriate to do whole-document assembly in Photoshop (really just because Photoshop now has a few bells and whistles like Shape Layers and so-called Smart Objects).
Such people are Adobe devotees living too long in their Adobe-constrained comfort zones.
For literal decades, users of FreeHand, Draw, and Canvas built whole-document designs and delivered the press-ready bundles directly from those programs, while blinders-wearing, Kool-Aid drinking users tedously jumped back-and-forth, back-and-forth between the drawing program in which they created 90% of the document's content and a conventional-wisdom "page layout" program.
In the FreeHand community during those decades, it was downright laughable to see a FreeHand user build an entire document in FreeHand without missing a beat from concept to finish, and then import the whole thing into an otherwise completely empty Quark XPress document, just because they thought it had to be put in a page-layout "container" before printing.
The vast majority of the paying work done by such users (mostly freelances) was not standalone illustrations, and was not high page-count bookish documents with repetitive layouts and long stories of threaded text. It was the ubiquitous single-sheet trifold brochures, mailers, fliers and ads. It was also really page design work more than intensive illustration work. It was just more graphics-heavy than text-heavy content. It was the kind of work for which the conventional-wisdom page-layout programs (PageMaker and XPress) really added nothing in terms of efficiency or quality.
The analogy of that historic aside to your question is completely legitimate, and The Song Remains The Same:
It's all about the content and the type of document you are creating.
It was (and still is) actaully, demonstrably, less efficient (read needlessly time-wasteful) to muck around with two programs when the whole content of the thing could be (and routinely was) done in one. But users of Illustrator didn't get it. Many of them downright feared it. Frowned upon? You should have heard some of the appocalyptic garment-rending that went on in this very forum at the slightest suggestion that an Illustrator document needed to be able to contain more than one page. (Egads! It was like, well, suggesting one should do a whole page design in...Photoshop!)
But even back then, before Photoshop had Shape Layers, etc., etc., it was quite common to deliver a single Photoshop image as a final file to be printed to, say, a poster. Isn't that a "whole document"? Again, it's all about the content.
So consider:
You're doing a trade show poster:
The whole document is, of course, dominated by a gloriously color-corrected and curve-enhanced (as opposed to merely "color-managed") image of the all new 1215ccc 2013 Triumph Trophy SE that thousands of visitors (including me) might get to sit on at the Atlanta motorcycle show this weekend.
It has a headline reading--you guessed it--"The All New 1215ccc 2013 Triumph Trophy SE" that has been treated with some cleverly done original raster-based effect (rather than yet another yawn-inspiring cookie-cutter application of Emboss and Bevel--hey, we're dreaming here). So in Photoshop the headline is on a separate Layer, but it's still raster.
Tastefully sized in the lower center is the elegant Triumph logo. This was imported to a Shape Layer as vector artwork, but as we all know (don't we?), it's also going to be raster upon output.
There is also a small text blurb; a quote from one of the leading motorcycle magazines, Rider, reading, "...the most luxurious, fully featured motorcycle Triumph has offered..." This is live text.
That's it.
Now, is there any reason to take this image into Illustrator, just to deliver a press-ready PDF to the printing house? No.
You're doing a Christmas card:
Its content is arguably much like the motorcyle poster: A painstakingly-posed photo of a model "family" of models captured in a lovingly "spontaneous" romp through their snow-covered front yard with a pristine mountain slope convincingly stripped in to replace the ordinary suburban background of the original. A politically-correct "Season's Greetings" headline with yet another Emboss & Bevel & Outer Glow treatment, but an innovative garnish of a holly leaf and a few red berries tucked in the lower counter of the g.
Now, is there any reason to take this project into Illustrator, just to deliver a press-ready PDF to the printing house? Well, yes. It's page two. And actually, it's also half of page 1 because this card will be folded; it's actually a four-page document consisting of two printer spreads. The inside of the card contains an elegantly typeset and type-fitted excerpt from 'Twas The Night Before Season's Greetings which is decorated with tiny little vector drawings throughout.
Also, this being a last-minute rush job because the client was caught unaware and thrown into crisis mode by Season's Greetings happening to occur on December 25th this year, you have decided to save the local printing house as much work as possible by pre-arranging the layout to a single work & turn press-sheet, rather than individual front/back spreads, complete with fold and trim marks in place--and, oh yeah!--incorporating the last-minute stroke of inspiration you had about a diecut layer to reveal that particular inside vector graphic of which you're most proud through a hole in page 1, cut into the house's center dormer window.
So yeah, it would likely make more sense to assemble this whole document in Illustrator. Or FreeHand. Or Draw. Or Canvas. Or Xara Designer Pro....
You're writing your first how-to book:
Someone very wise and discerning and experienced in business matters (your mother-in-law's 19 year old niece who is taking an Illustrator course at the local tech school under a teacher who really can't work Illustrator, but that's okay 'cause she has the Classroom In A Book book from which to make reading assignments) has repeatedly stated that a real pro like you could get rich quick by self-publishing an ebook on whole-document design--and you've decided that getting rich quick sounds good since you're not getting any younger and you've begun to doubt your faith in those weekly lottery investments.
Hmmm. As books go, this will be a relatively short one (given that the content featured will consist of the two projects you've built from scratch, and therefore have full rights to). You've got the press-ready PDF from the Photoshop-centric motorcycle poster project, and the Illustrator-centric Season's Greetings card project.
But the prospect of typesetting the introduction chapter, copyright page, acknowlegement page ('loving thanks to my mother-n-law's now 26 year old neice'), step-by-step procedures, and how-to prose (entertainingly peppered with clever comments and familiar comraderie to warm the heart of the reader and, well, bulk up the sparse length a bit) using Illustrator's infuriatingly sloppy type "engine" (read "defective fuel pump") invokes considerable stomach acid drip.
And you have, after all, wisely retained all the original working files for all of the elements involved from both projects. And master page functionality does kinda make sense for the chapter start pages, running page headers, and page numbering. And automatically generating a Table Of Contents from chapter titles, headings, and sub-heads does sound like a time/tedium advantage. So even though Illustrator could handle the mere 50 pages of this tome, you decide it advantageous to build it in InDesign.
Now a question: Having read all that, where would you build the book cover?
JET
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7. Re: Is it frowned upon......
mhossey Nov 3, 2012 8:24 AM (in response to JETalmage)I think you all have some really great info and personal insight into the question
Wade: Let me say that, I don't view the programs as competing with eachother, I realize that I can create and do things more efficiently in each than I could in the other. And because of that I incorporate both into my work flow.
I do however need more ID knowledge no doubt, I've only done a handful of items in it.
Scott: As of now I am the only designer on this project, but if their were more I can see where we would need to communicate, and make sure each designer was getting the specific files they needed. Your right though I do need to get out of my comfort zone, and thats what I love about these programs, their is always something new to learn! Let me restate again though, PS is not the only tool I use, I keep AI in my workflow most of the time. And when creating logos, It's all I use.
Silkrooster: Agreed!
JET: Broaden your comfort zone. Perfect. I really enjoyed your take on this and the different examples you gave, not too mention taking it oldschool for a minute. It gave me some good advice to chew on.....enjoy your humor too
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8. Re: Is it frowned upon......
JETalmage Nov 3, 2012 8:52 AM (in response to mhossey)If you think it's "old school," read it again. You missed the point.
The Song Remains The Same. Zepplin is just as popular today as back when, 'cause it was just good, and there really hasn't been much originality since. And the same silly debates go on and on and on because people still drink the software-flavored Kool Aid.
JET
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9. Re: Is it frowned upon......
mhossey Nov 3, 2012 9:26 AM (in response to JETalmage)I think you may have interpereted what I said wrong. Old school in the since that you were talking about older design programs (yes I know people still use them). I see the relevant points you are making and how you can apply the knowledge to any situation. I'll disagree with you on the Zep. Yes Led Zeppelin would still be considered old-school, it doesnt matter how good, original, or still played the song is. You don't hear people saying "did you hear that NEW Zeppelin song??" No...because well....its old.
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10. Re: Is it frowned upon......
DrStrik9 Nov 3, 2012 12:47 PM (in response to mhossey)I'm an old-timer, and have been using Ai and Ps since they were pre-release. Virtually everything used to be print, but not so much anymore. Most of my work these days is not for a printing press, but typically for some kind of CMKY- or RGB-based printer, or for video/monitor display. So for me, it often doesn't really matter which apps I use. But old habits die hard, so I use (Ai), (Ps), and (Id) for most of my work, and I still think in terms of (Ai) for vector and (Ps) for raster, placed via [common bounding box] into (Id).
Obviously, the target is the output device (or maybe not so obviously).
For low-res video (1920x1080), it's all raster.
For RGB- and CMYK-printers, it doesn't typically matter, since the output resolution is low enough to be irrelevant. (But I use the time-honored vector/raster strategy anyway.)
For offset printing (even stochastic digital presses), it has to be an intelligent mix between raster and vector: (A) Photos and many illustrations: raster; (B) typography and hard-line imagery: vector.
DS
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11. Re: Is it frowned upon......
Wade_Zimmerman Nov 3, 2012 2:29 PM (in response to DrStrik9)Actually I think the OP started a good thread and shows that they understand what is being suggested might have application to their own work flow and talents.




