Photoshop Elements is an alternative to the full blown Photoshop and does way more than I'll ever learn. I think for creating from scratch Illustrator is probably the better of the two, but I've never used it myself. Gimp is a free Illustrator type program that has been recommended here by others. I can't remember the name of the free Photoshop type program that's often recommended. Is it Inkscape? Maybe I have those two mixed up.

I 2nd Inkscape and GIMP for good free graphics programs. They are what I use.

While we're on the subject, can someone explain when you should use vector graphics and when you should use raster graphics. I'm wading through the Wikipedia articles right now, but I'm not sure it's going to answer it for me. I've primarily used photographs and edited them with Photoshop Elements until I came to Zazzle. Now I'm starting to do more design from scratch stuff and figured I better get this straight before I get in too deep and learn bad habits (I know from past experience that this is likely for me). TIA

Raster graphics = dots
Vector graphics = line art

Line art is better suited as a scalable image without the loss of edge sharpness. Create one vector and use in a variety of different sizes.

Line art is better for dark clothing in relation to anti-aliasing or white base color underfill during printing.

Photographs are raster based and suitable for paper products.

*Waves from another Zazzle newbie*

I have been doing various forms of computer artwork since I was in my teens (I'm 30 now) ranging from a few different art programs on a b&w Mac Classic and felt that it was a huge "upgrade" when I could use color in Paint.

Since then I have messed with quite a few image editing programs. I tried Gimp once a few years ago and entirely hated the layout and didn't stick around long to figure it out from there. PaintShop Pro I have looked at a bit recently and it seems like a rather good program, but yet again not my cup of tea. For more than the last five years I have been using Photoshop Elements and have royally adored it. It was my first experience with drawing in layers (like you are painting on glass and you can stack as many as you need but still being able to keep them separate. PaintShop Pro does this as well but with a lot smaller price tag.

Recently I have been looking into what the vector images are and went looking for programs that can do that. Any of the commercial brands that I have seen go from $200 and up in price. Inkscape is the only free one I've seen and tried to use it. TRIED is the operative word. I could not figure out for the life of me how to do anything, and I surely couldn't figure out how to make a custom sized document! Needless to say it went straight in the trash. For years I have been eying Illustrator, thinking that it was never going to be something I could ever play with. After the sheer frustration of Inkskape I was furious and went hunting to see if Illustrator had a free trial period. Much to my delight they did!

First impression? Blown away. I have never used a program that literally seems like an extension of myself rather than an outside thing. It has begun to enable me to draw like I always have wanted to, without the messy cleanup I always had to deal with in Photoshop. Any other art program I've used before drew the exact pixels that the mouse covered. Illustrator to me seems to take the input from the mouse and say, "You drew this exact thing, but I think you more meant to do this thing..." and seems to draw where you had intended to draw, with smooth fluid lines. I have been using it for the last ten days and I'm never going back to Photoshop for my artwork. I have even been raving about Illustrator to my mom and sister, both of whom 'doodle' and would love to do something with their artwork. Without Illustrator I would not be working towards opening my Zazzle shop because it's my drawing that makes it worthwhile to get up in the morning. With the vector images they can be re-sized from business card size to billboard size without loss of quality. Photoshop can't do that because it's made for photographers and photo manipulation. Illustrator is for artists, cartoonists, etc. They are both excellent tools but one really doesn not replace the other.

Is it worth the cost? To be able to afford the $600 price tag I have to save for a couple more months, but even then to me it's a steal. It's saving me literally $79,400. I had gone most of the way through registering in college for a 3 year course for computer art and game design. Simply with a single program I can be doing what I want to be doing, working for my own self in my own business doing my artwork like I used to get in trouble in second grade for doing in class.

For clarification: Vector images are converted into raster images (.jpeg .gif .png, etc.)

I found Zazzle as a customer, I had never heard of them before but ended up finding my dream job. Illustrator was just the last thing I needed for everything to fall into place.

Here is some examples of what I have done (easily) in Illustrator.


Hey look! That's my actual handwriting!


Lil' Miss Cuppy Cake can currently be found in my store. (go take a look if you feel like.)

If cost is am major issue, I'd recommend PaintShop Pro because it's comparable to Photoshop elements but can be found at Amazon for about $65 and even that would be a huge improvement to you than paint but it will give you a really good base to learn from. It seems to be a very user friendly program.

If cost isn't an issue, get Illustrator and never look back.

~Susanne
(Sorry for such a long post.)

I use Corel Paint Shop Photo X2. $99 including a physical copy. It is the latest version of Paint Shop Pro, which I loved as a newbie, because it wasn't as advanced as Photoshop, so I didn't have to deal with a lot of steep learning curves for stuff I didn't need or know how to use anyway, but is still powerful.

Photo X2 can do either raster or vector layers. And it wasn't too complicated to learn. The X2 version comes with Corel Media One and Corel Painter Photo Essentials. There is a cheaper version that is just Paint Shop Photo by itself for about $30 less.

Adobe Photoshop is about $600 compared to $99 for this one, and they can do essentially the same things. Even the plugins are interchangeable between the two.

Unless you are going to make a career of design work (and even then) Photoshop is a H U G E waste of time and money. There are any number of other products that do all but the last little bit of Photoshop and cost far far less and are all far far easier to learn. In general, Photoshop users will push you that way regardless of whether or not you need the power of Photoshop (or need to spend that kind of time and money).

If you are going to make it a career - then by all means get Photoshop BUT remember that it is completely un-necessary - especially for work here. You can see that many people here produce plenty of work - without Photoshop.

The CorelDRAW Suite is by far the best deal for the money - buy one version old. You can do ANYTHING with it that can be done with Photoshop too - and is much easier to learn, offers plenty that Photoshop does not.

Then there are the fans of Corel's Paint Shop Pro (but for the money - buy the full CorelDRAW Suite). Other brands too - Serif's programs are all highly rated and are priced fairly.