Photoshop users....

[Les Therrien]

hey everyone!

with the excitement of getting Revit over a year ago, I have seriously upgraded my computer system and looking to use the full potential of the software. With that in mind I am looking at getting some good photo-editing software plus some.

I know there are some photoshop users out there but I was looking at taking it a step further before making the Adobe purchase.

Adobe now has what they call their "Creative Suite Premium" which includes obviously Photoshop.. and Illustrator, In Design, Go Live, Acrobat Professional 6.0, and Version Cue.

They have also "Creative Suite Standard" which does not have the Acrobat Professional or Go Live.

I know that I would undoubtedly use the Photoshop, the Illustrator for marketing materials and the Acrobat. It's obviously cheaper to buy the entire suite rather than purchasing only what I need individually.

My question is, are you using these products enough? are they a worthy expense? give me you input! or do you recommend something else!? :roll:

I do value the opinion of most of you at the site, obviously since I spend a lot of time here like most of you.

thanks always

LES

[PeterJ]

Go Live is Adobe's web editing tool and is very good by all accounts, though not industry standard and maybe not a tool you require. Likewise, unless you need to make use of some of the fancier Acrobat tools then the Pinebush PDF writer that still ships with Revit will do much of what you require and if that doesn't then something like pdf995 may well do so and at minimal cost.

Once you start thinking in those terms you could download GIMP an image manipulation package for free, or pay perhaps $100US for PaintShop Pro and go away for a long weekend somewhere nice with that which remains in your back pocket.

That said, I recently upgraded to Photoshop 7 and I like it, though frankly I barely scratch the surface of what it can do.

[aaronrumple]

I find Photoshop a pita. I know it is an "industry standard" but just never liked the UI and the way it does it's stuff. Adobe Illustrator is ok and I like doing illustration work with it and it prints very well, but again I think the UI is so so. I've always prefered CorelDraw and with that I don't need to kick out the bucks for both Photoshop and Illistrator. Corel deos a gret job of importing DWG and the new version due out Feb 10th. will support AutoCAD lineweights on import.

Adobe Acrobat Professional is very nice and a must have in my opinion. I just wish Autodesk would give up on the DWF thing. DWF is fine but is so far behind PDF on general acceptance they won't ever catch up. My clients want PDF. I'm trying to get the office to even use PDF to replace powerpoint so we don't duplicate documents.

For web editing, I've never found anything I'm realy happy with - and I've tried them all. Notepad seems to be my choice...

[rhys]

Certainly agree about dwf I gave it a try recently and because of the painful download time most clients would give up, it seems to be a non starter. Just a shame that the multiple sheets bit of the Revit PDF Writer seems to have been removed. So an add one is needed I'll check out PDF995

[Wes Macaulay]

The Corel suite is really a bargain. You can get CorelDraw and Corel PhotoPaint for a fraction of the price of the Adobe products. And with PDF995 creating better PDFs than Acrobat or Distiller (less control, mind you, but better output -- I've confirmed this several times), I don't see the need for ponying up the dough for Adobe.

[sbrown]

If you want to go the cheapest route you can get paint shop pro which is abou $100.00 and does many of the things adobe does and can use many of the same plug-ins. However now that I'm in a firm that uses photoshop, it really is an incredible piece of software. BUt its UI is strange. Its going to take me more time to learn photoshop than revit I think.

[Kroke]

Look at Pixel32, it uses photoshop plug-ins (It's basically a clone of the real photoshop.) It's only $32! http://pixel32.box.sk/

[PeterJ]

Its going to take me more time to learn photoshop than revit I think.

Way way longer.


Look at Pixel32, it uses photoshop plug-ins (It's basically a clone of the real photoshop.) It's only $32! http://pixel32.box.sk/

Wow. Is that plagiarism or an example of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery?

[Andre Baros]

I'm a devoted Photoshop user, I don't know how I could live without it... in spite of it's interface quirks. I also don't know how we ever lived without Acrobat and PDF's. We use PDF's for everything.

That said, I don't see the point in having illustrator if you have AutoCAD or something similar. We only use it as a fancy file converter for EPS files. If you need page layout InDesign and Quark are much better, and for illustrations you have cad.

Personally all the photoshop alternatives that I've looked at have always lacked one feature or another which I use a lot.

As for PDF's vs. DWF's... I would love to see DWF's work, but as .plt killers not PDF killers.

We have Acrobat as an office standard, purchased for each machine, and the Creative Suite Standard just for the people who need it.

[Kroke]

Peter, I dunno. Sorta like IntelliCAD is for AutoCAD, just a cheaper, less powerful clone I guess. I never used photoshop because It's too intimidating for me, but I have tried the shareware version of pixel32 and used some of my roomies plug-ins before. /shrug.

[Les Therrien]

those of you that are using Photoshop, do you have the full blown version or are any of you using Photoshop Elements? (like AutoCAD LT is to AutoCAD!)

[gregcashen]

I use elements because it comes with a wacom graphire tablet for free and all I do with it so far is cropping, enhancing, magnetic lasso...pretty basic stuff. 9 times out of ten, photoshop is way overkill for me. But then, you've seen MY rendering, so you can see I'm not too concerned with photoshoppin' stuff up. ;)

[christopher.zoog51272]

I use full photoshop 6.0, nearly everyday to do something. I seem to be relying on it more and more to create my renderings, alot of things are just easier to do in PS than trying to get AR3 to do what I want. I always try to give myself at least a half a day for post processing, somtimes more than that.

[Andre Baros]

My most common tools are Levels and Curves, I use a lot of layer functions and I have lots of programmed actions for giving a hand drawn look to renderings. Too much for Elements to Handle.

[John K.]

I can recommend GIMP [Gnu Image Manipulation Program]. Runs on Windows, Linux, Mac, and probably other platforms -- I use it all the time: Windows by day/Linux by night. It won't do "everything" Photoshop will do -- yet -- but, as I am doing my best to practice what I preach and not use software I can't or won't pay for -- it does everything I need for architecture & web. It's free -- now and forever as it is GPL'd -- and constantly improved by users and programmers around the world via the net. Like Revit, answers are only minutes away from other users in all time zones.

Links to follow. [I need to find the best mirror sites and Windows 'all-in-one' installers for the latest version. I'm still getting by with an older distro as it has all I need. The latest is, by all reports, a huge leap forward in user-friendliness.]

jk

[beegee]

My most common tools are Levels and Curves, I use a lot of layer functions and I have lots of programmed actions for giving a hand drawn look to renderings. Too much for Elements to Handle.

I, for one, would appreciate any insight ypu have on getting good "hand drawn" results.
Even if you can refer me to a good book on the subject.