Adobe Photoshop? Illustrator? Acrobat? Elements? PLEASE HELP?

Question

I need a program at work, where I can CREATE files (like postcards, flyers, mailings, etc.) that I can upload to a printer to have printed, and also a program that I can work with to manipulate photos. The one company that I was going to use to print our stuff recommends Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, or Photoshop. I'm not a professional photographer and I don't see spending $600+ necessary. I also saw something about CorelDraw? Any suggestions for what I need? I've been using Publisher but it's not uploading a clear copy to the printing companies and I'm not satisfied with the options. THANKS!!

Answer 1

Try GIMP: www.gimp.org

and

Try Inkscape: www.inkscape.org

Answer 2

For photo manipulation that is free and easy, go get Googles program called Picasa. http://picasa.google.com/.

Answer 3

If you are having material printed for your company at a professional printing plant on an offset or digital press, then you need professional tools.

Photoshop is an raster based photo correction and manipulation tool. It has a rudimentary type capability and is not suited for putting together materials such as flyers or brochures. It can be used if necessary for postcards or posters, but the type quality suffers, since it can only be as high as the image resolution (usually about 300dpi or lower).

Illustrator is a vector based drawing program. It has an excellent type engine and can create vector based graphics and pages that can be output at the highest resolution, ensuring smooth edges and curves on your vector based graphics.This program is often used to design and build logos and other graphics. It can be used to put together postcards, brochures and posters, but since it can only deal with a page at a time, is unsuited for multiple page booklets.

InDesign is a layout program. Great for page layouts of all kinds, and is especially good for multiple page booklets.

Yes it is pricey, but if you sign up for a class anywheres, you can get an education discount. Be sure to buy the CS3 creative suite, it includes photoshop, illustrator, indesign and acrobat.

Corel Draw, or Publisher, or Pagemaker etc. - ughh. We rarely get files in these programs, and when we do, they are usually poorly built by people who don't do this very often and don't know how to properly build files. We have trouble fixing these files because we are unfamiliar with these programs ourselves.

One reason to go with the professional standard programs, is that files  can more easily and quickly get fixed and ready to print than when the client uses odd and little used programs.

Answer 4

Yes it is expensive but you could use Microsoft publisher for the flyers and adobe photoshop elements which is pretty cheap to use for all your needs and the thomas guy is talking about illegally downloading the software then using an illegal keygen or crack to make the program free, which is highly illegal.Bottom line just use publisher and photoshop elements.

Answer 5

Photoshop is fab.. its THE best image manipulation and design software on the market at the moment. All the design companies use it which means the printers will also so you will get better results.

Also, there are many tutorials on the Adobe website which show great tips and tricks.

Visit their website where you can download a free 30 day trial and explore it for yourself!

Enjoy!!!!

Answer 6

Start

Run

mspaint.exe

Answer 7

Since you are not a professional photographer, don't buy the Photoshop CS3.  Instead, Photoshop Elements 6.0 will do everything that you will probably need to do.  Eight years from now when you advance to bigger and better things, you can buy the professional version of Photoshop.

Illustrator is a vector program.  If you don't know how to use it, it will not come easy to use.  Vector programs have the advantage over raster program/images (Photoshop and GIMP type creations) as they can be enlarged to just about any size without jaggie edges showing or pixels getting blocky.  That is because the image is created by formulas not pixels.  If you know Illustrator to a point and would like the flexibility it offers but at a lesser price, consider Xara Xtreme.  Find at http://www.xara.com/   Free download for a 15 day trial.  I think CorelDraw is also a vector program.

Adobe Acrobat is nice particularly for posting pdf documents online for anyone to read.  Mac and PC browser of all names can handle the plugins for reading pdf files.  For printing not all that necessary though it is probably easy to compose layouts with text and photos, created via Elements, or graphic images, created by Xara Xtreme.

If the text being printed via Publisher is good but the images are not, it is probably not Publisher's problem.  Using too small of images in a document and sizing the images in that document will probably not provide the best results.  Keep in mind to size your images/photos to the size needed in the layout at 300 pixels per inch.  i.e. If you want a 3 inch wide by 5 inch high image on your layout, be sure it is 900 x 1500 pixels before you bring it into Publisher or whatever other publishing program you use.

Answer 8

I highly recommend Photoshop.

It's expensive but worth it.

You can also get it for free, but I can't tell you how here, PM me or email me.