When it comes to web design - in fact, any kind of computerised
graphic design - Photoshop has been the standard for years, and
remains the market leader. But just what is so great about it?
Photoshop's Features
Photoshop was originally designed for print graphic designers,
and it shows: the selection of features available is truly
professional, not 'dumbed down' like many web programs are. That
doesn't mean, though, that Photoshop is no good for the web: it
supports all the important web formats, and even comes with a
special tool, ImageReady, to help you prepare images for the
web. It will even help you cut up your designs into parts that
can be used on a website, and write some HTML for you, if you
want.
Photoshop is useful enough for the web that most people you
might do designs for will ask for the PSD (Photoshop format)
files you produced - this is especially common when you design a
logo. If you're getting something designed for you, make sure
you get the PSDs, as this lets another designer edit the files
later. PSD files are widely supported by other software,
including Paint Shop Pro.
As well as the web and print, Photoshop is also used in
television, film and DVD preparation - but that doesn't mean
it's become unfocused. It simply provides almost every feature
you could ever want, and is constantly doing things that people
didn't think were possible: in the latest version, for example,
there is a function to easily remove shadows without altering
the rest of the image, and a function that lets you extend
objects in images without sacrificing the image's perspective.
Each new version makes the existing features easier to use,
which is significant given how revolutionary some of Photoshop's
functions were considered just a few years ago: you can do
things that were once thought impossible with nothing more than
a few clicks.
Of course, since you probably won't spend much of your time
editing photographs with Photoshop, these market-leading
graphics features probably won't be all that important to you.
If you're anything like me, you'll simply be interested to know
how easily it lets you produce logos and other website elements.
The answer is: very easily. Photoshop's layers tool is still
better than any other out there, and lets you layer text and
images together quickly to create a very professional look.
Photoshopping
Photoshop can make such impressive changes to images that a term
for it has come about on the web: 'Photoshopping'. Photoshopping
is when you take an image and modify it using Photoshop so that
it becomes a convincing, but fake, new image. The technique has
gained fame from several incidents of fake images being spread
across the web and even in the established media: Photoshop can
produce output so real-looking that even experts have trouble
spotting it.
Photoshop's Big Drawback
There's not much argument, though, that Photoshop is extremely
expensive: it costs well over $500. Worse, your $500 gets you a
restrictive license that only lets you install the program on
two computers (and the program 'phones home' to Adobe over the
Internet to check). It's well known that most of the people out
there using it for smaller sites and projects are doing so
illegally, simply because of the price. There are other problems
with the latest versions, though, notably the fact that they run
slowly unless you have a very good computer - plenty of people
have ended up adding more RAM to their PCs just to make
Photoshop run the way it should, despite the fact that
relatively few features are added between versions.
Photoshop Elements
If you'd be interested in a slimmed-down, cheaper version of
Photoshop that has everything except the professional print
output capabilities, you should take a look at Photoshop
Elements. For about $100, it's more than good enough to compete
with the likes of Paint Shop Pro - Photoshop Elements is the
program I use, and I really couldn't be happier with it. There
will, of course, be situations where even $100 is a lot to
spend, but it's still well worth consideration.
You can download free trials of both Photoshop and Photoshop
Elements from
http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/.
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