Illustrator?

Hey, I have been using photoshop for about 6/7 years now and I am always finding tutorials for Illustrator that seem to produce really nice things, now I was just wondering whether illustrator is worth the extra money? Or can most things be done on photoshop?

Are there any cheaper good versions of illustrator?

 

Illistrator produces pure vector graphics . Which means a program like Photoshop which btw is a raster based program cant. If you arent sure what vector and raster is then i will put it into simple terms

A vector is based on a mathematical equation that pinpoints the location of every point made within the document. Which means if you scale it to be larger than the original it wont lose its quality and go fuzzy. Meanwhile photoshop handels things differently. Photoshop canot enlarge an image and have the same image quality. This is dues to photoshop being an raster based program. Although the pen tool in theory is a vector tool. But as for photoshop it wont produce the same results as illustrator.

It depends what you are wanting to accomplish. If say you are a logo artist or vector artist then by all means Illustrator is the tool for you. Its the only tool that can handle what is required. But if its digital art (general term) then photoshop is more than enough to handle.

 

designz put it very well.

Bitmap graphics have a canvas made of pixels, like a sheet of graph paper, and when you save it records what colour fills each little pixel.

Vector graphics is like a resizeable grid which you place points, and connect those points using lins and curves - so it could be re-sized to the size of north america and it would simply re-draw the graphic based on the formula it saved.

Advantages? Vector graphics can be output as bitmaps if you desire, but you can't output a bitmap as a vector. Think of text in photoshop, you can rasterize it, but then it's not as good. Before you rasterize it and you can play with it - that is a vector.


NOW, for software, I am a designer and I will say that Adobe Illustrator is industry standard. There are others, but AI is the top. For you, AI is even better (and yes, worth the money) because Adobe software works together really well - and you already know most of the tools and keyboard shortcuts because they are the same as PS.

Having said that, there is an open-source vector program I also use which has some advantages in the colouring and pen-tool areas, and isn't as good in the typesetting areas. So, especially since it is free, I use both. Inkscape is the free one, and you can get it at inkscape.org.

I use each for their strengths, and if it really came down to it, I could still design professionally using just one or the other. Luckily they can both save to and open SVG (it's a vector format defined by the people who make HTML and CSS and actually has support in most modern browsers) so I can easily exchange files between the two programs with very very minimal hassle.

I do know a group of brilliant illustrators and designers who use Inkscape alone and make things that can't even be made in Illustrator.

So, if I were you, I'd download Inkscape and follow some tutorials, see vector graphics first-hand and pla around with it for free. If you find you are really using it, and really like it - go ahead and buy Illustrator, it is still worth it and a solid piece of software.

Have fun with your vectors!

 

You can get the same results with InkScape, but Illustrator 10 is pretty good. You can still use old illustrator versions and produce awesome results, but try with inkscape its free, and you gotta get used to vector

 

I wouldn't use an old version of illustrator simply because of format compatibility issues with newer CS3 and CS4 formats.

I believe for CS3 they overhauled everything to be built on the PDF framework for both PSD's and AI's which added more functionality and interoperability between not only Adobe software, but since PDF is now an open standard, between Adobe software and other software.

Yes, vectors are vectors, and there are certain universal formats like SVG and PS that will always be read by everything, but some of the features of even CS3 make it worth the money. I would go for CS4, but CS3 is still acceptable. Don't go below CS3.

As an Inkscape user - that's the tool that got me into vectors, not Illustrator (I had Illy 9 at the time, but never used it) Before shelling out the money for Illustrator, try using inkscape and following tutorials - and it's not lost time - anything you save as plain SVG, as long as you don't use colouring features Illustrator can't do (like gradients on strokes or colours with Alpha [as opposed to entire object with alpha, which do work]) you should be fine porting your stuff over to Illustrator at any time.

Good luck, vectors are beautiful, and worth FAR more. I recommend you finding and downloading some vector artwork to pick apart too, just so you can see its construction and see how they do what they do.

 

Illustrator always in my heart..the quality of the vectors are really amazing..