Which Art Program do you use?!?

As discussed elsewhere an Art program was mentioned, though I'd put it into a relevant thread! :-D

I have GIMP v2.2 myself and just only have enough time to play around Filters in it. Paint is good because it's Bare Bones and does what you want no questions asked! I like Ultimate Paint as an Alternative Art program to GIMP, mostly because I'm into all sorts of arty effects - though I need to purchase more effects for Ultimate Paint! :-o

In terms of which of these programs I use most, I'd probably say Paint because I handle a lot of photos in it and seems to be easier in Paint than in the other two Art programs, though GIMP is perhaps the one I least Confident with because of it's multi-layered layout, when I first loaded it I wondered with my Editing section was and discovered I had to go File, New to bring that up! :-o

GIMP is probably the best program of the three programs I've mentioned, though if I had a lot of time to spare it would probably be a breeze!
Ultimate Paint I use a bit for when I'm editing images I might have generated with Paint, manipulating photos to do all sorts of embroidery to it - I love it particularly if I can turn a photo in what appears to be a hand drawn using Grey lead effect! GIMP like I said earlier also gives you a set of Filters in it as well, perhaps my favourite in GIMP is the Cartoon effect, though I haven't seem to have created as much to my liking, compared to what I have done in Ultimate Paint, I guess it depends on the suitability of an image and coming up with something to which I know what it already looks like before styling it to that!

 

i use solely Photoshop CS2 for EVERYTHING. Then I use ImageReady for animated GIF's. Before, I used to use Fireworks for my animations, but Imageready is like a mesh of Photoshop and Fireworks, so I prefer those 2. Have wanted to try GIMP, but haven't gotten around to it yet...

 

I use Xara Xtreme for mostly everything.

 

I used Photoshop many many years ago at school and my Graphics teacher couldn't believe how well I picked it up (this was on an old Pentium 75Mhz running Windows 95!), though I've never really been able to afford it - and I merely don't want hacked software on my computer! :-o Though I haven't quite got the computer which might cope with it now - what I couldn't get over though with Photoshop was I had to scan an image I drew from hand and then scan it in - to which at school the computers which had scanners were Mac's, so I had to take my image from a Mac to IBM and Photoshop on the IBM compatables managed to read the Mac formatted disk - couldn't get over that! :-o

I haven't heard of Fireworks or Xara Xtreme, so it would be good to get a collection of Art programs people use and enjoy using - perhaps if their Commercial or Shareware (e.g. Paint Shop Pro), specify how much they were and were they worth it!

Besides the programs I mentioned earlier, I've also got Photo Enhancer by eSchoolBiz which does a few little tricks to photos or images if you want as well as CyberLinks PhotoNow which comes with their DVD Solution program suite - their not exactly full blown Art Programs though they just have a couple of interesting effects you can produce.

I used a couple of Art programs on my old 8bitter, though who wants to hear about them! :-o The best one (IMO) for that system was a Public Domain Art program which ran on a 64k system (most of the Art programs under that system usually required Disc and 128k!) - it was called GPAINT though many people argued about the name of it for some reason, cause there were various versions!

 

I use Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2 and Coreldraw 12 at work, but solely use Photoshop CS3 at home.

I've tried Gimp a few times but gave up after a few minutes because I've been used to Photoshop's shortcuts and navigation of the years. Granted, much of GIMP is built to reflect Photoshop but the small differences always pushed me away. It's also lacking some of the more advanced features that I need to use when doing photo corrections but I was surprised at how robust and complete it was otherwise.

 

I mainly use photoshop, but probably only about 3% of it. I have used Fireworks in the past also but just can't get to grips with it now and end up back in photoshop.

 

i only use photoshop. I did try GIMP, but then its like im having hard time with it.

again, its like using windows xp, then suddenly change to linux

 

When it comes to bitmap editing Photoshop is still the top dog. So, I use PS CS3 for my bitmap editing, even though I found their user interface quite unproductive.

For Vector drawing, I have been using (since their first version) Xara, currently I use XaraX Pro4. I have tried Illustrator more than once, but gave up on it. Usual unproductive Adobe user interface coupled with slow speed. I can do the same work in Xara less than the half time, compare to Illustrator. I don't do many GIF animations these days but when I need one, I use GIF Movie Gear, good little utility.

 

Photoshop CS2, and 3d Studio Max, I do alot of 3D based graphics, both for in games and logo types alike.

 

It's nice to see another xara user here. I agree that it is easier to use that illustrator. And you can do animation as well with it. And the new pro 4 version has many photo editing capabilities as well. So its kind of like getting PS and Ill. together at 249 dollars. Much less in price and well worth every penny.

 

I love Photoshop CS2 and Corel Draw 14, you can't beat the print layups in Corel.

 

Yeah Xara sounds interesting perhaps for something which is only $249!

I briefly used Adobe Illustrator many many years ago (around the same time as Photoshop), I cannot recall what I did exactly in it, though I might have scanned an image using Illustrator and then copied it to Photoshop :-{

3D Graphics sounds interesting, though I probably haven't got the knack to use it. I was doing something in GIMP which gave you some kind of 3D manipulating tool, couldn't really get it to do what I wanted - perhaps I was excepting too much! :-o

Interesting nobody mention Paint Shop Pro - perhaps it's seen better days? Thought it was popular at one time, that would have been 10 years ago now though when I was editing images for an Animated GIF file!

Coral Draw would have to be one of the oldest Art programs still going - and I guess if you want things done properly Coral Draw is best! :-o

 

I myself am not much into them, yet if I had to choose it would be Adobe Photoshop CS3. Nothing beats paint though

 

I just have PSP8. Don't do a lot of graphics anymore, save a couple of header graphics for the page. It does what I need.

 

i use Blender for 3d graphics and photoshop for 2d

 

I have used Photoshop 7 for a long while, and i never tried anything else.
It always worked fine for me, so that's more than enough.. it's very versatile and you can create an infine number of effects with it.
For example: http://onimu.com (There you can see some of my works)

 

I actually have quite a Large collection of both commercial & open source software's on my design units.

My Commercial Licenses are:
Serif DrawPlus x2 (This is my primary software that I use the most)
CorelDraw x3
Corel Paint shop pro x2
Adobe DreamWeaver Cs3
Adobe FireWorks Cs3
Adobe PhotoShop Cs3
Adobe Illustrator Cs3
Adobe Flash Cs3
LightWave 9
Maya Unlimited 2008
VexTracter 3.4
AbleBatchConvertor

My Opensource's are:
Blender
InkScape
7-Zip
Notepad++
Gimp
GimpShop
Paint.Net
Wink
Dia
Graph
WAMP

My reasoning for so many Licensed & opensource software's is in my business Model. I'm slowly building a Production House business. I currently have 6 units set up to support employee's (On location) x4 XP pro's & x2 Vista Business OS's. All units networked on a 10 port DSL Router/Modem.

I would like to hire my first full time employee by Jan. 2009.

I can currently support & cross Platform over 90+ file extensions successfully. This allows me to deliver in a file that's compatible with just about any software a client may own (Thus eliminating the need to tell the client to buy something else in order to edit master files).

 

i use photoshop , fireworks, maya for my 3d

 

I use Xara for all 99% of my vector work and Photoshop for my raster work.

 

I use three programs mostly.. Microsoft Paint. It is fast, it is good at what it does, and it didn't cost anything.
Then I have been using DrawPlus4 by Serif and it came in very handy and it was free. Last night I upgraded to DrawPlus7 and it is looking to become my favorite for rush jobs. For the past three years, no, for the past seven years, I have been using Real Draw Pro for my professional work, but Paint implemented some of the basic tasks.
DrawPlus 4 and 7 arer great art programs, BUT, I hate that Serif web site with a purple punched passion. I wouldn't send a cat there, much less a dog. I think they have this dream of dominating the art stats on Alexa and keep you jumping from one page to another, then another, just to keep their numbers up.