Photoshop Questions

[AnGella]

Ask your Photoshop questions here!

[Bill]

What is the magic potion to get an illustrator file into photoshop intact? I exported to a photoshop file within illustrator thinking that this would be a perfect meld... I have a project that I created in illustrator, and would like to bring it into photoshop to use the tools only available in photoshop. Namely, the layers panel and the touch-up tools. But, when I bring it in from illustrator, it's all screwed up... None of the clip masks held. Positioning is all off and wrong... The document isn't even near to what I made in Illustrator. I made a 8.5 x 11 inch document with the intentions of making it for print. I bring it into photoshop and my brain begins to hurt... I can't post that file yet. It's proprietary. But, I will try to make a mock-up in the morning. Just ranting at the moment... Frustrated gimp/inkscape user...

[Barbara Mc]

Question to Bill since he uses Photoshop and PDN...Are the programs similar? I read somewhere that PDN was the closest freebie to Photoshop. I have never seen or used Photoshop but would be interested in buying it if it is similar to PDN. For some reason I find PSPx2 frustrating. It is so complicated to do things with it that are really easy to do with PDN. I realize too that I need to spend more time with PSP. Thanks:}

[Bill]

Saying that Photoshop and PDN are similar is a bit of a stretch. I do use PDN daily for certain things. The one thing that I like the best about it is that it loads pretty much instantly. For some of the simpler things like cropping a pic for a web page or changing the format of an image, PDN is hands down the way to go. It is very easy to use, in that regard. But, to be honest, I haven't really explored many more of it's options. I did a long time ago and that was what made me look into Gimp. I wanted something with a bit more horsepower under the hood. Photoshop and Corel Painter IX are the current apps that I would use, but they are not cheap by any means. If it weren't for the fact that I was making money from making art and retouching photos, I wouldn't be able to justify their price points. Here is a program I found a few months back. This, to my knowledge, is the closest comparison to photoshop that is a free option Artweaver . It's interface is very similar to that of Photoshop. But, in that, it is also more complicated than PDN as well. With more power comes more learning. I have looked for the "holy grail" of art apps and to be honest, haven't found a one yet that had the blending of intuitiveness and function. They all require sitting down and watching countless hours of tutorials and then taking those principles and applying them. Then take your own projects and try to use what you just learned. My recommendation would be to ask yourself what you want to accomplish. Each application has their strong and weak points. Hope this helped.

[yese]

I have not found a way to do this and i tried saving as eps. pdf ai ect. you can drag or copy and paste from illustrator to PS it will come as a smart object but unfortunately if you want to add changes to it you will have to rasterize it. I will try to see on monday if anyone at school knows a way if you havent found one by then.

Bill said:

What is the magic potion to get an illustrator file into photoshop intact? I exported to a photoshop file within illustrator thinking that this would be a perfect meld... I have a project that I created in illustrator, and would like to bring it into photoshop to use the tools only available in photoshop. Namely, the layers panel and the touch-up tools. But, when I bring it in from illustrator, it's all screwed up... None of the clip masks held. Positioning is all off and wrong... The document isn't even near to what I made in Illustrator. I made a 8.5 x 11 inch document with the intentions of making it for print. I bring it into photoshop and my brain begins to hurt... I can't post that file yet. It's proprietary. But, I will try to make a mock-up in the morning. Just ranting at the moment... Frustrated gimp/inkscape user...

[Barbara Mc]

Thanks Bill. This is purely playtime. Watching tuts is a chore to me, lol. Character flaw I know. Thanks, that pretty much answers my question though, I probably don't want to invest in Photoshop. If it would take as much effort to learn it as it does PSPx2, might as well learn the PSPx2 which I have already bought. I do love PDN though. I use it for working in layers and anything that requires text....Now I might do the text on a transparent bg and then take it to PSP to jazz it up, but I do it all with PDN. I guess I need to get back to student mode. Thanks again.

Bill said:

Saying that Photoshop and PDN are similar is a bit of a stretch. I do use PDN daily for certain things. The one thing that I like the best about it is that it loads pretty much instantly. For some of the simpler things like cropping a pic for a web page or changing the format of an image, PDN is hands down the way to go. It is very easy to use, in that regard. But, to be honest, I haven't really explored many more of it's options. I did a long time ago and that was what made me look into Gimp. I wanted something with a bit more horsepower under the hood. Photoshop and Corel Painter IX are the current apps that I would use, but they are not cheap by any means. If it weren't for the fact that I was making money from making art and retouching photos, I wouldn't be able to justify their price points. Here is a program I found a few months back. This, to my knowledge, is the closest comparison to photoshop that is a free option Artweaver . It's interface is very similar to that of Photoshop. But, in that, it is also more complicated than PDN as well. With more power comes more learning. I have looked for the "holy grail" of art apps and to be honest, haven't found a one yet that had the blending of intuitiveness and function. They all require sitting down and watching countless hours of tutorials and then taking those principles and applying them. Then take your own projects and try to use what you just learned. My recommendation would be to ask yourself what you want to accomplish. Each application has their strong and weak points. Hope this helped.

[yese]

how come you don't use text in psp?

Barbara Mc said:

Thanks Bill. This is purely playtime. Watching tuts is a chore to me, lol. Character flaw I know. Thanks, that pretty much answers my question though, I probably don't want to invest in Photoshop. If it would take as much effort to learn it as it does PSPx2, might as well learn the PSPx2 which I have already bought. I do love PDN though. I use it for working in layers and anything that requires text....Now I might do the text on a transparent bg and then take it to PSP to jazz it up, but I do it all with PDN. I guess I need to get back to student mode. Thanks again.

[Barbara Mc]

Because I have a really hard time with PSPx2....because I don't spend the time with tuts that I should to learn the basics. My playtime is limited. Playing with graphics/codes is my playtime and everything that I can do with PDN is so much easier than learning to do it with PSP that I have more playtime. I just haven't made myself spend the time to learn. I'm a little slow to catch things and it seems every tut I try starts out assuming you know a lot of things that I don't know and I'm lost to start with or it's a different version of PSP. So I spend longer trying to do the tut than I wanted to and usually end up frustrated. And I might be the tiny bit lazy, lol.

yese said:

how come you don't use text in psp?

Barbara Mc said:

Thanks Bill. This is purely playtime. Watching tuts is a chore to me, lol. Character flaw I know. Thanks, that pretty much answers my question though, I probably don't want to invest in Photoshop. If it would take as much effort to learn it as it does PSPx2, might as well learn the PSPx2 which I have already bought. I do love PDN though. I use it for working in layers and anything that requires text....Now I might do the text on a transparent bg and then take it to PSP to jazz it up, but I do it all with PDN. I guess I need to get back to student mode. Thanks again.

[Barbara Mc]

I downloaded Artweaver and spent some time playing with it this afternoon. I really like it. Thank you for the tip:}

Barbara Mc said:

Thanks Bill. This is purely playtime. Watching tuts is a chore to me, lol. Character flaw I know. Thanks, that pretty much answers my question though, I probably don't want to invest in Photoshop. If it would take as much effort to learn it as it does PSPx2, might as well learn the PSPx2 which I have already bought. I do love PDN though. I use it for working in layers and anything that requires text....Now I might do the text on a transparent bg and then take it to PSP to jazz it up, but I do it all with PDN. I guess I need to get back to student mode. Thanks again.

Bill said:

Saying that Photoshop and PDN are similar is a bit of a stretch. I do use PDN daily for certain things. The one thing that I like the best about it is that it loads pretty much instantly. For some of the simpler things like cropping a pic for a web page or changing the format of an image, PDN is hands down the way to go. It is very easy to use, in that regard. But, to be honest, I haven't really explored many more of it's options. I did a long time ago and that was what made me look into Gimp. I wanted something with a bit more horsepower under the hood. Photoshop and Corel Painter IX are the current apps that I would use, but they are not cheap by any means. If it weren't for the fact that I was making money from making art and retouching photos, I wouldn't be able to justify their price points. Here is a program I found a few months back. This, to my knowledge, is the closest comparison to photoshop that is a free option Artweaver . It's interface is very similar to that of Photoshop. But, in that, it is also more complicated than PDN as well. With more power comes more learning. I have looked for the "holy grail" of art apps and to be honest, haven't found a one yet that had the blending of intuitiveness and function. They all require sitting down and watching countless hours of tutorials and then taking those principles and applying them. Then take your own projects and try to use what you just learned. My recommendation would be to ask yourself what you want to accomplish. Each application has their strong and weak points. Hope this helped.

[yese]

lol I actually don't like psp and its tutorial. I started with photoshop but saw that everyone was saying how easy psp was so decided to try it and omg i did not understand anything i gave up on it and took it off even before the trial ended. I understand ps tutorials better. At least you have another program that works for you. :)

Barbara Mc said:

Because I have a really hard time with PSPx2....because I don't spend the time with tuts that I should to learn the basics. My playtime is limited. Playing with graphics/codes is my playtime and everything that I can do with PDN is so much easier than learning to do it with PSP that I have more playtime. I just haven't made myself spend the time to learn. I'm a little slow to catch things and it seems every tut I try starts out assuming you know a lot of things that I don't know and I'm lost to start with or it's a different version of PSP. So I spend longer trying to do the tut than I wanted to and usually end up frustrated. And I might be the tiny bit lazy, lol.

[yese]

that artweaver program looks like corel painter thats pretty cool for being free

[Barbara Mc]

That's true. But PDN is limited. That's why I have been thinking seriously that I made a mistake and should have bought Photoshop instead. I've had PSP going on two years now for crying out loud. I really shouldn't buy anything else, major medical expenses here with our pooch, but still kicking around the idea. I did download the Artweaver this afternoon and will be spending some time with it. It's cool. And guess what, lol, they had links to tuts on the site I downloaded from. I tried one and it was for a different version and I couldn't get it to work. But I did have fun playing with the airbrush and several other features.

yese said:

lol I actually don't like psp and its tutorial. I started with photoshop but saw that everyone was saying how easy psp was so decided to try it and omg i did not understand anything i gave up on it and took it off even before the trial ended. I understand ps tutorials better. At least you have another program that works for you. :)

Barbara Mc said:

Because I have a really hard time with PSPx2....because I don't spend the time with tuts that I should to learn the basics. My playtime is limited. Playing with graphics/codes is my playtime and everything that I can do with PDN is so much easier than learning to do it with PSP that I have more playtime. I just haven't made myself spend the time to learn. I'm a little slow to catch things and it seems every tut I try starts out assuming you know a lot of things that I don't know and I'm lost to start with or it's a different version of PSP. So I spend longer trying to do the tut than I wanted to and usually end up frustrated. And I might be the tiny bit lazy, lol.

[yese]

JUST A GOOD TO KNOW for those who may not already

when you are creating something in any photo editor program for printing
* make sure your color settings are on cmyk : those are colors they use for printing on less you are working with someone that needs something just two colors so the print cost less then you use pantone colors (i can explain those later if anyone wants to know)

* If its for the web make sure you use colors in rgb

* if you are gonna use images like photos for printing go to image size in ps , look where it says document zise and a bit lower resolution put 300 For web the resolution should be 72

* if you look for images in google or any search engine like that, make sure you change it to searching for large or extra large images you will get better quality for big prints the image wont look pixelated (although if you are doing something for pay or to call your own you should never use pics from places like that could cause trouble). go to stock sites, a good one we use in class is sxc.hu usually the top line is to buy but the rest you just read the peoples rules.