Software Ideas For Design

Hi there.

I have recently made the switch, and bought a Macbook after years with PCs and am still coming to grips with everything. For a long time I have been making sketches and designs for tshirts etc, and was wondering what sort of program I would look at to develop my ideas into something. I have no clue whatsoever of what software to buy, as I am completely new to both Mac and 'graphic design.'

I hear so much about Photoshop but have heard it is more designed towards pros (also very expensive). Any help would be brilliant.

Thanks.

Welcome to Mac-Forums, gillihead.

Photoshop is a pixel-centric application meaning that it deals with creating images that are made of pixels. This gives images a more textured look but it involves that you know first hand at what resolution the image will be printed otherwise it becomes pixellated and ugly. But it's a must in the graphic designer's arsenal. If you can't afford Photoshop, you can always look up its little brother, Photoshop Elements which will easily do about 80 to 90 % of what Photoshop can do.

There is also GIMPshop but you will need to install X11 from your install disks for this one to work.

Another fascinating app is Corel's Painter X. With this app, you don't need fancy schmancy knowledge on how to use it, just draw away, it's very intuitive and lots of fun to use. For what it does, it's decently priced. You can also get free nozzles and paint brushes through online.

Another type of application you need is a vector-based application like Illustrator. The images a vector-based app churns out are resolution independent and usually make smaller files to handle but they do look very clean and smooth. Almost too smooth in a lot of cases, for my tastes.

Illustrator is costly too. There are alternatives out there like EasyDraw, Lineform, Inkscape and ZeusDraw to name just a few.

Hope this helps.