what would be the benefits of having photoshop in business?

[Warren Beard]

In my opinion it is probably the most powerful photo manipulation software you can get.

Endless possibilities and a huge learning curve.

If you master it you will be a very valuable asset to any graphic company.

get started now 😉

[Steve Underhill]

Photoshop is the industry standard image editing package, it is the best bar none.
Other programs work in a similar fashion and do almost the same thing but you will get a program unrivalled for plug ins, add ons, and features.
Theres no point in me going into a list of what it does, suffice to say its the industry standard over both platforms for a reason.
If you dont want to spend £560 like me, you can go the upgrade route, buy a copy of photoshop 7 from a certain auction site, (original and unregistered of course)
then upgrade to CS.
Obviously check with anyone first it is ORIGINAL, and not a "fully working, or full version" as they can be cleverly worded.
That said if moneys no object get yourself to http://www.adobe.co.uk and buy it immediately.
Its a steep learning curve for a while but then its plain sailing, Ive been using it for 10+ years now and I still find new features and techniques I havent seen before.
You wont regret it.

[Will Plane]

Thanks fella’s. Could I create my sign work in PhotoShop and boycott a vector based program all together? What about cut lines etc and making it printer friendly? Have I got the right end of the stick?

[David Rogers]

quote WillPlane:

Thanks fella’s. Could I create my sign work in PhotoShop and boycott a vector based program all together? What about cut lines etc and making it printer friendly? Have I got the right end of the stick?

Print..sure. Cut…nope. Photoshop cannot export vector images / use cut lines. It’s purely a ‘bitmap’ program.

As an additional tool it would allow you the flexibility to create photographic effects, custom infills, edit photos & combine ‘special effects’ into your signage repertoire not to replace cut vinyl though.

Without a printer, or access to a supplier it’s just a fun program – with print capability you can let the creative juices flow.

As said above – version 7 is VERY capable and often goes for a song as people upgrade / buy CS2 or CS3.

[Peter Normington]

You really need illustrator for sign work. not photoshop, unless you are very conversant with illustrator, or photoshop. I would stay with what you know best,
Corel will do all you need, and if using already, then you dont have to re-educate yourself.
Having said that, it does depend on the market you are selling to

Peter

[Steve Underhill]

Oh yes, I definetely meant for printing stuff, as if you just cut vinyl photoshop would serve no purpose at all.
I was assuming it was required for use in conjunction with a wide format printer.

[Will Plane]

A, ha. That sheds a little more light on it. I have been using Corel ever since I started in the sign making field and it’s all I know and to be honest I feel happy working with it and I know how to get good results from it i.e. paying customers! I feel a little left behind as I don’t use the software nor know diddly squit about it. It’s just down to the fact that I now have a digital printer and thought I could explore a more creative side and being able to offer the customer a more dynamic solution o their signage. 😀

[Andy Gorman]

It depends on how involved you want to get. Photoshop’s features are immense, but if you are only going to use the basic features like retouching etc then you can get cheaper alternatives. Corel’s Photopaint, for example, is a decent program with a lot of very good features.

[Mike Fear]

Having used both I would say most of the things you can do in Photoshop can also be done in Corel Paint.

For a signmaker I would think Photoshop is a bit of overkill as you probably wont use half the features it has, and you still need your vector program for cutting.

Photoshop is really more of a visual design program ( if you see what I mean ) where the finished graphic is only ever going to be a raster image – very useful is you are designing posters, magazine adverts, web graphics etc… but for a sign maker it will only ever be one part of the finished product.

[Alan Drury]

I thinks Mike’s answer is spot on and considering PhotoPaint comes with the Corel suite its a no brainer, you could spend loads of money on Photoshop and only use the bits you already have in Photopaint. Incidentally Photopaint also supports many of the plugins used in Photoshop.
Alan D

[Martin Grimmer]

If you still wanted to go down the photoshop route, you could get Photoshop Elements – the latest version of which is about £60-70 from Amazon (earlier versions of Elements prob still available and cheaper). A while since I used Elements but think it should do most things needed.

Martin

[Will Plane]

Thanks for your comments, I do use Photo Paint now and again and find it’s features rewarding, especially the Eye Candy plug in that I have, great for text effects and fills. Even then I still have to save the file, import in to Corel and sort a cut line out which can take ages (of which I’m sure you are all very much aware), so it is still jumping from one program to another. I don’t mind doing this but I like the ‘reliability’ that a vector based program like Corel offers, I’m using X3.