I've used Corel Draw for a few years now (only for very light projects, i'm by no means a graphic designer) and i don't have much experience with photoshop. Could anybody tell me if there's any glaring reasons why i should be using Photoshop and why i shouldn't be using Corel to design sites with. I know what the tools do in Corel and find the usability very easy. I just don't hear of many other people using it.

 

Thanks

if corel does everything you need then there's no reason to swap to an unfamiliar app.

 

also remember that although the vector tools in the latest PS are pretty good it is not a native vector app in the way that illustrator/corel draw are.

 

you could try the demo to see if there's something missing that you never realised but could use but you might find the price prohibitive for "light projects"

 

corel has always been looked down on because it has often lagged behind the other apps (those from the adobe stable) in terms of professional features such as cmyk (corel draw was a while to implement that properly if i remember rightly) but it's always been good value for money and done a pretty good job otherwise. i've dabbled with it but prefer PS for photographic work and fireworks for everything else.

 

the corel interface is also a little different to those of us used to adobe/former macromedia apps but then that goes for anything

I actually do have photoshop and illustrator it's just that i'm so used to Corel. I am quite a beginner to web design though. Maybe within time i'll become an Adobe convert

Adobe Fireworks is probably the best on balance for learning curve and end results. Works with Photoshop files to. Try out a 30 day trial from Adobe to see how you get on.

I second the vote for Fireworks - but a word of caution, Fireworks (default format) PNG's have a much bigger filesize than Flattened PNG's. Choose the Flattened option and you're good to go!

I second the vote for Fireworks - but a word of caution, Fireworks (default format) PNG's have a much bigger filesize than Flattened PNG's. Choose the Flattened option and you're good to go!

 

That's because the default format when saving a file is as a layered PNG. You shouldn't be saving images in Fireworks like this for direct use on a website - you should be slicing, setting the format , then exporting the slices (the sliced exports will be flat PNG).

How come no one ever mentions inkscape?its free and although i have fireworks as well i am yet to find anything that fireworks can do that inkscape cant.

I personally love Photoshop. Once you find out how to use it Photoshop is great

As for me, Corel is very good for fast vector shape drawing.

Fireworks is unsurpassed tool for slicing and especially for graphics optimization.

Hail Photoshop!

I have spent some time learning Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 and Fireworks CS4, and have a good understanding off all. Fireworks CS4 is by far the best program for designing and mocking up websites.

 

It's only fallback against Photoshop is Dreamweaver CS4's compatibility with Photoshop CS4 for using Smart Objects.

I've been using Photoshop CS for years (yet to upgrade to the newer version) and good'ol notepad for coding

I have used Dreamweaver in the past, and it is a nice tool for keeping track of your code aslong as you don't rely on it to generate code for you.

Fireworks CS4 is brilliant for webdesign. It has its problems but far better than photoshop