How does InDesign compare to Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator? What are the main differences among them?

InDesign is primarily for creating print/digital publications. Photoshop is primarily for editing photos, Illustrator is primarily for...well...illustrations!

 

They are not alternatives to one another - you would generally use the three together. Create assets in Photoshop and Illustrator, and embed them into an InDesign document.

 

As an example, I use InDesign nearly every day for creating on-screen presentations, using Photoshop and Illustrator to create assets.

You can't compare them, they have 3 entirely different purposes

 

1) photoshop is for editing photos and making pictures (typical file types are .png and .jpg)

2) illustrator is for creating logos, or typography or any other type of image that needs to be used across wide mediums (typical file types are vector .ai and .svg )

3) Indesign is for structure and layout, now this includes typography but this is geared towards design for print more than digital work (typical file types are .indd and .pdf )

 

although that is not to say the other can't do some of the other filetypes as they can, I am simply referencing which are more geared towards what.

without a more specific question you could have simply visited adobe.com

InDesign is mostly useful for multipage layouts like books and brochures. I’d stick with a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator: use Photoshop to edit your images, save as a TIFF, import into Illustrator and continue to create all your vector stuff there.

In design is used to design brochures, newsletters, ads, business cards or books. It is also used to combine the elements created in Photoshop and illustrator. Illustrator is used to create and edit vector based illustrations such as logos and brand marks. Photoshop is used to design User interface, web pages, banner ads and video graphic. It is also used for editing photos.