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It seems like every "I didn't use Photoshop" article is always showing off a site that... looks like the designer didn't use Photoshop. As a designer who's in

It seems like every "I didn't use Photoshop" article is always showing off a site that... looks like the designer didn't use Photoshop. As a designer who's in Photoshop all day long, knowing when a layout necessitates using Photoshop or not is second-nature to me now. I'll just stop using it and hop over to my text editor and start writing HTML & CSS. And for sufficiently sparse layouts, I'll just not use Photoshop at all. I assumed everyone knew and did this, but perhaps I was mistaken.

gambler 16y ago
Problem is, Photoshop is the default for many designers. They start with image-rich websites and scale them down if necessary. I think good design should be scaled up from simple to more complex - with each instance of complexity being justified. Do I really need to watch that video when I go to gm.com? Do I really need to figure out custom Flash-based navigation scheme when I go to a movie or game website?
lwhi 16y ago
I think there is an alternative to using Photoshop - especially if you use a Linux based OS. I've often heard of people stating that GIMP is a valid alternative - I'd argue it isn't. GIMP is fine for performing a lot of everyday editing functions - but it's lacking in quite a few key areas (most notably CMYK support). I think as an alternative, rather than having Photoshop - which could be conceptually viewed as an 'image IDE' - it's possible to choose to use a number of different command line utilities, plugins, scripts and applications to achieve the feature-set that Photoshop traditionally provides. Creating and modifying imagery in this way, is arguably less intuitive, as workflows aren't so clearly defined - but there's the chance of matching (or possibly exceeding) what Photoshop makes possible.
- benjohnson 16y ago
  Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Hell... GIMP would be an improvement: about a 20% of all print jobs are submitted in MS Publisher. I can understand not using GIMP for high-end printing with spot colors, but that's very rare.
  - lwhi 16y ago
    Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine.
    - irahul 16y ago
      > Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine. That still doesn't answer the question why do people care so much about CMYK. The question was why would you care about CMYK if your work isn't to produce graphics for print.
      - lwhi 16y ago
        Do you really mean that? It sounds pedantic, verging on illogical. Why would you care about anything you don't care about?
  - foljs 16y ago
    > Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Yes, so why use a CMYK workflow, when you can wait until your design gets to the printing press and have the thrill of seeing if it prints as you want it to...
- Derbasti 16y ago
  Why does CMYK matter for websites? Are they printed that often?
mjac 16y ago
That's a great point. Photoshop has extensive capabilities for visual rearrangement and transformation. Once the core design is created it can be cut up and extended with further XHTML/CSS elements (minimally for consistency). Quora does not compare with even basic designs found in CSS galleries (http://cssbeauty.com/ http://cssbeauty.com/). Most are graphic heavy and use intelligent slicing for fast, aesthetic experiences. For rapid design, you can use the 960 grid system (http://960.gs/ http://960.gs/) to speed up mockups, then implement the layout on top of 960's positional CSS. I tried this for the first time with my new design (http://mjac.co.uk/ http://mjac.co.uk/) and I think it produced a significant improvement in aesthetics and organisation over my previous XHTML/CSS mockups and completely custom Photoshop layouts.

gambler 16y ago

Problem is, Photoshop is the default for many designers. They start with image-rich websites and scale them down if necessary. I think good design should be scaled up from simple to more complex - with each instance of complexity being justified. Do I really need to watch that video when I go to gm.com? Do I really need to figure out custom Flash-based navigation scheme when I go to a movie or game website?

lwhi 16y ago

I think there is an alternative to using Photoshop - especially if you use a Linux based OS. I've often heard of people stating that GIMP is a valid alternative - I'd argue it isn't. GIMP is fine for performing a lot of everyday editing functions - but it's lacking in quite a few key areas (most notably CMYK support). I think as an alternative, rather than having Photoshop - which could be conceptually viewed as an 'image IDE' - it's possible to choose to use a number of different command line utilities, plugins, scripts and applications to achieve the feature-set that Photoshop traditionally provides. Creating and modifying imagery in this way, is arguably less intuitive, as workflows aren't so clearly defined - but there's the chance of matching (or possibly exceeding) what Photoshop makes possible.

benjohnson 16y ago
Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Hell... GIMP would be an improvement: about a 20% of all print jobs are submitted in MS Publisher. I can understand not using GIMP for high-end printing with spot colors, but that's very rare.
- lwhi 16y ago
  Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine.
  - irahul 16y ago
    > Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine. That still doesn't answer the question why do people care so much about CMYK. The question was why would you care about CMYK if your work isn't to produce graphics for print.
    - lwhi 16y ago
      Do you really mean that? It sounds pedantic, verging on illogical. Why would you care about anything you don't care about?
- foljs 16y ago
  > Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Yes, so why use a CMYK workflow, when you can wait until your design gets to the printing press and have the thrill of seeing if it prints as you want it to...
Derbasti 16y ago
Why does CMYK matter for websites? Are they printed that often?

mjac 16y ago

That's a great point. Photoshop has extensive capabilities for visual rearrangement and transformation. Once the core design is created it can be cut up and extended with further XHTML/CSS elements (minimally for consistency). Quora does not compare with even basic designs found in CSS galleries (http://cssbeauty.com/ http://cssbeauty.com/). Most are graphic heavy and use intelligent slicing for fast, aesthetic experiences. For rapid design, you can use the 960 grid system (http://960.gs/ http://960.gs/) to speed up mockups, then implement the layout on top of 960's positional CSS. I tried this for the first time with my new design (http://mjac.co.uk/ http://mjac.co.uk/) and I think it produced a significant improvement in aesthetics and organisation over my previous XHTML/CSS mockups and completely custom Photoshop layouts.