[Jabberwocky]

Okay in my Commerical arts class we're working with Freehand 9. Okay fine with me, but I can do the same thing in Photoshop better and twice if not three times as fast. Can anyone tell me if Freehand is worth hanging around to see or am I just partial to Photoshop cause... oh yeah it's better? And can anyone give some cool tips that I can do to blow my teacher out of the water with Freehand 9?


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What the Hell is bothering me?

[Chapel]

I haven't really played around with Freehand that much, but from what I understand it has easy intergration for Flash. So, if you are going to develope for Flash then by all means.. learn Freehand while you can.

[General Confusion]

you're dealing with two different monsters. Vector and raster. Freehand is a vector based drawing program, similar to Illustrator. Photoshop is raster based. Vector a mathematical program that isn't resolution specific. You can zoom into the finest point and still maintain it's resolution. Photoshop is resolution based the more you zoom in the more apparent the dot becomes.

Vector based programs are typically used for projects that have to be very exact in their creation i.e. logo designs, etc and sometimes page layouts. Photoshop allows for better gradiated images and more painterly images, similar to traditional painting.

Now either program isn't limited to doing the specific functions sited, but they are inherantly more friendly.

There are probably a tone of people here who could give a more technical explanation, but as an example I work with an old school illustrator, who has worked all of his career (30 years or so) traditionally. He started a recent crossover into digital a few months ago, and began with Freehand. He swore by it, until he used illustrator, but not to get off topic. He created some fantastic work entirely in Freehand, but labored over it. It wasn't unitl he used Photoshop that he began to like the computer more.

I recommend, if you want to impress your teacher, you should try to make some art utilizing both programs together, Photoshop and Freehand. That will impress him, or piss him off cause you jumped ahead of the class.

But to summarize, you are working with 2 different programs. You can do complete illustrations with Freehand, but you'll probably be limited to a more graphical looking image.

I'm speaking from a graphic artist/illustrator perspective. I try to use all programs in conjunction with one another if needed.

That to me would be impressionable, if someone (a student) like yourself would come to me showing knowledge on how to incorporate both, cause that is what's typically done on the job.

later



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State of Confusion