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Graphics Editor Tool ????

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From all the awesome DVD covers I've seen here, I know there are some experienced graphic artists here.....so I have a question for you...

What is the best and preferred graphics editor software program out there?

Please give me a brief rundown of your choice....

I'm looking to get my hands on a graphics editor program and want to get a really good one......you guys and your hard work have inspired me to try my hand at this....
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"Adobe Photoshop" all the way. Not only is it the absolute "industry standard", it's also very powerful - once learned. It doesn't have that many "artistic filters" like other programs, as "Corel PhotoPaint", but I still consider those cheap tricks that give away the amateur behind a design.
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I don't quite get why everyone loves Photoshop so much. I have access to it, and it's good and all, but there are several other programs -- like Paint Shop Pro -- that do about 90% or more of what Photoshop does, and some of it better than Photoshop. And Paint Shop Pro (as but one example) is way cheaper.

I also don't quite get why everyone uses raster-based programs to do everything. Personally, I prefer CorelDRAW! (don't laugh) to Illustrator, but both are primarily vector-based and therefore very good at lossless scaling of all the elements that aren't photos. Like text, for example, of which there is typically quite a bit on a DVD cover.

Let me put it this way: I can all but guarantee the people who create real DVD covers for commercial releases don't do all their work in Photoshop. More than likely, they use Illustrator or InDesign or some other vector app. Why don't interested amateurs do the same, I wonder?

By the way, as a bit of an aside, I also don't understand why so many people use JPG for compressing covers that have a lot of small text. That's so wrong! JPG is absolutely sh... crappy at compressing solid colours with sharp edges. For a modest increase in size (on average -- might be larger, but also could be smaller), PNG is completely lossless. There are different file formats for a reason. Please choose amongst them wisely!
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Man, I remember PSP.

I've just used Photoshop because I've been too lazy to switch to anything else, but as my DVD business grows, I might look elsewhere. That being said, a lot of my resizing has been with images, so we'll just have to see if there's really enough benefit to me. I also need to see if the labeling software that came with my Epson R300 will accept PNG files. If not, I'll just create a template in PS for now.

I believe Rikter uses Photoshop as well..

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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PS is the one for me, working in the magazine/repro/graphics field I can tell you that the Mac platform is still the dominant platform thats why photoshop is the main man and not paint shop pro.For pure raster image work I use PS cs2, the new smart objects function is lovely, for single page text layout it is illustrator and for mutli page spreads quark or indesign or if feeling a little adventurous macromedia freehand.
preferred file formats EPS, tiff, psd or Distilled PDF(pass4press job options or press quality).
Egon "Don't Cross the streams it would be very bad"

Peter "i'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing"

Egon "lmagine the 97 Star Wars Special Editions"
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Paint Shop Pro is an awesome program. I used it exclusively for 5 or 6 years for all my web design stuff -- as well as a few of my very first dvd covers. I loved it and for the price (~$99 US) you can't beat it.

About a year ago, I took on Adobe Photoshop and I haven't looked back. The main reason is because there is a lot more you can do with it. It also seems a lot easier (to me anyway) to get the results I'm looking for. It's about 6 times the price, but if you have the means, definitely check it out.

My Projects:
[Holiday Special Hybrid DVD v2]
[X0 Project]
[Backstroke of the West DVD]
[ROTS Theatrical DVD]

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I love Photoshop, but at the same time, there are other programs out there that are just as good. Being the magnificently cheap bastard I am, and because I only do graphics recreationally, I have turned to the GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program). It's perhaps slightly less powerful than Photoshop, but for the average user, you wouldn't notice much of a difference, except in price. the GIMP is open source, meaning you pay absolutely nothing for it. It's the way I do things now.
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I'm a huge Paint Shop Pro fan and I find that for the beginner it is much easier to use. Photoshop is absolutely amazing if you've got the time to really sit down and learn it but for those that don't and still want professional results I recommend Paint Shop Pro more than any other graphics app. And I agree 100% about the use of PNG images vs. JPG images, there is no comparison, especially if you edit and save the image multiple times. No quality loss on PNG images edited, saved and repeated versus huge losses on JPG images.
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alt.binaries.starwars
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