I hope this is in the right place. Anyway, I wanted to know who else here likes using photoshop? Ever since I've learned how to use it, I love working in it whenever I can. I work in it a lot if I need to take my mind off of things. Anyone else share my passion?

Maybe not to your level... but I definitely find Photoshop to be a very handy tool. When I first started out doing graphical work, I did everything purely in MS Paint... what a pain that was. Ever since I gave Photoshop a try, I've not been able to edit graphics without it. Even simple things, I still do in Photoshop because it's kind of spoiled me. I can't say I know how to 'properly' use it though since I've never actually been taught. I kinda just do whatever and fool around here and there, trying to learn stuff as I go along. As a result, I can't make any of the fancy graphics that most other people who use it can... but I typically still get out of it what I want. There are a few times where I wish I could do more and I feel like images I'm working on could come out better if I actually knew what I was doing. Then I eat a cookie and forget all about what troubles I had :3

Crazy Li : I would love to help you learn how to do more in photoshop. I'm not an expert either, but I've come a long way teaching myself how to use it. I'll have to show you some of my work sometime. I'm actually working on something right now. I can't sleep so I figured I might as well keep my mind busy. Oh! And if you use Skype or Yahoo Messenger, I can add you if you want so I can talk to you more about this. Or I can even PM you here. It's whatever you feel comfortable with. I'd love to see some of you work sometime.

SunflowerGaming : I used to make little sigpics and whatnot at other forums by request. There weren't anything great, though. I also make desktop wallpapers when I'm bored... but once again, they're not anything special. Just copying and pasting images onto backgrounds mostly. I'm definitely not a PS wizard or anything remotely close.

I don't use Skype or Yahoo, unfortunately. My only messengers are AIM and Windows Live. You can feel free to PM me your work, though. I'd love to see it.

Crazy Li : Actually on Yahoo Messenger I can add Windows Live contacts. So if you want you can send me your screen name in a PM. And I'll give you some links to some of my galleries in a PM too.

I like using adobe photo shop when posting my pictures .. I also use photo shop when making my school ID ..

INRI : That's cool. I love how photoshop can be used for so many different things. It's an amazing program.

I actually don't much care for Photoshop. It's an insanely useful tool, don't get me wrong, and I used to use it every day, but I actually prefer Illustrator or InDesign to Photoshop. Now, granted, those two programs aren't meant to do what Photoshop does, but I just like the work flow in them more than that of Photoshop.

I'm pretty indifferent to it all in all. Whenever I needed to edit a raster image, of course Photoshop was my go-to guy, but it's just a tool to me, no more special than the monitor that displays it or the desk that sits on.

And of course, philosophically I support the GNU Image Manipulation Program, so corporations are bad, etc.

GIMP's pretty cool... but I keep running into hitches trying to use it. It seems that the things I took for granted in Photoshop are missing or don't work as well in GIMP. The only thing about GIMP is that it has a TON of user-created add-ons that can make it do some things that Photoshop can't. There's one image conversation process that I have to use GIMP for because Photoshop doesn't have the capability of rendering images through the proper algorithm. I ended up writing my own script for GIMP to batch covert images through this process. Very handy.

As for Illustrator... I simply cannot use that program. I've made several attempts and it always fails me. You'd think being also made by Adobe, it would be intuitive to a Photoshop user, but it's not. Everything works differently and it's missing a lot of really basic tools that PS has. It makes it very awkward to use and never accomplished much for me. The only real thing I ever got out of Illustrator was its Live Trace function to auto-vector an image. That was pretty neat... but for all the hassle it is to work with the program otherwise, I'd much rather just use a vector program that's easier and do my vectoring by hand. Inkscape handles my vectoring needs better than anything else I've ever tried.

Crazy Li : There's the rub. Once you know where everything is in Photoshop, it's hard to find stuff in the GIMP, and vice versa. I used to hate Photoshop with a passion, simply because I used the GIMP more, but as I continued to use Photoshop at work constantly, GIMP started being the "weird" program. Now I can barely use it at all and prefer working in Photoshop. (But don't tell anybody!)

Also of course Illustrator is missing "basic" features that are present in Photoshop. They're for completely different purposes. If Illustrator had everything that was in Photoshop, what would be the point of purchasing both? But I am surprised that you find Inkscape easier. I can't stand the way it handles anchors (Or much of anything else about the retched program!) But I guess that really goes to show ya, whatever you learn first is what you prefer.

Lazlo Falconi : Well I used Illustrator way before Inkscape actually... but I guess I never "learned' Illustrator is the issue here. I tried using it several times and could never actually DO anything with it. I find the way Adobe handles vector manipulation to be extremely inefficient be it Photoshop's pen tool or Illustrator, it's very hard to alter your points and shape your curves. I eventually tried Inkscape on a friend's recommendation and picked it up instantly. I found it far more manageable. Editing your paths/points is a breeze and the auto-curve feature is heaven-sent. My vectors look so much cleaner than they ever did and it's even easier to change fill/stroke colors than it is in Illustrator. The whole process of drawing shapes is easier for me in Inkscape.

Also, I think you misunderstood what I was saying about Photoshop and Illustrator. I don't expect Illustrator to do everything Photoshop does. That would be silly. Photoshop is for photo touch-ups and manipulation and can be very handy in raster graphics in general. It's a very robust tool that can create lots of great image effects. Illustrator is vectoring software. It's not designed for work with photos, so it's not going to deal with things like filter effects and all that fancy stuff. But why is it so difficult to do simple things in vector form? Without manually mapping each point out, I find it extremely difficult to make basic shapes (squares, circles, ovals, ect...) in Illustrator. Some basic Photoshop tools might be handy for doing things that don't defy the vector logic. I'm not looking for stuff that defeats the purpose of Illustrator and Photoshop being two separate programs here... I'm just asking for standard image editing tools. If Inkscape can do it, surely Illustrator could have.

I've been using photoshop for so long that I can practically do anything with it. I never tried Illustrator, I actually never even heard of it. Can you believe that? I'm really into video and photo graphics but I bet there are so many other programs I don't even know about. LOL.

I have Photoshop on my laptop but I prefer using Adode Fireworks. Mainly because it seems that it will take awhile to figure out how to use Photoshop effectively and Fireworks is simple to use.