Choosing Graphics Software

If you talk to professional graphic artists about graphics software, you'll find overwhelming agreement that Adobe PhotoShop is the most popular package. PhotoShop is primarily a tool for manipulating images (including photographs) by adjusting the colors and using a variety of special effects. Adobe Illustrator, which is often used in conjunction with Photoshop, is primarily a tool for creating shapes, diagrams, illustrations and drawings.

The graphics tools from Macromedia (Freehand and Fireworks) are also popular. Macromedia also offers Flash, a vector-based illustration and animation package. Now that Adobe and Macromedia have merged, expect additional tools to appear.

Here at The Web Academy, we like a little-known graphics tool called PhotoImpact 8.5. It's powerful, easy-to-use and much less expensive than the others. The reason it hasn't caught on among the "pros" is that there is no version for the Mac.