As a continuation of the device icon thread... what software do you use, but even more importantly, why?

I'm probably the only one here who uses CorelDRAW and CorelPHOTO-PAINT. This is because I've been using it since version 2 (a school kid) and am intimately familiar with it and love its user interface. I can do literally anything in CorelDRAW, and fast... structural and electrical blueprints, full-scale templates for custom glasswork, greeting cards, business cards, print & online advertisements, corporate logos, the layout for this site, and all my prior Pronto button designs. I've even done weird things like a full board game design with cards and a 3D paint scheme for an RC car's body

However Corel is far from perfect, and I find that I end up using Photoshop (despite how much I ABHORE the user interface) for much of my finished bitmap resizing due to long-standing bugs in PHOTO-PAINT.

What some of you probably don't know is I was an official Corel beta tester for Ventura 8 (desktop publishing software) as well as CorelDRAW 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12. My priority during those tests was backwards compatibility (as I have an extensive library of files) and quality of output, especially ever since version 9 when the big bugs were first introduced.

However since version 12 they "shrunk down" the beta testing to in-house only, and I haven't been able to continue harping on the never-fixed problems. It's a shame, since absolutely nothing has improved in the departments I concentrated on since then.

You would be wrong. I use and have been using CorelDraw and Corel Photo and a couple of other Corel software for almost all my graphics.I thought I was the only one left.

Wow, nice... we ARE a dying breed, though!

Come, join the dark side! Adobe! On a Mac!

Fireworks. I started playing with paint when i got my win95 HP. Nothing fancy just playing around at the time. Around 99 i bought a new PC and started surfing the internet more often. I wanted to build a website and started learning html and css. I needed a logo for my new site so i did some research for graphic editing software and found Macromedia Fireworks MX.

I learned to use it enough to do basic image editing and simple graphic creation but i never really went after learning how to use it. In 2004 (i think) we dropped Phast and started using Crestron. We were Crestron dealers forever but didnt sell much until then. I learned Crestron Application Builder and started toying with GUI design.

I really didnt know what i was doing, the panels didnt support transparent .png so i used plain buttons. At one point we got involved in a large project with Crestrons brand new TPMC-10's and we bought a guifx template. I wasnt able to make it work for us because i didnt have much in the way of graphic skills so we were not able to keep it looking consistent. That when the boss said "lets design our own". That was when i started to get serious about graphic design.

At every project i would learn a little more. By 2007 we had a very logical and attractive (IMO) GUI and in 2008 we decided to give it a face lift. 2 weeks of arguing back and forth with the boss and we came up with something really nice. We have been using that interface ever since. Just about everyone of our customers has the new GUI now. I updated most of our old clients to the new template.

Thats right around when i started posting here at RC. I created guijaboard.com and started posting silly photoshop stuff and freebie graphics. Then i registered wiremunky.com and moved all the silly stuff and installation photos there and made guijaboard all about GUI. Then one thing led to another and i added the online store.

MSPAINT RULEZ!

I am more of a programmer type , but in a pinch I will use Photoshop or Paint for a quickie mockup. I never have bought any software for graphics. To me, learning a graphics program is more difficult than programming.

I used paint shop pro on win 95 and 98 pretty often. Always liked the ui of it better than ps which has a kludgey ui in my opinion.

@thomasamiller how can you use photoshop then? And I do hope you have someone else in house who handles your GUI's then. (Or do you buy those?)

Anyhow I use the adobe creative suite for a lot of my things, mostly photoshop, Illustrator, Flash (& Flex), Bridge (File-management), Inkscape, GIMP and Blender.

I'm used to photoshop/GIMP and I just don't like Corel's software (so it's exactly the opposite of you guys.)

HA! A bit of a tangent but most of my users are die hard wordperfect fanatics.

The nature of my job means I own pretty much everything but I'm not an artist at all. I can make a semi transparent square for popup backgrounds! I usually just whip out photoshop since it's 64bit and snaps to life.

Gimp... cuz my talent isnt worth the cost of Photoshop. maybe someday...

There is a specific reason I use Paint Shop Pro over Photoshop. PSP is basically the same, but without all the confusion. Photoshop and Flash are very much the alike when it comes to all those toolbars, there's a lot going on and I like a nice clean uncluttered screen. The only items I show are the color pallette and layers in a strip off the right, similar to the Vista desktop and the gadget bar.

I like to customize the toolbar with the commands I use the most like undo / redo, copy / copy merged etc.... when you select a tool, there is a section that changes to show you the properties for the selected tool that appears in a thin strip that goes horizontally under your tools.

I also like the fact that all PS plugins work with PSP, there are a few I cant do without, namely VanDerLee Unplugged and a couple from Flaming Pear. I bought the Kai's Power Tools way back when but quickly figured out they were more for fun than anything. There wasnt a lot I could use for what we do.

Lastly, there is the price. PSP goes for around $100. Corel bought Jasc a while ago and it's now called Corel PSP and I bought version 11 and I have to tell you, it's not as good as PSPX (10), It starts up very slowly and tends to crash a lot. I will stick with PSPX for good, I dont think there is any more they could add that I could possibly use. Plus, you can pick up a brand new sealed PSPX for under $20 these days.

I still like Photoshop, it's just I can work much faster with Paint Shop Pro. I have never used Fireworks but it was included when I bought a Macromedia suite a while back, there were four of five programs on one disc. I though I would really get into Flash, but after a while, I started to find Flash sites more annoying than anything so I stopped using it and went back to good old HTML with simple mouseovers.

I have been using Adobe Photoshop since the early days.

I originally made an investment in Photoshop long ago, and dedicated a lot of time to understanding all aspects. I have taken classes and have made the commitment to learn the "Adobe" way.

As of now, just about every creative software I use stems from Adobe, I use Dreamweaver for all my web work, I use Flash (liked it better when Macromedia owned it), Fireworks for anything Vector based (superior to Photoshop with vector), and I have started to use Premier for all my video needs (works great with High Definition video). Photoshop is my most used graphic program, and will always be.

I have dabbled with Corel, PSP and GIMP, and they all are amazing programs that can do most of what Photoshop can do.

I guess after years of creating scrips, actions, styles & brushes, it is pretty hard to move away, and now that I am becoming very involved with Photography (doing any side jobs to make money these days), Photoshop is proving more useful than ever.

I used to use Photoshop for advertising back in 2000 with a data capture company I used to work for, and I had the copy sitting around on my home desktop really not being used. I then stumbled into the Pronto TSU2000/6000 and started to see that graphic elements were becoming big with remote controls. Around 2001 I found this site, and after I downloaded a few graphic files for my first 6000, I figured I would start to create my own. In 2002 I created an account here to start uploading to the site, but had some tradgedy in my life around that time, lost my desktop, my remote and a lot of other things in my life.

I got back into things around 2004, created a new account here under my current name, and I started to upload silly graphic stuff to the files area. Right around that time, I started to get real serious with GUI's and design with a new company I started working for, and when I saw how much I was creating, I wanted to create a website to give away the stuff I created. I figured that since I started by downloading free items from here, might as well keep the tradition going and give away free stuff myself. That is how xCom got started. I have been very fortunate for this site, as I have had many contacts and done some pretty impressive stuff with contacts from this site, which is why I will always donate here and participate.

Oh yeah, sorry, we were talking about programs...

Photoshop is my addiction, but I secretly keep PSP on my home desktop.

I like to use Microsoft Digital Image Special Edition for quick work and photo editing. If I need to do something outside of it's abilities, it's Photoshop. Always looking for something new to learn, but I am quite content at the moment.

I use Photoshop CS4 and Fireworks. I have used PS since version 7. I am currently starting to use fireworks more and more. It's seams easier to make buttons in FW than PS. The layers act differently in FW than in PS, so I get mixed up a lot. Still wish you could alphabetize the layers and groups in PS for Favorite channel icons.

I was using Photoshop and CS3, ungtill I bought my new computer, which it won't run on. So, for now, I'm using PS Elements untill I get a Mac and CS4 for the office to do the graphics on.

If I remember right, Thomas is a DIY


Personally, I'm slowly learning photoshop, but only picked that b/c I have a copy of it that somebody gave me.

Otherwise, if I were to buy something I would ask everyone here which is the easiest to learn and start with. Understanding that I will probably do very little photo editing but more just for graphics. Although, the Photography Freaks thread on IP has gotten me much more interested in Photography and I've picked up a few tricks for making changes to pictures in PS.

Another tool I forgot to mention is paint.net. Very nice freeware to be used in a pinch. I hire 39cent to do my graphic design work.

At one point in 1997 when cd burners were a novelty I started a business to sell CDs to mix tape djs. I would convert their mixtaped to cd and design a jewel case. It was usually easy, find a
carribean model with bikini and add text to the image like "dj northstar volume 2". At this time psp was my fave.