Having worked for an Adobe Authorized Training Center for the past 10 years, students often ask me what the difference is between Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
First, let me say that all three programs are owned and developed by the same company, Adobe Systems, a world leader in web development, graphic design, and e-learning software. All three programs are also integrated into Adobe’s Creative Suite, which is a great and inexpensive way to purchase this software.
I think part of the confusion is that certain tasks can be done in more than one of these programs. For example, you can find vector drawing tools available in Photoshop and InDesign, although Illustrator is the predominant vector drawing program. The key to getting the most out of these three programs is understanding what their key features are and how they can be used together.
Ok, let’s look at each program separately. We’ll start with Adobe Photoshop, which is probably the best known of the three. Photoshop is a professional image editing software that is mainly used for editing bitmap images and manipulating images. Bitmap images are images that are defined by their pixel structure. In other words, digital bitmaps can be broken down into millions of tiny pixels, each pixel having its own attributes. Bitmap images are sometimes also called raster images.
The most common type of bitmap image is a photographic image. Whether taken on film and scanned into a computer or taken digitally, photos are made up of millions of tiny pixels. Simply put, Photoshop is a tool used to edit photographic images. It also has the ability to do many other things, but Photoshop’s main function is to edit photographic images.
If you go to your local newsstand and pick up any magazine, there is a good chance that the images in that magazine have been edited or altered with Photoshop. Sometimes the adjustments can be minor, like subtle lighting or sharpness adjustments, and other times they can be important, like applying a filter or special effect. Photoshop is used for retouching. Ever wonder why models and movie stars never get cellulite or double chins? The answer is Photoshop. Often an image may consist of several different images that have been merged together to form a montage. This effect can also be created in Photoshop.
Adobe Illustrator, on the other hand, is a vector drawing program. Vector images are the other main type of digital image. Unlike bitmaps, vectors are made up of a series of lines and shapes, which are defined as mathematical formulas. Vectors are great for creating images that contain large sections of the same color. So, for example, a navigation button on your website, your company logo, or any non-photographic image would be best created as a vector. Illustrator is the world’s leading vector drawing tool, so if you were tasked with creating any kind of ‘flat’ art such as a corporate profile, including logos, signs, letterheads, etc., you’d likely use Adobe Illustrator.
Adobe InDesign is the newest of the three programs and is a publishing or page layout program. InDesign is used to put together things like corporate brochures, documents, magazines, newsletters, or advertisements. InDesign’s specialty is working with documents that contain a large amount of type or text.
Often designers will use all three programs in the same project. For example, we recently created some new course outlines, so we used Illustrator to create our logo and some other vector graphics, we used Photoshop to apply a special shadow effect to some bitmap images, and finally we imported all of those elements. from Illustrator and Photoshop to InDesign where we added the copy and defined the layout.
Quality graphic design can make or break any company’s image. Adobe Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, plus a little training, can give you the vital edge to succeed in a highly competitive world.