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Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

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61–70 of 81 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#61

My flow is Balsamiq for rough mocks / usability testing, Fireworks for design comps, and Photoshop only for actual image processing (mainly as a hobby). Balsamiq is awesome once you learn some of the hotkeys, and many of the commands overlap with those provided by Fireworks. The founder of Balsamiq was a Sr. Software Engineer at Adobe, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Balsamiq is very cool. We're starting to use it for mockups and it's really improving our workflow. It's super simple and created nice mockups fast.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#62
post #52

I strongly dislike Photoshop for mockups and think that using it is indicative of poor practice. In my experience it leads to premature optimisation of styling over basic design, tends to lock down designs too soon and gives no real insight as to usability. A Photoshop mockup is inherently static and turning it into a clickable prototype generally requires a great deal of duplicated effort. My preferred tool is Keyno…

I've not tried Keynote, but I loooove hotgloo for wireframes and quick mockups. If you haven't used it, I suggest checking it out. www.hotgloo.com (note: not affiliated with hg in any way)

Thanks, I tend to use PowerPoint for fast mockups but that looks good for something between basic functionality and mockup code.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#63

I have thought about making video tutorials on how to use Photoshop to create practical design elements. Ie, how to make a button or how to design a header. Something every programmer making their own webapp could use that doesn't really require much Photoshop knowledge. Would there be any interest?

I would be interested in a set of tutorials on buttons, drop shadows, torn paper effects, header design, logo design text effects - all of the stuff that I use or need to use Photoshop for.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#64
I hate many things about Photoshop, and also find it to be the best at many of the things that it does and therefore, unfortunately, is indispensable.

For example, if I want to save a gif or png file, Photoshop is going to give me a smaller file size for a given image quality than anything else.

Another example, it's the only pixel based program I've found that has acceptable masking features for even the simplest forms of icon design.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#65
I've been using it for about 14 years now (putting a number to that seems strange, odd that it's been that long). I've quite literally grown up along side the program. I saw it learn new tricks in its childhood (history panel in version 5, vector shapes in version 6). I saw it find it's first love (ImageReady in 5.5), it's breakup (ImageReady axed, partial features merged in with photoshop under the "animation" window), and it's current mistress (Macromedia merger). I saw it go to college and get smart (Smart layers in CS3), and watched as it changed its style (CS4 redesign).

It's odd knowing the intricacies of the beast that photoshop has become. I couldn't imagine learning it all from scratch right now, but having come from such an early version (4.0 was my first version) I saw many of the current features get added in, and learned as it went along. Then again I suppose I can understand it. I switched to vim as my primary editor around four years ago. I feel like vim is my current photoshop - enormously complex, but elegant once you understand it.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#68
I touched it for the first time in 92.

I don't remember the version number but I know it was B&W only. I was in a graphic design school ("Lycée Professionnel" for fellow frenchies) and our teachers were aware of the global change of direction of our future job so they obtained a dozen of small Macs rigged with old versions of Illustrator (88), Photoshop (wikipedia says it must have been 1.0), and the awesome TypeStyler.

I use it daily since my first job in 96, that's 14 years. Wow, time flies.

Re: Ask HN: Do you know Photoshop?

#70
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought an OEM copy of CS3 for something like $200. I registered with Adobe and everything.

You might as well have pirated it because you are violating the agreement by installing OEM on a different computer.

What do you mean a different computer? This was a copy that was never installed. I bought it from one of those online OEM shops. It wasn't zipzoomfly.com, but something like that.
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