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Life Without Photoshop

quora.com

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Re: Life Without Photoshop

#41

Post by bane »

nswanberg wrote: post #37
bane wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laugh if you will, but I've found sketching out mockups in PowerPoint to work surprisingly well and about as fast (or faster) than paper since I don't have to redraw the whole thing after too many changes are made. And to your point: You can’t click a Photoshop mockup. This is probably the number one reason we skip static mockups. They aren’t real. Paper isn’t real either, but paper doesn’t have that expectation. A P…

That's a clever idea, and if it works for you, great. In fact I think it's a much better use than PowerPoint's intended purpose of crushing your soul bullet point by bullet point: http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm It looks like you can sort of do this in Google Presentation too, though you have to figure out the URL to link to other slides.

Yeah, I have a feeling most presentation tools (Keynote, Impress, Google Presentation, etc.) would work well for this. In fact the only pain point I've ever had was the occasional desire to change the slide size. I've found that most of the basic effects in PP have a CSS equivalent as well, a surprising number of the things mocked up in PP can be recreated entirely in CSS without images.

Most of the actual graphics I use in the mockup I've made in Photoshop anyways, and just put them in the mockup, so those are reusable art assets on the final page.

(plus you can even mockup smaller gui details like drop-down menus if you are clever enough, though it's usually more work than it's worth)

I've found that most of the MS-Office tools can be abused to do a pretty good job in roles far removed from their original intent.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#42

Post by mwsherman »

This is exactly backwards. One needs to start with the needs of the user, which means mocking up the user experience without regard for implementation. The tool might vary, but the concept of starting with the user is essential.

Starting in code makes it about the coder, not the user. It conflates implementation with design.

I am a coder, and will do mockups in code -- only when I know a real design won't be available. I would much rather be directed by a good UX person. Better for the user, and faster for me as an implementor.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#43

Post by antidaily »

Everyone should convert - Photoshop is still a necessary evil for image editing and sprites - but with grid layout frameworks, it's really never been easier to mockup a layout or three in pure HTML greatness. Add the flair after.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#44

Post by lwhi »

benjohnson wrote: post #36
lwhi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is an alternative to using Photoshop - especially if you use a Linux based OS. I've often heard of people stating that GIMP is a valid alternative - I'd argue it isn't. GIMP is fine for performing a lot of everyday editing functions - but it's lacking in quite a few key areas (most notably CMYK support). I think as an alternative, rather than having Photoshop - which could be conceptually viewed as an '…

Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Hell... GIMP would be an improvement: about a 20% of all print jobs are submitted in MS Publisher. I can understand not using GIMP for high-end printing with spot colors, but that's very rare.

Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#45

Post by foljs »

bane wrote: post #33
jasonfried wrote: post #18

Along the same lines, here's why I skip Photoshop when working on designs at 37signals: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop

Laugh if you will, but I've found sketching out mockups in PowerPoint to work surprisingly well and about as fast (or faster) than paper since I don't have to redraw the whole thing after too many changes are made. And to your point: You can’t click a Photoshop mockup. This is probably the number one reason we skip static mockups. They aren’t real. Paper isn’t real either, but paper doesn’t have that expectation. A P…

>Laugh if you will, but I've found sketching out mockups in PowerPoint to work surprisingly well and about as fast (or faster) than paper since I don't have to redraw the whole thing after too many changes are made.

Yes, it can work.

And this is the premise behind Keynote Wireframe Toolkit (Keynote is Apple's equivalent to Powerpoint):

http://keynotekungfu.com/

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#46

Post by foljs »

benjohnson wrote: post #36
lwhi wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is an alternative to using Photoshop - especially if you use a Linux based OS. I've often heard of people stating that GIMP is a valid alternative - I'd argue it isn't. GIMP is fine for performing a lot of everyday editing functions - but it's lacking in quite a few key areas (most notably CMYK support). I think as an alternative, rather than having Photoshop - which could be conceptually viewed as an '…

Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Hell... GIMP would be an improvement: about a 20% of all print jobs are submitted in MS Publisher. I can understand not using GIMP for high-end printing with spot colors, but that's very rare.

> Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically.

Yes, so why use a CMYK workflow, when you can wait until your design gets to the printing press and have the thrill of seeing if it prints as you want it to...

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#47

Post by threepointone »

vog wrote: post #6
gjenkin wrote: post #2

Context is important. A no-Photoshop approach makes sense for Quora since their product is text-heavy. For a product that requires, say, rich data visualizations like Google Analytics, some design ideas need to be mocked in a graphics package (Googlers often use Fireworks instead of Photoshop) first, then prototyped in code. Context is also important in terms of what stage of the development process the designer is a…

I never understood why people are buying proprietary, expensive stuff like Photoshop just for mock-ups. First of all, vector graphics tools like Inkscape are a lot better suited for that task. Second, even if you don't like vector graphics, there are great Free Software projects like Gimp and Krita that deserve our attention and our support.

+1 for inkscape. I love it.

-1 for the horrid experience inkscape is on the mac. Great on windows though.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#48

Post by shaggyfrog »

threepointone wrote: post #47
vog wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why people are buying proprietary, expensive stuff like Photoshop just for mock-ups. First of all, vector graphics tools like Inkscape are a lot better suited for that task. Second, even if you don't like vector graphics, there are great Free Software projects like Gimp and Krita that deserve our attention and our support.

+1 for inkscape. I love it. -1 for the horrid experience inkscape is on the mac. Great on windows though.

Somedays I think Inkscape on the Mac is only slightly better than having to hand-code my data with a hex editor.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#49

Post by irahul »

lwhi wrote: post #44
benjohnson wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and registering automatically. Hell... GIMP would be an improvement: about a 20% of all print jobs are submitted in MS Publisher. I can understand not using GIMP for high-end printing with spot colors, but that's very rare.

Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine.

> Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine.

That still doesn't answer the question why do people care so much about CMYK.

The question was why would you care about CMYK if your work isn't to produce graphics for print.

Re: Life Without Photoshop

#50

Post by lwhi »

irahul wrote: post #49
lwhi wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine.

> Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday routine. That still doesn't answer the question why do people care so much about CMYK. The question was why would you care about CMYK if your work isn't to produce graphics for print.

Do you really mean that? It sounds pedantic, verging on illogical.

Why would you care about anything you don't care about?

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