Photoshop or Illustrator, is it Too Much to Ask for Both?

When I first began design, one of my biggest questions was which program I should use. Over time, I learned the circumstances under which the services of each are required.

What is Photoshop?

Photoshop is a photo manipulation program, hence the name "Photoshop." It is designed by professionals to enhance, alter, manipulate, and transform raster images. Raster images have a specified resolution. As a raster image gets larger, the quality decreases. Think of zooming in closely to a photo in your camera roll. As you zoom in closer, the quality decreases. These are called raster images.

Below is a poster I created in Photoshop. I utilized almost 10 seperate raster images to compose a final, polished composition. The colors were naturally different depending on the image which required color grading. I needed to match the colors to make it appear as if the entire composition was a singular image. To do this I mainly utilized the curves tool to alter the colors when necessary.

What about Illustrator?

Illustrator is another Adobe program designed for vector -based illustrations. If you go to a website and zoom in on an element of the page you may expect it to become blurry like a photograph. However, you will find that the element maintains its definition. This is because it is a vector image. The data that composes the element is actually stored as a math equation which calculates the pixels required to display the element in full-resolution. In the Arizona poster, I used Adobe Illustrator to create the stripes in the background that resemble the Arizona state flag. I then imported that image to Photoshop to implement into the composition.

Illustration (From Illustrator)

Full Composition (From Photoshop)