to hope someone can help about Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop/Corel Draw etc for Christmas gift?

[PinkTiger]

Niece has asked for a professional standard drawing computer program for Christmas. I need help and googling has left me more confused. Hoping an expert here can help me.

Not my field at all but what she wants is something that will allow her to draw from pen tablet on to a desk top computer. She's artistic and wants the end results to be professional standard illustration. No particular budget and happy to pay for anything that is good and worthwhile.

From my googling, it looks like Illustrator is vector based so won't be suitable. She wants to be able to draw on the tablet and have the results on the screen in the same was as if she was drawing on paper.

Can anyone explain to me which program would be the best for this, explain the differences or recommend one?

Would be very grateful.

Thanks and crossing fingers someone who knows is out there!

Illustrator is used for manipulating and designing typefaces and logos etc. It is more of a graphic design tool than illustration- despite the misleading title.

My DH uses paintshop pro and a wacon drawing tablet. Not the most professional tablet out there but he gets amazing results that he posts on deviant art.

*He also uses sketchbook pro!

She can download a free 30 trial of these to get a feel for which she prefers.

When I used such things for work I used both as they did different things back in the day. I would manipulate photos in photoshop and create visuals/draw (with a pen on a tablet) in illustrator.

Definately do the trial first and do some tutorials/YouTube videos.

Thanks Lucy is Paintshop pro better than Photoshop or Sketch?

Are Adobe better than Corel?

Photoshop is more for manipulating photos, and I'd say it really depends what she wants to do. I design paper cuts in illustrator and it's perfect for that. If I wanted to create illustrations / digital "paintings" I wouldn't go for Illustrator. Adobe and Corel are preferred by different people for different reasons, it's probably better for her to do some trials first as they vary so much. I'd also look at an online course to get the most from the programs - udemy has good ones

Photoshop is definitely not just for manipulating photos - many professionals use it to create artwork from scratch, because it has very powerful brush tools.

Paint Shop Pro is less likely to be used in professional settings than Photoshop, which is basically an industry standard.

The Adobe suite is pay per month now so get her a subscription

And yes it's more than just for photo and film editing you can do so so much with the adobe software

Student Deal Here

Some people do create digital artwork in illustrator, but it's quite a specific style - google vector artwork to give yourself an idea.

How old is she?

You can subscribe to Adobe for about £8 a month. For that you get Photoshop and Illistrator, plus some extras such as Lightroom. You can pay by Pay Pal or Direct Debit.

Inkscape is a vector tool, and free.
inkscape.org/en/release/0.92.2/

Photoshop is better than Paintshop Pro.

I’ve got photoshop, illustrator and Corel painter. I use illustrator for graphic design based things or vector work, whilst I use painter more of a digital painting style. You can get trials on all of those so I’d recommend your niece trialling them to find the one she likes best before committing.

I think your niece needs to choose which software she wants. Most will work with a tablet.

Personally I like the Affinity software from Serif, they're reasonably priced and the leaving curve hasn't been too steep - but I'm just dabbling. If she's looking at this as potentially a career, she's probably going to want to learn the Adobe software, in which case a Creative Cloud subscription would be a good option.

Thanks for all the replies. This is very helpful - especially the advice about trials.

Mischief is a good cheap piece of software for drawing with.

www.madewithmischief.com/