Graphic design program

[Blelisa]

Hi,
I am a web developer who is not artisticlly inclined and am looking for a graphics design program that was developed for people like myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[limbo]

There are many

What is your budget? This will often determine what package you invest in.

There are three that I would reccomend for developing (web) graphics.

Photoshop (THE daddy - but expensive)
Fireworks (Cheaper than above and more intuitive GUI - also nice compatibility with other Macromedia software)
Infranview (Free - And probably a good place to start ;) )

Ta

Limbo

[Shannon Moore]

ULead PhotoImpact is another option. I haven't used it in a couple years, but it's been out since the early 1990's (or thereabouts) and has always been a little more web-savvy than Adobe PhotoShop... meaning it offered easy to use wizards for important things like saving GIFs & JPEGs in the smallest possible file size for online use, something it took Adobe awhile to integrate well into Photoshop.

[limbo]

Photoshop elements is also a very good cut down but no less superb version of the full package.

[choster]

If you're not "artistically incined," what do you expect to do with it? There'd be no sense in buying a professional-level package like Photoshop or CorelDraw if you're mainly going to be making buttons or graphical headlines. Microsoft Photo Editor comes with MS Office and its antialiasing and basic filters are adequate for such tasks.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned JASC PaintShopPro, which offers 80% of Photoshop's functionality for 20% of the cost.

[balinor]

As choster said, the best graphics program in the world is not going to make you a better designer. My suggestion would be to hire a graphic designer to do the layout for you, and then you can program it yourself.

[bruhaha]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned JASC PaintShopPro, which offers 80% of Photoshop's functionality for 20% of the cost.

I must agree --it's a great program, at a great price. Of course, I'm not the company's graphics designer --she uses Photoshop (and occasionally lets me play with it :)). But I often need to edit graphics, create, mockups, etc, and PSP does everything I need it to do, and lots more.

I'd also second all the caveats -- a graphics program won't grant you artistic abilities. If, however, you have some good graphic sense, and just lack the dexterity to implement it with traditional media, a good graphics program may free you up. (Several members of my family have marvelous talents in graphic arts. I've discovered I have some of the "eye" for it, but not the hand! Programs like PSP have helped me implement things I could "see" but was heretofore unable to execute.)

[virgis71]

I agree with balinor, get a graphic designer to do your layouts and graphics. But if you find yourself having to do some work later such as updates or minor fixes there's a freeware graphics program called Gimp that is like photoshop with a good forums and links that can help you out. check out the link!

[gimp.org...]