I had the opportunity to speak to 46 photographers last night at the Minneapolis Photographic Society. As I often do when speaking, I take a show of hands poll to gauge the crowd's software leanings so that I can speak in the most common terms for the room.
Last night's results:
Photoshop:34
Elements: 6
PSP: 4
Other: 1
When I asked the gentleman who was other what he used, he replied "Gimp" . I would have to say that this has been pretty representative of my finding among serious amatuers and professionals. I mentioned to the group that most of the images they were seeing during the presentation were prepared by PhotoPaint and asked if any had heard of it. One person asked if it was the program Painter. Pretty sobering but not surprising.
Results of a spanish forum:
http://www.forocreativo.net/ipb/index.php?showtopic=18066&st=
Photoshop: 81.82%
Corel Painter: 10.91%
PhotoPaint: 4.55%
Others: 2.73%
Most people see PhotoPaint as "part of CorelDRAW", like Barcode or Trace, not as a independient software.
Hi Ariel
I know many of them who have not even opened PP. These users use PS & DRAW combination. I had a hard time to convince the institutes to include PP in the course. I also had to demonstrate some functions that they thought were not in PP.
Rikk's poll results did not surprise me at all.
Ariel said:Most people see PhotoPaint as "part of CorelDRAW", like Barcode or Trace, not as a independient software.
Anand
Anand Dixit said: Hi Ariel I know many of them who have not even opened PP. These users use PS & DRAW combination. I had a hard time to convince the institutes to include PP in the course. I also had to demonstrate some functions that they thought were not in PP. Rikk's poll results did not surprise me at all. Anand
Yes, I knew some design courses that learn about Photoshop and CorelDRAW, but never talk about PhotoPaint. The best way to show the real power of PhotoPaint and its tools is to see their power in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFJcSR-FbgM
http://wendelin.deviantart.com/gallery/
Ariel, these are amazing... I've contacted this person and offered a CorelDRAW.com gallery ;-)
Gérard
While presenting to a group of photographers last night at the Red Wing Camera Club, I let slip that I was a dabbler in the Corel world. Afterwards a photographer came up and asked me about upgrading from X3 to X4.
Perhaps there is a glimmer after all.
I met a guy from the advertising industry yesterday, and he was surprised that I am using Corel.
According to him, they had gave up on Corel since many years ago and switched to Illustrator.They were having tough time with the output color from Corel, while Illustrator gave them much better color in comparison.Also, he said the machine he brought in can only accept Adobe's file types. (He was surprised when I told him Corel can publish the output to pdf, which he claim he could not find the option )I'm not sure how he judge the color discrepency, but I have not receive any complaint from my own customer so far.
I have heard this through the years too, but usually they did not get their color profiles from Corel, they used the default printer.
And years ago color management was an issue, but that was way back in 7 or 8. Illustrator was closer to the apple profiles that most printers used.
I never had any complaints when I used it, nor have I had any trouble getting good color likeness when I send stuff to the printer.
I have always found Corel's color separations easier than Illustrators.
But industry standards are still in favor of Adobe and Illustrator. They already have those drivers loaded, and to use Corel would require them to think.
When ever I have to send a file to a printer, I always try to get them to accept the file in pdf format when that is not their usual file preference. As such, I never tell them that I use Corel, and they, falsely, assume that I am using an Adobe product. I do not get any complaints or harassment about Corel or its quality of artwork.
That shows it is all about perception. They assume adobe is better, and expect "problems" from anything else.
I don't tell them either. So I get good results. I also do not trust their color "eye" and always check my proofs myself. All good designers do.