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.
That guy I met day day claimed that he is VERY sensitive to color and Corel's output could not satisfy him.
Like starrpoint said earlier, that could be a perception from version 8 or 9. I think for most "experienced" Adobe users, they never tried the improved versions thereafter, since they had lost faith in the product. In fact, they didn't even bother to try and check whether it had been improved. They will just continue using Adobe and believe that it is always the better.
color management and calibration was an issue with adobe for a long time too. But the Mac systems worked so closely with the print industry, that the color calibrations between the screens and the press were worked out.
They were in Corel too. With 10 especially, you could download the calibrations for the different presses, etc. But most people never bothered to learn this, so they were at fault too.
Also, since Corel was cheaper than adobe, a lot more people thought they could do it themselves. Now most of those people have bought into the Microsoft fable, but the legacy of it is still there with corel.
Color management is possible, but it does take work.
Starrpoint said: color management and calibration was an issue with adobe for a long time too. But the Mac systems worked so closely with the print industry, that the color calibrations between the screens and the press were worked out.
Why is Adobe the standard on the printing industry? Simple. Because Adobe has developed the "language" standard, first with Posrtscript, and the EPS file format, then with the PDF format. All RIP uses the Postscript language, and there's no alternatives to Postscript (please, don't think in PCL from HP as a rival...). And, also, there's not any good alternative to the PDF file format. Since the beginning, Apple and Macintosh were the most used computers for Graphic Desgin, and corel never develop a real good, native and competitive version for Mac, CorelDRAW 6, 8, and 11 are not the same that the Windows version. And also, most people think that Corel is "a Windows software", and most people think that the PC is inferior to Mac (that was true in the past, but now the Mac's advantadge is more lillte) and Windows is a bad system, so they believe that Corel is a good program for a bad computers and a bad systems.
Of course, CorelDRAW is not perfect. For example, the initial version of CorelDRAW 4.0 has an error with color separations, fixed with a ServicePack. But some people still say that CorelDRAW have problems with color separations. This is not true, of course. Million people uses CorelDRAW for professional color output, without problems. But some people still talk about an error from the past century, with CorelDRAW and Windows 3.1 ...
The best way to remove these false rumors is doing good works. Most Corel users have no idea about how to make your files. Most of the CorelDRAW files come with RGB bitmaps, with 72 dpi or less (sometimes, downloaded from internet and enlarged), a lot of effects (Texture fill with lens, transpareny over transpareny, for example) and without bleed, with an incorrect file size (for example, one personal card in a A4), text or objects with 100% of 4 colours, or a magazine made with 2 consecutive pages on the same sheet... How many Corel users know and uses the Styles, and the color styles? So, if they received a well-done Corel file, it causes suprise.
All that you can do with Adobe software, you can do better and faster with CorelDRAW graphics suite. But the best way to demonstrate that the program is good, is doing good works.
.