My honest thoughts on photoshop

[ButterflyEmpress]

I'd just stick with CSP. Photoshop is not fun to draw in, especially line art(at least not for me).
If I need to draw I use CSP, but if I'm doing a digital painting or photo manipulation I'd use Photoshop. Paint Tool Sai is also good for drawing. It has the best stabilizer hands down.
For graphic design idk about using Photoshop, I normally use inDesign or Illustrator.
One thing that's annoying about Photoshop is that you'll need at least 8GB of RAM to run it.

But it's not the programs and tools that make the artist, it's how you use them to get what you want to achieve. I wish I'd realized this sooner. I used to think that I needed expensive Copic markers and high end programs to make good art, when there were people making masterpieces with crayola crayons and printer paper.

[Cavechan]

So for the gripes regarding PS's cost... So PS itself has always been a very expensive program. I believe when I was in college, it cost $500? for the creative suite (CS2). I don't remember exactly and I do remember getting a student discount for it.

The subscription model with Photoshop is actually better in a way. In the past, you would have to pay that full amount to upgrade your Creative Suite to the newest version. Now Creative Cloud does a massive update every year AND smaller updates throughout the year that you automatically get with the subscription. So your program will always be up to date. Another huge perk is the TypeKit. Now as comic artists there really isn't much of a use for it, but at my day job I do use it occasionally and it has definitely saved money from having to buy fonts which can get very expensive.

Of course there is also the bonus that Photoshop works well with Illustrator and inDesign and these three programs combined are pretty unstoppable for print designers.

All that said, at home I use CS6 because I'm cheap and already have way too many things I pay monthly for. But it is definitely worth the price for those who need it. I just don't think most comic artists need it since CSP does everything you can dream of for creating a comic.

Except type. I really, really hope they fix the type tool someday!

I don't know if I could give up PS completely though. I've been using it since high school before the creative suite even existed. .-.

Also, I have heard that you can talk to Adobe support to get a discount on the price. I don't know if that's still true, but worth a shot for those who would like to try it.

[Shanny8]

@Cavechan they have a Photoshop subscription for $10/month- that's the one I'm using.

[Raven_C]

Since we're talking about Adobe stuff...

I don't have an Adobe subscription, but my sister told me that if you want to use two apps but paying for the whole CC bundle is too much (so for example you only want to use Illustrator + Photoshop but it's too expensive to buy the entire bundle)... you can buy the Photography plan (which has Lightroom + Photoshop) and then add a single plan (illustrator or indesign, or one of the other apps). So that means you'll have 3 apps total. It's apparently cheaper to buy it that way.

[Rosso]

It's hard to make balloon tail tips look decent without a few tweaks.

i just draw it using the 1.shape tool 2.draw the tail the way i like it 3.add border with a single click

things can be way more simple that they seem : >
my only gripe with CSP is the brushes and text tools aren't as dynamic as the ones in PS. but i can make-do...

[Shanny8]

@Raven_C I have the Lightroom/Photoshop deal. I thought about picking up Illustrator CC, but A) $50 bucks/month is too much and B) I have 2 pro letterers on my Twitter who gripe about all the wonderful "updates" that Adobe does to Illustrator CC that screws with their settings. I'm like "I'll stick with my old version of Illustrator(CS5) that works decent enough.

[kappapeachie]

with a few bits of tweaking, i managed to make my balloons look decent.

[yozhikisblue]

I'm seeing mention of inking in Photoshop on this thread, and I'm curious to hear more people's thoughts on it.

Personally I use a combination of Photoshop and Illustrator for everything (I do illustration and graphic design). For the longest time I would ink traditionally. I've used fineliners, brushpens and dip pens- and after years of fiddling with settings and brushes on a pressure-sensitive tablet, I still get very frustrated with how it feels to ink drawings in Photoshop. I was starting to get used to the idea that this is a problem with digital art in general, but maybe I've just had limited experience?

I agree with what many others have said about the Adobe subscription model- their updates mostly just mess with my settings, and I would rather pay upfront to own the software outright. Even if it costs more to update down the line. Why continually fix something that isn't broken? Of course I understand that if Adobe catered to people who thought this way, they would make a great deal less money...

But also in response to the OP: This may be a grass is greener thing as well? I often see comics made in CSP or Manga Studio and feel as though I'm missing out. They just seem better at imitating traditional media to me, and I tend to aim for a more "traditional look" with digital art in general. Photoshop can pull through with the right brushes, but sometimes it feels as though it's actively working against me in this regard.

[Shanny8]

I picked up a Manga brush set from Kyle Webster for Photoshop- I didnt pick up PS CC until like Sept/Oct last year. The Webster brushes worked pretty good- the ends of my brush strokes had a point on them, and I could use them to draw with ease. The only bad part is that Webster doesnt sell his brushes publicly anymore- you can only get them if you get Photoshop CC.

But as for CSP- I mainly mostly use Frenden's brushes(his ink brushes/nibs)- they are awesome!

[ashersz]

I have photoshop. I prefer Clip Studio for my art and comic work. Photoshop more so for graphic design work

[Luminosophy]

I have CSP but only because I needed it for text and line tools which my current program, SAI, doesn't have. I've used Krita and GIMP in the past as well as tested CSP for drawing but in my personal opinion, SAI beats them all hands down in terms of quality. Maybe it just suits my particular style but I am very line heavy and every other program looks jagged to me. One day I'd love to try PS though to test it out.

[ble]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[ramiek]

Is anyone tried this program?

Affinity Photo for desktop - Professional image editing software

I use the ipad version for finishes, when I thought I'd have to use photoshop,
and I really like it. I'm not sure if it has everything PS has but I believe it gives it
a good fight.

[surenlicious]

I learned everything about digital art by painting in Photoshop for 15 years. (I started in 2006 with digital art) I've hopped into Paintool SAI (gosh I miss her), did FireAlpaca, GIMP and Medibang Paint and since September 2020 I'm a Clip Studio Paint junkie.

I can't hate on Photoshop. I'm so happy I learned how to do digital art through it no matter how much hate it may get.

[TedGravesArt]

I use photoshop. My canvas crashes randomly every 5-10 minutes and I have to close and reopen the document to fix it. That's only one of a pile of instability bugs introduced in the last couple years. You don't want photoshop.

[arxianfall]

Get Krita.
It's open source, it's dedicated to drawing and painting and packed with features.
Also has animation tools.

[CosmicLeon]

I suggest you use what you like. And clip studio paint does have a comic setting with downloadable panels that you can use. There are a lot of features you can customize your brushes, tones, 3d models. and it updates free when you buy it rather than rent it. You can also download fonts, and work on the graphics side of it too if you so choose. I prefer clip over photoshop, and i think spending time with your program and learning all of the extra features will be useful. Clip has a lot of the same feature as photoshop does as well, though it might be labeled and/or place differently.

[SpookyLocker]

I use it for my comic

Snarf-Kai | Tapas

[maice]

I use Photoshop Elements. It is not subscription based. I paid about $90 I think and that’s it, its mine.

I’ve been using Elements since 2005. I used Elements 6 for an extremely long time, but now I have Elements 21. I don’t know what it’s missing compared to the bigger more expensive Photoshop since I’ve never used that version, but its definitely a more affordable option. It has the important stuff like Liquify.

I tried using CSP since everyone sings its praises, but I think I’ve just been using PS Elements for so long that I can’t comfortably make the change. I know the program inside and out at this point, so why change.

[KennethLopezJr921]

I know the op post is like 7 years old so it probably doesnt matter but I can tell you, as someone who mainly used photoshop as his main digital art program from late 2019 up until late 2024, that you're better sticking with clip studio paint.

Photoshop fucking sucks. Anything it can do, other art programs can do it better and for much less many and computing power. In regards to Clip Studio Paint, coloring is a much better experience than doing it in photoshop as the bucket tool isnt a piece of crap like it is PS. It's timeline tool makes animation approachable and fun while Photoshop's timeline tool makes animation a freaking chore, and I say this as someone who used it for their animation final this past winter. Drawing backgrounds in CSP is so much more convenient than with the perspective tool which actually makes understanding perspective and how to use grids much simpler, which I was not expecting from a tool that does the work for you but ah well. And all of this is stuff I've realized in hindsight when I started learning the program about 1 and half years ago. I hadnt realized how much photoshop was missing and how much I was holding myself back as an artist. CSP has so many more useful features that make the drawing experience better, and that's to say its the best program out there, but what Im saying is that any art program will get you more for your buck than photoshop can that are cheaper and friendlier on your computer.

This was probably not the case in 2018 but photoshop has become such a bloated piece of shit, yet somehow feels super dated and limited. Like in 2023, photoshop crashed on me close to 100 fucking times, and it wasnt until I spoke with an adobe employee that I figured out why. Because my pc's parts were like more than 2 years old and because I wasnt using the heap of trash that is Windows 11, I could not use the current version of photoshop effectively and had to downgrade to a version from early 2021. Unless I spent 100s of dollars to overhaul my entire pc setup to just use photoshop!!! At that point, it was cheaper for me to stick with the 2021 version for school and buy the one time purchase of CSP, which does not take as much storage up on my hard drive and much more forgiving on my cpu than photoshop ever was.

I get it, Clip Studio Paint can be very intimidating if you dont know what your doing. I was initially turned off from the program by how complicated it made everything from its pen pressure settings and such. It just takes time and patience to learn the program and the moment you figure it all out, the more enjoyable your time will be as you realize that its complexity is a benefit to the user experience. Trust me, Photoshop aint really worth it