
Life Without Photoshop - rpsubhub
http://www.quora.com/Joel-Lewenstein/Life-Without-Photoshop
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lwhi
To be fair, Quora isn't a very graphically rich site.

I'm not totally sure whether an absence of Photoshop (and other Creative Suite
products) is particularly worthy of explanation.

~~~
flyosity
It seems like every "I didn't use Photoshop" article is always showing off a
site that... looks like the designer didn't use Photoshop.

As a designer who's in Photoshop all day long, knowing when a layout
necessitates using Photoshop or not is second-nature to me now. I'll just stop
using it and hop over to my text editor and start writing HTML & CSS. And for
sufficiently sparse layouts, I'll just not use Photoshop at all. I assumed
everyone knew and did this, but perhaps I was mistaken.

~~~
lwhi
I think there is an alternative to using Photoshop - especially if you use a
Linux based OS.

I've often heard of people stating that GIMP is a valid alternative - I'd
argue it isn't. GIMP is fine for performing a lot of everyday editing
functions - but it's lacking in quite a few key areas (most notably CMYK
support).

I think as an alternative, rather than having Photoshop - which could be
conceptually viewed as an 'image IDE' - it's possible to choose to use a
number of different command line utilities, plugins, scripts and applications
to achieve the feature-set that Photoshop traditionally provides.

Creating and modifying imagery in this way, is arguably less intuitive, as
workflows aren't so clearly defined - but there's the chance of matching (or
possibly exceeding) what Photoshop makes possible.

~~~
benjohnson
Why does everybody care that the GIMP doesn't have CYMK support? The vast
majority of printing presses can do their own color separation, trapping, and
registering automatically.

Hell... GIMP would be an improvement: about a 20% of all print jobs are
submitted in MS Publisher.

I can understand not using GIMP for high-end printing with spot colors, but
that's very rare.

~~~
lwhi
Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their everyday
routine.

~~~
irahul
> Because a lot of people need to produce CMYK output as part of their
> everyday routine.

That still doesn't answer the question why do people care so much about CMYK.

The question was why would you care about CMYK if your work isn't to produce
graphics for print.

~~~
lwhi
Do you really mean that? It sounds pedantic, verging on illogical.

Why would you care about anything you don't care about?

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matt1
Plug: I'm building a web-based mockup tool called jMockups [1], which my long
term goal is to supplant Photoshop as the high fidelity mockup tool of choice.

If you have qualms with Photoshop and can entertain the possibility of a
better tool coming along, I'd really, really, really love to hear your
thoughts on jMockups, what I can do to improve it, and how it can become a
tool so phenomenal that it wouldn't make sense for you _not_ to switch from
Photoshop. Email me at matt@jmockups.com.

[1] <http://www.jmockups.com>

PS: New feature you might like: Instantly convert almost any website to a
mockup so you can redesign it in minutes:
<http://www.jmockups.com/websiteconverter>

~~~
Andrex
Sounds great, just signed up to try it. Two questions:

1\. What's with the "j"? Makes it sound like it was written in Java...

2\. Any thoughts of turning the website converter bookmarklet into a Chrome
extension? Would be cleaner and seem more secure for users.

~~~
matt1
1\. "j" is for JavaScript. Think jQuery.

2\. No need -- the bookmarklet is easier to install and works cross browser.
I'd bet that most people competent enough to install a Chrome extension can
also install a bookmarklet. Also, seem more secure != more secure.

Appreciate the feedback. Let me know what else I can do to make it better.

~~~
Andrex
Could I make it a Chrome extension? :P Could be official or unofficial, I have
my bookmark bar hidden so an extension would fit better with my workflow.

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jasonfried
Along the same lines, here's why I skip Photoshop when working on designs at
37signals: <http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop>

~~~
bane
Laugh if you will, but I've found sketching out mockups in PowerPoint to work
surprisingly well and about as fast (or faster) than paper since I don't have
to redraw the whole thing after too many changes are made. And to your point:

 _You can’t click a Photoshop mockup. This is probably the number one reason
we skip static mockups. They aren’t real. Paper isn’t real either, but paper
doesn’t have that expectation. A Photoshop mockup is on your screen. If it’s
on your screen it should work. You can’t pull down menus in a Photoshop
mockup, you can’t enter text into a field in a Photoshop mockup, you can’t
click a link in a Photoshop mockup. HTML/CSS, on the other hand, is the real
experience._

You can hyperlink in PowerPoint to other slides, so you can mockup the
workflow a bit too. I agree that being able to click and move around a mockup
is incredibly important.

~~~
nswanberg
That's a clever idea, and if it works for you, great. In fact I think it's a
much better use than PowerPoint's intended purpose of crushing your soul
bullet point by bullet point: <http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm>

It looks like you can sort of do this in Google Presentation too, though you
have to figure out the URL to link to other slides.

~~~
bane
Yeah, I have a feeling most presentation tools (Keynote, Impress, Google
Presentation, etc.) would work well for this. In fact the only pain point I've
ever had was the occasional desire to change the slide size. I've found that
most of the basic effects in PP have a CSS equivalent as well, a surprising
number of the things mocked up in PP can be recreated entirely in CSS without
images.

Most of the actual graphics I use in the mockup I've made in Photoshop
anyways, and just put them in the mockup, so those are reusable art assets on
the final page.

(plus you can even mockup smaller gui details like drop-down menus if you are
clever enough, though it's usually more work than it's worth)

I've found that most of the MS-Office tools can be abused to do a pretty good
job in roles far removed from their original intent.

------
gjenkin
Context is important. A no-Photoshop approach makes sense for Quora since
their product is text-heavy. For a product that requires, say, rich data
visualizations like Google Analytics, some design ideas need to be mocked in a
graphics package (Googlers often use Fireworks instead of Photoshop) first,
then prototyped in code.

Context is also important in terms of what stage of the development process
the designer is at. If a product design is already well defined (e.g. "top nav
is global, 2 columns in the core content space, right column is contextual
nav, left column is the content stream, here's the style guide ..."), then
going directly to code makes sense. As Joel suggests, going directly to code
is great for day to day new feature iterations.

But if your product is completely undefined, Photoshop or Fireworks can be
excellent tools for mocking up design variations and sets of use cases or
states within those variations.

Hats-off to Quora for going straight to code when it comes to design. It works
for them but it's not going to work for everyone in every case.

~~~
vog
I never understood why people are buying proprietary, expensive stuff like
Photoshop just for mock-ups.

First of all, vector graphics tools like Inkscape are a lot better suited for
that task.

Second, even if you don't like vector graphics, there are great Free Software
projects like Gimp and Krita that deserve our attention and our support.

~~~
karterk
>I never understood why people are buying proprietary, expensive stuff like
Photoshop just for mock-ups.

People have been using Photoshop for years (like myself), and personally these
people feel that open source equivalents like GIMP are still way off in terms
of competing with Photoshop.

>First of all, vector graphics tools like Inkscape are a lot better suited for
that task.

I have used both Inkscape and Photoshop for quite a few years. It's unfair to
even compare them. And, frankly Photoshop _is_ far more powerful if you want
to go for high fidelity mockups.

~~~
xyzzyb
Why not fireworks over photoshop? Its hybrid vector/imaging toolset make for a
good web design experience.

~~~
tiddchristopher
In my experience, Fireworks is far less useful when it comes to the creation
of graphics after the initial wireframing. On the other hand, Photoshop [and
GIMP] is completely usable throughout the entire design process. For this
reason, many designers would rather learn, and pay for, only one product, and
that product is Photoshop. As a side note, although GIMP lags in a few areas,
notably on the typography side of things, it's the best product for my needs
when I weigh cost and features, and only rarely do I find myself wishing I had
tossed several hundred dollars for Photoshop.

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talbina
I'm definitely going to be in the minority here, but I start with Excel.

Here's why:

\- It's free

\- I have a perfect grid system

\- I can color in anything with borders and gradients also

\- I can format the text with spacing

\- Margin and padding properties are done using cell spacing properties

\- You can add pictures anywhere

\- I can easily copy the entire worksheet and paste it into Paint

~~~
sbarre
Excel is free?

~~~
talbina
I already have it for other purposes. It is free compared to the mockup tools
that I would have to pay for, I don't have to pay extra to use Excel.

------
dot
I love starting in photoshop because I can play with an idea visually without
taking my eyes off of what I'm working on.

For me photoshop is a really fast way to develop ideas and sell people on my
dreams. I can mock something up that looks real and get feedback very, very
quickly. Then once I know what I want to build I move to the text editor.

Photoshop is pen and pencil for me.

~~~
srgseg
Exactly. Within 60 seconds I can have screenshotted another site whose
template might be vaguely close in structure to that I'm thinking of, delete
their text and write in my own.

No way you can get anywhere close to that kind of speed with code.

~~~
sudont
Well, technically you can, but you’re right about the speed:

    
    
        javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0

~~~
nswanberg
Very cool.

I figured there must be some Chrome extensions that make use of this, and it
looks like there are. One adds some WYSIWYG-type tools to the current page:
[http://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/claldafnnhbflndjb...](http://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/claldafnnhbflndjbjlmlefpcifojcag)

------
juddlyon
Fireworks still suits me best for prototyping and slicing. I'd rather give my
money to Pixelmator or an indie though.

Somebody could make a fortune building an OS X app that supports legacy
layered PSDs and PNGs.

~~~
ThomPete
The irony though would be that they would probably use either Photoshop or
Fireworks to do the app.

------
chaz
I've stopped designing with code for all but the most trivial elements because
I realized it's too easy to get sucked into the details too early on in the
process. Designing via coded prototype means that mockups are high fidelity,
and there were a lot of things going on at the same time: trying to write good
copy, getting each element to align correctly, finding the perfect icon, and
coding good HTML/CSS/JS. Iterations then starting feeling pretty expensive.

For the same reason people use lorem ipsum, I would recommend lower resolution
tools (paper, whiteboard, wireframes, etc.) to keep details out of focus until
it's time. I try to avoid Photoshop when doing early design work, but it's
valuable for creating proofs for clients or as a spec for engineers.

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mgrouchy
Oddly enough, we don't use photoshop either. We use Keynote!
<http://blog.swixhq.com/designing-swix-with-keynote/>

~~~
jdp23
Very interesting! I've worked with people who did their design in PowerPoint
for many of the same reasons.

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yaix
And you see it in the Quora design. It is centered on the content, and not on
fancy graphics that distract from what the user came to find on the site.

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mwsherman
This is exactly backwards. One needs to start with the needs of the user,
which means mocking up the user experience without regard for implementation.
The tool might vary, but the concept of starting with the user is essential.

Starting in code makes it about the coder, not the user. It conflates
implementation with design.

I am a coder, and will do mockups in code -- only when I know a real design
won't be available. I would much rather be directed by a good UX person.
Better for the user, and faster for me as an implementor.

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iuguy
I'm not a designer by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like fiddling
around with pictures and occasionally make posters and design T-Shirts. I
haven't used photoshop in about 5 years or so, I haven't needed to.

The Gimp is one of those tools that covers 80% of your design requirements.
Having said that it's not particularly friendly for Photoshop users. An easier
version for the transition is GimpShop (<http://www.gimpshop.com/>), although
this hasn't been updated for a while.

For designers I can understand why living without Photoshop is strange,
especially if it's the tool you're used to. For most people Gimpshop and The
Gimp are more than capable enough, Free software and free to use.

~~~
nswanberg
I think the article was more about using code to do the design rather than any
image tools. You could replace Photoshop with Gimp in the article and the
original arguments would hold.

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antidaily
Everyone should convert - Photoshop is still a necessary evil for image
editing and sprites - but with grid layout frameworks, it's really never been
easier to mockup a layout or three in pure HTML greatness. Add the flair
after.

