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compare Corel Draw and Illustrator 3
- Thread starter viettla
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javabearSTL
IS-IT--Management
why don't you download the demos of the applications from the vendors and try them out for yourself? That way *you* will determine what you like best from actual experience.
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>> Could you tell me which programs is best (Corel draw or Illustrator) and (Photo Paint or PhotoShop ) ?<<
Everyone seems to have a strong opinion on which is 'best'. Personally, I use both AI and CD, as I find some things easier to do in one or the other. Depending on where you live, you may find that one is the 'industry standard' and so is preferred, and for many jobs, proficiency in Illustrator is expected. But check the job ads where you live - this may not necessarily be the case. Also many printers will not print files from Corel, as they don't have the software (although conversion to PDFD overcomes this limitation). But I think Corel is easier to learn, and has features that are not available in AI or are harder to achieve.
However, I think Photoshop is superior to Photopaint and deserves its 'industry standard' position.
Everyone seems to have a strong opinion on which is 'best'. Personally, I use both AI and CD, as I find some things easier to do in one or the other. Depending on where you live, you may find that one is the 'industry standard' and so is preferred, and for many jobs, proficiency in Illustrator is expected. But check the job ads where you live - this may not necessarily be the case. Also many printers will not print files from Corel, as they don't have the software (although conversion to PDFD overcomes this limitation). But I think Corel is easier to learn, and has features that are not available in AI or are harder to achieve.
However, I think Photoshop is superior to Photopaint and deserves its 'industry standard' position.
- Thread starter
- #4
Thank javabearSTL and Eggles
I tried demo both of them but as you know when you are new user you never know every essence of them and I also know a program is not fit to everybody so I hope to see your opinion. Eggles give me some good ideas. I think CorelDraw and Photoshop are my choose.
Viet
I tried demo both of them but as you know when you are new user you never know every essence of them and I also know a program is not fit to everybody so I hope to see your opinion. Eggles give me some good ideas. I think CorelDraw and Photoshop are my choose.
Viet
asifnmalik
Technical User
Having used both Illustrator and Coreldraw, I personally feel that corel is better as it allows me to do far more things, some people say that Illustrator gives a more finished and professional end product, but surely this is down to the designer. Also I used to think that I was happy using Photopaint and used to defend it to colleagues but since using photoshop for a few years I have to say that anyone who thinks that photopaint is better than photoshop is out of their mind.
I have been using Corel Draw since version 2.1 was on the market on a someting like 15 years now, and have been everyday. I have tried Illustrator a few times, I must say that the only thing I see is as Eggles mentioned above, if you are going to use this for your own work and you are need fast and accurate work done, then Corel is definatly the program you want to have, but if you are just going to learn this to go out on the Job Market next season, I think your best bet would definatly be Illustrator, but those print shops really have no idea what they are missing when it comes to creating and for reproduction.
I'm a Corel man and no one will ever change that.
I'm a Corel man and no one will ever change that.
jmacleodpc19
Technical User
I have been an Illustrator user for six or seven years. For the past year I have been using Corel Draw at my new job. I find it is much harder to use than Illustrator. One of the very few advantages that Corel Draw had, easy envelopes, has been changed (for the worse) in the most recent version of Corel Draw. I have been lobbying for my dept. to change to Illustrator. Using Corel Draw over Illustrator is like drawing with my left hand. Incredibly frustrating because there are easier, faster ways to work with Illustrator.
I suppose you always prefer the programme you know. I flirted with Illustrator when both were on V7 and I couldn't believe how such an unhelpful, awkward programme from a so called industry leader ever came to market. That said, times change and I understand that Illustrator has come on with many innovative and useful functions but so has Corel and for me will always have the edge, but as I said you always prefer the programme you know - don't give up on Corel V12 in particular is a very powerful programme and when you consider the suit comes with Photo Paint amongst others is great value for money.
Alan
Alan
My two cents...
It is in many ways a toss up. Corel Draw has some incredible features, and I think, for vector, it is better. But that is personal preference. For raster, Photoshop genrally the industry standard, and professionally, you pretty much have to have it in your bag of software.
What really ticks me though, is Macromedia buying up Matisse from Fauve Software ...waaay back when. Macromedia had (deluded) hope of serious competition for Photoshop with XRes, Macromedia's competition. Matisse was more competion, so they bought it, and killed it. Which was a darn shame, as Matisse was the greatest and most intuitive graphic program ever.
I have taught 7 years olds to do things, in 30 minutes, that it would take days to get comfortable with Photohoshop. Plus being (for 1992!) fully object oriented, it did (and still does - I STILL use Matisse (1992!) things that even today Photoshop can not do.
In Matisse, say you have 30 layers of image parts etc etc. Yet EVEN IT IS A SINGLE PIXEL, if you can see it, you can select it with the mouse and do anything you want with it. You do not have to find the specific layer with that element and select it. I can be 25 layers down from the surrently selected layer, but if it is on the screen, and visible, you can select it, and perform operations on it. Even a single pixel.
The icons for painting and adjusting are big and totally obvious to what they do. Like I said. I stil use it, and is the application of choice to teach kids fun, very intuitive, fast, clearly understandable graphics. It was killed, purely out of market fights, and greed. The only reason Photoshop is the biggest is they killed everything else mostly. And it IS, in all honestly, a superios application. Matisse, however, if it could have continued with development, I have NO doubt, would be the best kiss-ass graphic app, bar none.
Fortunately as the company is dead, the software is dead, I freely issue copies. Schoools love to get a wonderful graphic apps for free, I give them my full license. It is not like they are going to sue me. "They" don't exist.
Best part, it was designed in the days of 16 Mb of RAM, and maybe a 20 Gb drive. This sucker SCREAMS on a newer machine.
Adobe has, in many ways,a steep learning curve - if you are coming in cold. But then Corel is no slouch either in learning curves. I think that, at least in the professional realm, we tend to have multiple apps to cover all the bases.
Gerry
See my Paintings and Sculpture
It is in many ways a toss up. Corel Draw has some incredible features, and I think, for vector, it is better. But that is personal preference. For raster, Photoshop genrally the industry standard, and professionally, you pretty much have to have it in your bag of software.
What really ticks me though, is Macromedia buying up Matisse from Fauve Software ...waaay back when. Macromedia had (deluded) hope of serious competition for Photoshop with XRes, Macromedia's competition. Matisse was more competion, so they bought it, and killed it. Which was a darn shame, as Matisse was the greatest and most intuitive graphic program ever.
I have taught 7 years olds to do things, in 30 minutes, that it would take days to get comfortable with Photohoshop. Plus being (for 1992!) fully object oriented, it did (and still does - I STILL use Matisse (1992!) things that even today Photoshop can not do.
In Matisse, say you have 30 layers of image parts etc etc. Yet EVEN IT IS A SINGLE PIXEL, if you can see it, you can select it with the mouse and do anything you want with it. You do not have to find the specific layer with that element and select it. I can be 25 layers down from the surrently selected layer, but if it is on the screen, and visible, you can select it, and perform operations on it. Even a single pixel.
The icons for painting and adjusting are big and totally obvious to what they do. Like I said. I stil use it, and is the application of choice to teach kids fun, very intuitive, fast, clearly understandable graphics. It was killed, purely out of market fights, and greed. The only reason Photoshop is the biggest is they killed everything else mostly. And it IS, in all honestly, a superios application. Matisse, however, if it could have continued with development, I have NO doubt, would be the best kiss-ass graphic app, bar none.
Fortunately as the company is dead, the software is dead, I freely issue copies. Schoools love to get a wonderful graphic apps for free, I give them my full license. It is not like they are going to sue me. "They" don't exist.
Best part, it was designed in the days of 16 Mb of RAM, and maybe a 20 Gb drive. This sucker SCREAMS on a newer machine.
Adobe has, in many ways,a steep learning curve - if you are coming in cold. But then Corel is no slouch either in learning curves. I think that, at least in the professional realm, we tend to have multiple apps to cover all the bases.
Gerry
See my Paintings and Sculpture
Fumei, I don't know Matisse so can't comment, I struggled with Photoshop and as I don't class myself a 'power user' regarding bitmap editing I stick to Photo Paint but your comments on Photoshop are probably fair but for those choosing a package first time round it would be easy to over specify so unless you are really 'going for it' Photoshop may do everything you need. Regarding take overs what do you think about the proposed Adobe buy out of Macromedia?
Alan
Alan
Craigfaris
Technical User
I've used Corel Draw since version 2.1 and I must admit I "used to be" a die-hard Illustrator fan. I've even taught Illustrator & Photoshop on a college level, but personally, I think Corel draws circles around Illustrator. I have nothing against Illustrator, it's just harder to use.
The biggest problem is Corel waited until version 8 to introduce it for the Mac (and then it was full of bugs) and of course by then Mac designers were used to Illustrator or Freehand. (yes I know Freehand inside out as well) Most People love the programs they learned early on and usually dismiss the new kid on the block out of hand. That's a shame because I have no doubt whatsoever that if Corel 3.0 had been designed for the Mac, it would have long ago become the industry standard. Too bad, since with version 12, Corel has quit making Mac versions, which were included free on Version 11. (95% of all Corel Users work on PC's)
That said, it's probably better to learn all three programs, since I can almost guarantee that as soon as you fall in love with Illustrator on the Mac, you'll probably get a job where they only use Freehand on PC's. (Or Corel on a PC) That always seems to be the case. Freehand and Illustrator are the industry standard on Mac's and Corel is that wonderful gem that most of them have no clue how to use or how great it is. I also must add that I much prefer Freehand over Illustrator and if you already know Corel, it's an easy conversion into using Freehand.
When it comes to Paint verses Photoshop, I prefer using photoshop because I know the shortcuts better. One great thing about Photopaint is all the add-on effects that come free from Corel and cost a fortune from Adobe. So, I retouch in Photoshop and then export into Photpaint to add my special effects.
Botton line, learn the programs (and shortcuts) on both platforms as they all will pretty much do the same thing... eventually.
The biggest problem is Corel waited until version 8 to introduce it for the Mac (and then it was full of bugs) and of course by then Mac designers were used to Illustrator or Freehand. (yes I know Freehand inside out as well) Most People love the programs they learned early on and usually dismiss the new kid on the block out of hand. That's a shame because I have no doubt whatsoever that if Corel 3.0 had been designed for the Mac, it would have long ago become the industry standard. Too bad, since with version 12, Corel has quit making Mac versions, which were included free on Version 11. (95% of all Corel Users work on PC's)
That said, it's probably better to learn all three programs, since I can almost guarantee that as soon as you fall in love with Illustrator on the Mac, you'll probably get a job where they only use Freehand on PC's. (Or Corel on a PC) That always seems to be the case. Freehand and Illustrator are the industry standard on Mac's and Corel is that wonderful gem that most of them have no clue how to use or how great it is. I also must add that I much prefer Freehand over Illustrator and if you already know Corel, it's an easy conversion into using Freehand.
When it comes to Paint verses Photoshop, I prefer using photoshop because I know the shortcuts better. One great thing about Photopaint is all the add-on effects that come free from Corel and cost a fortune from Adobe. So, I retouch in Photoshop and then export into Photpaint to add my special effects.
Botton line, learn the programs (and shortcuts) on both platforms as they all will pretty much do the same thing... eventually.
Craigfaris
Technical User
Suggestion for: jmacleodpc19 (TechnicalUser)
One thing which really helps the learning curve is to tell CorelDraw to use the Illustrator shortcut keys. In Corel 8 it is under Workspaces.
One thing which really helps the learning curve is to tell CorelDraw to use the Illustrator shortcut keys. In Corel 8 it is under Workspaces.
hmmm .. this is a tricky topic .... i have only been working within a graphic design role for a few years, and have reasonable experiece of both Corel and AI.
In my opinion i have always found that the adobe software has helped me to produce more proffesional looking art. I'm have put some thought into it and cant pu my finger on why this is, i guess that the ease of use enables a better flow of creative thoughts as you dont struggle to produce what you want.
I have always thought its a bit like comparing Mircosoft Office (adobe) and Lotus Suite (Corel) ... whilst they have all the same fundamental features Lotus suite never quite manages to work as well as the office package.
I think that craigfairs's view about the introduction onto the mac is very important ... the MAC OS handles graphics far more efficiently then on a PC ... i use mac for all my design work, and even comparing my PowerMac to my Latest HP worstaion with a top end ATI chip in ... the mac comes up trumps! .... dont get me wrong ... i love gates!
Hope this helps.
Rob
In my opinion i have always found that the adobe software has helped me to produce more proffesional looking art. I'm have put some thought into it and cant pu my finger on why this is, i guess that the ease of use enables a better flow of creative thoughts as you dont struggle to produce what you want.
I have always thought its a bit like comparing Mircosoft Office (adobe) and Lotus Suite (Corel) ... whilst they have all the same fundamental features Lotus suite never quite manages to work as well as the office package.
I think that craigfairs's view about the introduction onto the mac is very important ... the MAC OS handles graphics far more efficiently then on a PC ... i use mac for all my design work, and even comparing my PowerMac to my Latest HP worstaion with a top end ATI chip in ... the mac comes up trumps! .... dont get me wrong ... i love gates!
Hope this helps.
Rob
Craigfaris
Technical User
I always told my students: "Learn the software, not the hardware," and I alway made then put the shortcuts for BOTH systems on our tests. After all, you never knew which system they would end up working on.
I think the Mac's had the superior user interface all along (although it seemed to lockup about as often as a PC), I mean the Mac had a Windows 98 look way back in 1983. And the Mac was built for graphics, so early on the display resolution was far better. Another thing I liked about the Mac was that even it it ran at a slower chip speed it "seemed" to run faster. Whereas a PC would be obsolete after a couple of years, you could squeeze 3 to 4 years out of the life of a Mac, but, of course, at it's price, it needed to.
I remember back in 1989 someone asked me which system I thought would win out. "The cheapest one," I said and I used the example of the old Betamax Videotape systems verses the VHS Video system. It was clear the Sony had a great system with the Betamax. It was smaller and the machines were better built. But they made the same mistake as Apple. They wouldn't license the design and held on to the patent. IBM on the otherhand with the inferior VHS design, licenced it anybody and everybody, and thus made it the world standard.
What happened to the Betamax is what I feared would happen to the Macintosh, (and it almost did until Steve Jobs breathed new life into Apple). The Mac may have had a loyal following, but there is a whole new generation who has grown up playing games on PC's. In 2003 I asked my college class of "new" graphic design students to raise their left hands if they prefered the Mac or right hand and if they preferred PC's. To my total astonishment, there where only 3 students out of 20 who preferred the Mac. I fear that with Apple's adoption of the Intel chip, we will eventually only have one choice of hardware with dual systems.
All the more reason to learn ALL the major programs and quit worrying about what hardware you'll have.
I think the Mac's had the superior user interface all along (although it seemed to lockup about as often as a PC), I mean the Mac had a Windows 98 look way back in 1983. And the Mac was built for graphics, so early on the display resolution was far better. Another thing I liked about the Mac was that even it it ran at a slower chip speed it "seemed" to run faster. Whereas a PC would be obsolete after a couple of years, you could squeeze 3 to 4 years out of the life of a Mac, but, of course, at it's price, it needed to.
I remember back in 1989 someone asked me which system I thought would win out. "The cheapest one," I said and I used the example of the old Betamax Videotape systems verses the VHS Video system. It was clear the Sony had a great system with the Betamax. It was smaller and the machines were better built. But they made the same mistake as Apple. They wouldn't license the design and held on to the patent. IBM on the otherhand with the inferior VHS design, licenced it anybody and everybody, and thus made it the world standard.
What happened to the Betamax is what I feared would happen to the Macintosh, (and it almost did until Steve Jobs breathed new life into Apple). The Mac may have had a loyal following, but there is a whole new generation who has grown up playing games on PC's. In 2003 I asked my college class of "new" graphic design students to raise their left hands if they prefered the Mac or right hand and if they preferred PC's. To my total astonishment, there where only 3 students out of 20 who preferred the Mac. I fear that with Apple's adoption of the Intel chip, we will eventually only have one choice of hardware with dual systems.
All the more reason to learn ALL the major programs and quit worrying about what hardware you'll have.
Craigfaris
Technical User
I you decide on which system you prefer, there is a great series of illustrated text books out there called "Against The Clock" for performance Support and Training, by Prentice Hall. They have editions for Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark, MS FrontPage and Preflight & File Preparation. (sorry not for Corel) What I like best is the sidebar tips and that they always show the shortcut keys for both Mac & PC systems and it come with a resource CD in the back.
NO QUESTION...ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR IS FAR MORE STABLE!!
CORELDRAW IS PRONE TO CRASHES AND HANGS. ITS BEEN ONE OF THE WORST PROGRAMS I'VE EVER USED SINCE GOING DIGITAL IN 1987. BECAUSE OF MY WORK SITUATION I HAVE TO WORK WITH CORELDRAW BUT IF IT WAS POSSIBLE I WOULD GO BACK TO USING ILLUSTRATOR IN A HEARTBEAT.
HAVING SAID THAT, CORELDRAW HAS SOME NICE TOOL FUNCTIONS THAT ILLUSTRATOR DOESN'T HAVE, BUT IS SO INCREDIBLY UNSTABLE ON MY MACHINE IT FALLS SHORT.
WINDOWS XP
SERV PACK 2
1 GB RAM
JEFF RAUF
DETROIT
CORELDRAW IS PRONE TO CRASHES AND HANGS. ITS BEEN ONE OF THE WORST PROGRAMS I'VE EVER USED SINCE GOING DIGITAL IN 1987. BECAUSE OF MY WORK SITUATION I HAVE TO WORK WITH CORELDRAW BUT IF IT WAS POSSIBLE I WOULD GO BACK TO USING ILLUSTRATOR IN A HEARTBEAT.
HAVING SAID THAT, CORELDRAW HAS SOME NICE TOOL FUNCTIONS THAT ILLUSTRATOR DOESN'T HAVE, BUT IS SO INCREDIBLY UNSTABLE ON MY MACHINE IT FALLS SHORT.
WINDOWS XP
SERV PACK 2
1 GB RAM
JEFF RAUF
DETROIT
Another parallel post from before.
Pay special attention to your likely uses for the vector program and the bitmap program and how you would like to combine vectors and bitmaps in each of the programs. Beware, CorelDraw is ALSO an excellent professional grade page layout program, as is Quark Express. Compare prices.
Also, note that coreldraw can be programmed with VB. For a simple illustration, see the catalogue (2 pdf files) I created with a short VB procedure that pulled data from a MS Access database. I just touch a button on the toolbar and watch the catalogue create itself in coreldraw for 15 minutes!!! ...
Daniel Dillon
Pay special attention to your likely uses for the vector program and the bitmap program and how you would like to combine vectors and bitmaps in each of the programs. Beware, CorelDraw is ALSO an excellent professional grade page layout program, as is Quark Express. Compare prices.
Also, note that coreldraw can be programmed with VB. For a simple illustration, see the catalogue (2 pdf files) I created with a short VB procedure that pulled data from a MS Access database. I just touch a button on the toolbar and watch the catalogue create itself in coreldraw for 15 minutes!!! ...
Daniel Dillon
diwin
Impressive that a catalogue such as this can be generated in CDraw via VB. Makes me wish I knew something about programmimg.
jrauf
>>NO QUESTION...ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR IS FAR MORE STABLE!!CORELDRAW IS PRONE TO CRASHES AND HANGS.... BUT IS SO INCREDIBLY UNSTABLE ON MY MACHINE <<
I don't believe a single program can be unstable - it is more likely to be a conflict within the computer, usually hardware related. Probably Illustator would behave the same way on your computer, indicating the problem lies within your set-up rather than the applciation itself.
I use both CDraw and Illustrator - each have their own advantages and diadvantages, so I use what I need to get the job done, without complaining about whether one or the other is inferior.
Impressive that a catalogue such as this can be generated in CDraw via VB. Makes me wish I knew something about programmimg.
jrauf
>>NO QUESTION...ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR IS FAR MORE STABLE!!CORELDRAW IS PRONE TO CRASHES AND HANGS.... BUT IS SO INCREDIBLY UNSTABLE ON MY MACHINE <<
I don't believe a single program can be unstable - it is more likely to be a conflict within the computer, usually hardware related. Probably Illustator would behave the same way on your computer, indicating the problem lies within your set-up rather than the applciation itself.
I use both CDraw and Illustrator - each have their own advantages and diadvantages, so I use what I need to get the job done, without complaining about whether one or the other is inferior.
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