This is amazing. Ira Glass, host of my second favorite podcast “This American Life” describes what you need to become successful in the creative field. He nails it and I haven’t been able to find the right words for it yet but it’s simple: Taste. You just need to know when something isn’t as good as it should be and then you need the will to make it better. Done. (via)
So you’re looking for an alternative to Photoshop?
I just have to get this out of my system and there may be some parts that are highly subjective and a bit of rambling, but nevertheless, here we go:
Boredom.
You’re all bored and thus looking for something new. Everything else changed since I started playing around with Photoshop eight years ago. The internet, mobile phones, browsers. But somehow the program we’re designing stuff in stayed and with Fireworks gone there isn’t even a possibility to change to a “better” alternative anymore.
I’ve got the feeling that many people wish to use something else than Photoshop for the solely reason of using something that’s more fancy and made by guys like “us”. Photoshop only works with several plugins and extensions, you can’t even edit rounded corners without them! Then there is something like Sketch, that allows you to do so right from the start. Neat, isn’t it? Sure.
Everyday Work.
Sketch is a great piece of software. This isn’t a pamphlet against Sketch, or any other programs, it’s more of a love letter to Photoshop.
I don’t know how your average workday looks like, but I’m not just “designing apps”. Sure, the result will be an app, but I have to retouch photos, enlarge backgrounds, build patterns, export assets, handle impressively large and complex files, need a way to see the result directly on a screen of a smartphone, etc.
My point is: I don’t just work on one kind of task, it’s a huge mix of different things and as cluttered and full of options and features Photoshop is, as capable it is to handle what I have to do for the task at hand and nearly every other possible task, that might come in the future.
“Photoshop has so many features I have no use for, it’s absolutely bloated!” is – in my view – not a valid argument to think it’s not the right tool to do your work. I don’t ever use the 3D features, so what? There will be a day I’ll need a bloody three dimensional cube on some kind of wood background. Is Photoshop capable of doing so? Sure it is. Does it hinder my work if there is a feature I rarely if ever use? It sure doesn’t.
Initial effort
It’s not even a bad thing that you need additional software to reach your goal. Sketch allows you to export 2x and normal assets. That’s amazing, but Slicy does the same thing (much better) for Photoshop. The amazing thing here is that there is something that solves this problem. Editing rounded corners? There are several plugins that allow you to do so.
To have to install, manage and remove additional tools is not a weakness, it’s a privilege. There is a slightly higher initial effort, but as soon as you’ve found the right tools, hacks and plugins, you’ll be more productive in Photoshop than in every other software. Not based on one single task but on the greater picture of what our job is about. Photoshop is able to adjust itself to your needs, take a bit of time to make it do what you want.
Photoshop feels kind of messy, there is never a “correct” solution for a problem. I understand it might feel like a relief to switch to software that shows you how to do something and you just don’t have to think about potential other solutions, but here is the thing:
Our job isn’t easy or at least not trivial. This whole pixel pushing thingy is not a clean task, you have to test things, you have to have the possibility to apply quick and dirty solutions and you have to have a better and more “long term” way of doing the same thing for final production.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to know there are alternatives and I salute everybody who switches their projects to Sketch or similar solutions. I just wouldn’t recommend it. It’s just so much easier to do these things in Photoshop and Illustrator as long as you invest a bit of time and research to build your work environment as good as possible.
Photoshop is like grandfathers workshop. There may be 20 similar tools and at a first glance most of them feel dispensable and the whole shed looks messy, but your grandfather knows where everything is, what to use first and which version of which tool is best for the task at hand. (What a brilliant metaphor. Good job, Marcel.)
Conclusion
I don’t understand why so many people are keen to switch to premature alternatives but I don’t blame anyone to do so. There might be a new standard in ten years, who knows. I keep testing the alternatives but as long as there is nothing that helps me to be faster and more efficient in every facet of my daily work, I’ll stick with my beloved Photoshop.
Like I said, I think Sketch is pretty good it’s just too early to do efficient work with it. Feel free to bash me on Twitter for this post. You’ll reach me at @UARRR.
PS: Make sure to read “Photoshop is a city for everyone: how Adobe endlessly rebuilds its classic app“. It’s worth your time.
LayerVault introduces Public Projects➝
For a group of individuals who so loudly declare that design isn’t how it looks, designers really don’t know how to present their work. What we show off is the end of the process—the pretty picture posted to a portfolio website. Today we’re taking a step towards fixing that.
Well, that’s a whole new approach of “designing in the open”. Interesting.
The future of iOS design?➝
To me, there is a distinct movement towards a particular style and I would be very surprised if Apple were ignorant of it. It’s not ‘flat design’ per se and it’s certainly nowhere near the ‘Metro’ levels that people are suggesting they may follow, but it’s a mellowing out of the visual indicators that people need to trigger the idea of a tappable element. Why? Because this is not 2007 anymore, and we are all now fully aware of the medium and the process; we don’t need to be led garishly by the hand. There is still a sense of depth and tactility but done in a refined and suggestive way, sensitive to the changed perceptions that people have of interacting with touchscreens.
The first post on “Apple goes flat” I’ve read that’s not just saying “it may be flat”. Tim also points out that “flat” does not equal “flat”. There are subtle varieties and it sure won’t look the way most of Dribbble thinks it will.
Flat ≠ no gradients, no effects, no everything.
Almost a year and a half after the first release of the PPP handbook – we still love pixels. It seems like you do too as we’ve had some great feedback. We’ve been working hard to make it bigger, better, and more useful.
Remember a few weeks ago when I posted the first version of “Pixel Perfect Precision” by ustwo? They’ve done it again and this time it’s even better. Make sure to take a look at it. They also have e-book versions available.
What happens to :hover on touch devices?➝
We all know the problem: There is no hover event on touch devices. So what happens on those devices with dropdown menus and other content that gets revealed only by an hover event?
Over the past few days I heard different people say different things so I put together a simple CodePen to check what happens. This is what I found out:
Martin took a bit of his time to once and for all solve the mystery around :hover states on touch devices, a topic designers have to keep in mind as well.
The Five W’s of UX➝
Who, What, Where, When, Why (and How – it ends with a “w” cut me some slack). In school we were taught that these fundamental questions must be addressed in the process of creating a strong argument and delivering a legitimate story. In the world of User Experience, being able to accurately answer these 5 questions can be the difference between a product that instantly resonates with the customer and one that quickly makes its’ way to the Startup Graveyard.
Two years old but still true. In fact all of the 52 articles on that site are worth reading.
What kind of a designer are you?➝
In the short time since I started designing, I have had a bunch of titles to describe my role; some I chose myself when freelancing, and some were given by the companies that I worked for. I have been a web designer, a user interface designer, an interaction designer, a user experience designer and most recently, a product designer. As I have moved from one title to the other, the industry has evolved and it is much easier to see some of those patterns in hindsight. What does your role, really encompass when you say you are a designer at a startup, or more importantly what all can it encompass that will help you be better at what you are trying to be? What does it mean to be a designer for the digital medium? What does it mean to design a digital product?
This piece describes my daily routine fairly good.
Sketch is 50% off until tomorrow➝
So to summarize; if you’ve been using Fireworks, and for a chance you want to use an app that’s in active development, by a team that’s fully committed to the app, give Sketch a try.
A 15-day free trial is available on our website or buy it on the Mac App Store. And to give everybody an extra reason to try Sketch now; we’re running a sale for just one day; 50% off at $24! (This sale ends at 11PM GMT on May 8th)
Sketch is no Photoshop but it’s amazing and for only 24 hours pretty cheap. Take a look at it and invest a bit of money to support the development of something that is going to be a big thing.
Adobe cancels Fireworks➝
Over the last couple of years, there has been an increasing amount of overlap in the functionality between Fireworks and both existing and new programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Edge Reflow. At the same time we have shifted to focus our engineering teams on building smaller, more modular, tools and services for specific tasks in web design. Due to this overlap and as well as our change in our product development focus, we have decided not to update Fireworks to CC and instead will focus on developing new tools to meet our customers needs.
Thanks to all of you who tried to persuade me to switch from Photoshop to Fireworks in the last couple of years. Have fun switching to PS or Sketch.
