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To better serve the graphics community, Mark and I concluded that it would be good to expand and rearrange the current Application Convergence offerings.
Here, we?ll exchange info on how to streamline your workflow, specifically between pixel and vector compositions, and back again. I?m jump-starting the forum with a paper, part of an on-going series called Technically Speaking. I?d like to demystify commonly confusing stuff such as resolution, color spaces, file formats and color modes (yep, they?re inter-related but very different when you want to use them), pixels, and to begin with?anti-aliasing. Please feel free to post additional info, because let?s face it?the Wickipedia doesn?t cut it for graphics designers.
Vue 5, Modo, Poser, Cinema4D, trueSpace, and Carrara are popular, mostly cross-platform, inexpensive modeling programs that quite often need Photoshop to correct minor rendering flaws, create composite artwork, and a lot of times, you need Photoshop to create textures, bump, and displacement maps for these and other programs.
Corel Painter is sort of a soul-mate to Photoshop. It?s generally for painting and not photo editing, but it?s got a lot of features I think we all would like to see in PS, such as wrap-around pattern-making, Magic Combine layer blending mode, a butt-kick collection of brushes, easy GIF animation, and of course the Image Hose. In this forum, we?ll get into the tricks, tips, and finer points of exchanging image data between PS and Painter. Also, we can keep this forum open to texture-making apps such as DarkTree simulations, Genetica, Paurex Texture Processor, Dogwaffle, exciting plug-ins, and any other app you can think of that can do stuff PS can?t, but can exchange data with PS (like PaintShop Pro that has nozzles).
Same jump-start paper on this site.
Mark the Keeper? and I (and the other MODs) would like to see PSG grow into the sort of resource/sharing place that serves all levels of graphics expertise in an inviting, occasionally off-topic way that resembles a coffee house where you meet your chums before getting down to the daily grind. I feel there?s a hiatus in Web forums: some are large and impatient with newbies while others are just self-serving repositories for personal WIPs with very few valuable resources. We need a middle-ground where we can exchange ideas without intimidation. But I need your help to make it happen.
As Harry Bellefonte says, ?Jump in the line??
My Best,
When I came here this morning I was like WHOA! Wata happend! [stuned]
Love it, Gare! I think it narrows the fields down a bit especially when you have questions about a couple programs. Very helpful and useful. Great addition! [righton] [righton]
Hopefully, the new forums will help focus content without narrowing it. IMO, there is no clear, decisive winner in the modeling/rendering category, so I intend to run with the apps I have experience with and punt or hand-off (SuperBowl jargon 8}) the ones I'm clueless about.
Illustration software and Photoshop? Because Illustrator is so seamlessly integrated with PS, it needs to be covered. I'm a Xara-ist, and my experience with Xtreme has shown me that it, too, works well with PS. The also-rans can be discussed, but I've forgotten more than I've ever known about them.
Painter I'm excited about. It is also highly compatible with Graphic Designer (Microsoft's cobble of Expressions)--the two compliment each other; what you can't do in Painter you can finish in GD--I did a "vintage" drawing, below, using both apps.
Nikkie, AC, the main area will always be for fun stuff, and hopefully you, I, and others will keep the new forums from getting stiff and dry! [honesty]
I think this will be of benefit to everybody since in the very least it'll give folks some exposure to complementary products and also provide specialised topics - and seeing that most professionals are multi-tooled as well, I figure it'll give them the chance to get more tools in their skill sets, while giving perpetual amateurs like myself a chance to see what can be done!
I'm sorry, Doodad, but you're only allowed to be an amateur once and not in perpetuity!
Hopefully, all of us together can prove that there are more similarities than differences in respective applications' tool sets. For me, CorelDraw was a jumpstart for Xara, and the late Aldus PhotoStyler was a stepping stone to PS.
Mark and I will endeavor to make learning curves as shallow as possiblke, so folks can concentrate on design work instead of tools. I grew quite bored with understanding how a No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil worked, so at age 27 I actually started drawing with it. 8}
Application Convergence expands! 
Linear Mode
