What is difference and/or connection between Photoshop and Illustrator?

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I have been using Photoshop for quite a while. I have recently been told by a printing outfit that I should be using Illustrator for best results.

Does anybody have any experience with this?

What about ease of use? I found Photoshop pretty easy to use off the bat, and the more I use it the more I learn about it. Will this be the same for Illustrator?

Is the interface with Photoshop pretty simple? To tell the truth, I don't think I really understand what Illustrator does that Photoshop doesn't do.

We can justify the purchase for our business, but it's not cheap. I would really love to know what you all think about this.

Thanks!

[Omphaloskepsis]

1. The main difference is PS is Raster based and AI is Vector based..

Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_program

Photoshop:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop

Illustrator:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Illustrator


I hope that helps.. I'm really tired right now. If you want a better answer I will take another try in the morning..

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2. Thank you very much. It never occurred to me that I could look that up

in wikipedia.

I'll give that a try.

[onehandle]

3. Basically, Photoshop is for editing images, Illustrator is for drawing...

...illustrations, logos. That sort of thing. Neither are really meant for good print output.

What the printing outfit should be telling you is to get Indesign. It's for layout and the bringing together of Illustrator and Photoshop files for print.

It's the master of print ready files these days and is kicking Quark's ass.

If you have a copy of Photoshop, there is an upgrade path to Adobe CS2, which contains all three programs plus a full copy of Adobe Acrobat for creating/editing PDF documents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indesign

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_CS2

[enough]

4. Onehandle, thanks so much for the clear and useful information!

I never would have looked for that upgrade from Photoshop. I had to click around for quite a while, but I found an upgrade from my old Photoshop that will give me the latest versions of Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, etc. for as much as I was expecting to pay for Illustrator alone.

I always expect the best Mac advice from DU.

[Auggie]

5. You can use Illustrator for print jobs, like

newsletters, posters, and simple catalogs. It's not meant for longer documents, like books.

Illustrator will render your typography with crisper edges than Photoshop. And anything created as a vector image in Illustrator can be enlarged to any percentage you want -- from a matchbook cover to an outdoor board.

[alfredo]

6. A free alternative, Inkscape.

For information: http://www.inkscape.org/

Download page: http://www.inkscape.org/download.php?css=css/base.css

SVG is the way to go for text. Exporting images into an SVG editor makes resizing painless.

I composed and created many of my posters using Inkscape. I then save it as an eps and do resizing and conversion into a gif in Photoshop.