Drawing

Drawing an Image from Scratch - Photoshop or Illustrator?

Photoshop's drawing tools are very powerful in their own way, but if you want to create and draw an image from scratch, it's better to use Adobe's Illustrator program. Like Photoshop, Illustrator is one of the top industry standard drawing programs. The big difference between the two programs is that Photoshop uses raster graphics and Illustrator uses vector graphics. Raster graphics store picture data as a matrix of pixels (dots). When you zoom in on the picture, the pixels become enlarged, resulting in a fuzzy, jagged picture with visible pixels. Vector graphics are made with mathematical equations and formulas. When you zoom in on a vector graphic, its variables change to accommodate your action and you end up with a graphic that looks exactly the same, except bigger.

Drawing Tools

The main drawing tools are located on the Tools Palette: the Pen Tool, Shapes Tool, Path Selection Tool. To expand the options for a tool, hold the mouse down on the tool icon.

Pen Tool

Use the Pen tool to create drawing paths. You can create custom shapes and complicated curves that can be scaled easily. By accessing the expanded Pen tool, you can add, delete and covert points on your drawing path.

Path Selection Tool

Use the Path Selection tool to select an existing drawing path. You can also use it to move, resize, copy, or delete paths. Use the Direct Selection tool to reshape a path, or to delete a component of a path.

Shape Tool

Use the Shape tool to create paths with a certain shape. It creates the same path points that the Pen tool does. Each shape can be modified with the Path Selection tool.

Type Tool

Use the Type tool to add text to your image. For more information on using the Type tool, visit the Type page.