bill unger

What is the difference between those programs? What are they specifically used for?

rmbanas Loc: Michigan

Just "basically" Lightroom is great for post processing a large quantity of photos like from a wedding and works great for normal "minor" adjustments. Photoshop is more in depth than Lightroom, more for extensive retouching or composite type work. Illustrator is more for design, vector images and such.

charlessmall18

There is a whole class of graphics programs that are "vector based' rather than "pixel based." Confusingly, you can use either type to achieve pretty much the same result. Even more confusingly, because the whole world seems to be moving to the Open Source XML for text and Open Source SVG (scalable vector graphics) format for graphics (the latest MS Word format, .docx, is XML based; rumor has it that Adobe is going to drop its proprietary Flash technology in favor of XML; and the Open Source EPUB e-book format is XML based) that some pixel-based programs such as Photoshop and The GIMP have some vector functionality and can (sometimes) open and/or save SVG graphics. Nonetheless the two are fundamentally different and those differences can be very significant. "Pixel-based" is easy to comprehend if you open an image in either Photoshop or The GIMP and keep zooming in. Eventually, the smooth looking, sharp image will devolve into a bunch of discrete little squares. Those are pixels and they are what compose are actually in a pixel-based image. And those pixels are more or less fixed not terribly "scalable." Unless you have had analytic geometry and algebra, its kind of hard to explain how mathematically defined curves memory can also be at the heart of a smooth, clear image -- and, more importantly, why anyone would want to do such a thing! The best I can suggest is to first look at the file sizes of some complex SVG images and compare those file sizes to a similarly complex JPEGs or TIFFs. And then, if you can, view a given SVG image on a bunch of different screens (computer monitor, iPhone, iPad, etc) and you will quickly see what the "scalable" in "SVG" means. Additionally, you can try viewing a PDF, that reads OK on a computer monitor, on your Kindle or iPhone, and I'll bet you will wish that PDF was "scalable" too!

billybob40

Check this one out.
http://www.ononesoftware.com/suite6/?utm_campaign=enews_1111&utm_medium=email&utm_source=enews
Every where you look now days theres a program to make you photos better, get it right in your camera. I get 10 emails a telling me someones program is better then ????? Unless your going pro the only one you need is Photoshop Elements 10, the refine edge. There next one has camara shake it looks good. But it what works best for YOU.