which GD program best fits my needs

Astrano21 · 11-03-2009, 09:55 PM

To start this off i have searched and have been doing research but i would also like your opinions beings you are all most likely a lot more experienced.Now i have been doing some designing on photoshop for the past 2 years in high school and now that I am out I'm without a program.Now what i want is a program that is pretty user friendly nothing to intermediate but will have the capability to do what i want when i further expand my knowledge.Also i want a program that will be compatible with good quality for vinyl designing as i am trying to gain experience in that field. Now my research has shown me that photoshop does not give that good of quality when transferring images to vinyl i have been leaning towards coreldraw x4 but i would like to know your opinions.thank you.

budafist · 11-03-2009, 10:08 PM

If you are looking at only doing 1 page designs then Illustrator would suit your needs. Vinyl needs to be done in vector. I think Coreldraw would suit your needs too and is considerable cheaper.

**PrintDriver** · 11-04-2009, 01:15 AM

Depends on what he means by 'doing vinyl'. It can be printed on too. And that doesn't need to be vector. But if he wants to print/cut or just cut, yes vector is necessary. CorelDraw is still used by many sign shops. But they also use Illustrator and Photoshop too.

Astrano21 · 11-04-2009, 04:08 AM

I would like to start out with cutting then as i gain experience move to printing also. So if vector is neccesary which version would you recommend that wouldnt hit the pockets to hard.Thank you.

**PrintDriver** · 11-04-2009, 12:24 PM

As I said, many sign shops still use Corel. It's PC only though (or you might try an emulator on a Mac but who knows if it'll speak to whatever plotter you have.) It's not as expensive as Illustrator.

Just know that CorelDraw is not wholeheartedly supported by the print/wide format industry. I know print vendors who only take Corel files as high-rez tifs cuz people can do so many wrong things with the program that just don't convert properly. You can hammer away at it and make a pretty picture, but it might not print or pdf properly (that can be said of any program but CorelDraw has a 'reputation' for being abused)

If you are going to outsource your cutting for a while before buying a plotter, you might want to check around your area to see what the sign shops are using. Many have gone over to Illustrator.