Should I give up on graphic design?

Yes photoshop is an image edited tool but it is also an important part within graphic design. Visual image is still the first thing people see out of everything else. Normal people might not even understand the meaning of the logo design unlike designers and being a chameleon can be quite charming as well but I rather be an expert at something than just knowing how to do everything but not specialize in anything

That’s an interesting observation that calls for one of my long wordy answers that few will have the patience or desire to read. :wink:

Most who have responded to your posts have been in the business for decades. I was an art/creative director in various capacities for over 30 years before going out on my own.

When I hired interns or newly graduated designers, I would ask them about their skills in the tools they would be using — usually Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. When beginners applied for positions in web design, animation, videography, copy editing, public relations, etc., I asked them similar questions about the relevant tools in those fields, too.

For any designer further along than Junior Designer, there was usually no need to ask except in a cursory way about their software preferences. I could tell their skill levels from the quality of their general design work. When their work indicated a deficiency, I wouldn’t invite them in for an interview.

If I were a building contractor, asking a professional carpenter with five years of experience if he knew how to use a saw and a hammer would be silly. He wouldn’t be hired if he showed photos of planks he had sawn and nails he had driven with the expectation that I’d be impressed.

Photoshop is a basic tool, like a saw or a hammer. Any graphic designer at any level beyond intern or junior designer should know her way around them without having to point it out in a portfolio.

Judging from your quote, you might think that typography, branding, and software skills are separate things and that designers might specialize in each. That might be true of branding, but all professional graphic designers must possess considerable expertise in typography, production, and various software skills that regularly change throughout their careers.

In the future, you will need to be an expert in typography, basic software applications (such as the Adobe CC apps), and a few niche-specific software applications, no matter what part of the graphic design field you eventually specialize in.

I have some difficulty placing myself into the position of a beginning designer; it was too long ago. You’re in that position now, so you need to demonstrate your proficiency in fundamental software applications to be hired as a beginner. In the future, you’ll need to become an expert in using typography and various software applications, or you’ll hit a dead end.

I don’t know any professional designers who make a living specializing in general Photoshop abilities. I know a few illustrators who use Photoshop extensively and in novel ways to create illustrations, but their marketable skill is illustration, not Photoshop.

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I just wanted to point out that knowing basic Adobe CC is a requirement for all graphic designers, I never said that it wasn’t important, I just don’t like how photoshop get viewed less than any other softwares in Adobe CC and yes I’ve seen people who can live off with doing only photoshop and their portfolio pieces are as equally impressive as those who do illustration for a living. I also stated previously about practicing more on typography because that’s what I’m lacking on my portfolio.

Photoshop is not viewed as a lesser software.
It just isn’t professionally suited to some layout uses. It’s all about the output.
Photoshop is an image editing tool. You might create a single page poster as an image, that’s fine, if you know what the output method is and create the image at the appropriate resolution so the typography is sharp and legible. Logos should not be created in Photoshop for this reason. You never know how a logo will be used during its hopefully long life. A vector logo is scalable. A raster logo is limited by the file resolution. A signshop also cannot use a raster logo to cut lettering in vinyl, or metal, or acrylic, or wood, or whatever you might want to make a lobby sign or tradeshow booth out of. Also can’t be embroidered, nor easily silkscreened (direct to garment is different from silk screen.)

All that said, I do a lot of work for the motion industry (TV/cable/theatre etc) and all they do is photoshop. Great for printed backdrops and stuff, but when it comes to putting that art onto things that have to be cut out on a machine that only understands vectors? Not so much. Sure they are great Photoshop artists and they make a decent living at it, but if they knew a little more about the production end of it, they could be even more awesome!
(And before anyone says I need a better machine, the machines in question are top of the line vinyl plotters and CNC table routers.)

You can defend photoshop all you want, though no one is bashing it here. As a Graphic Designer, you need to let that go. Photoshop is just another hammer in the toolbox to be used appropriately when needed.

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I just wanted to point out that knowing basic Adobe CC is a requirement for all graphic designers, I never said that it wasn’t important, I just don’t like how photoshop get viewed less than any other softwares in Adobe CC and yes I’ve seen people who can live off with doing only photoshop and their portfolio pieces are as equally impressive as those who do illustration for a living. I also stated previously about practicing more on typography because that’s what I’m lacking on my portfolio pieces.

Sorry I was feeling a little bit tired because I had to start over again working with some new portfolio pieces and ended up taking my frustration on this forum. Hopefully the new portfolio that I’m currently working on will land me a job. Even though my family might not believe in me because I quite dental school for graphic design but I will keep on trying to prove that it is always better to do what you love. Thank you everyone for your support :blush:

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I’ve been using Photoshop almost daily since 1989, when it was bundled with a Barneyscan slide scanner we purchased and known as BarneyscanXP.

Photoshop is not regarded as lesser software. It’s one of the three core Adobe graphic design products, along with Illustrator and InDesign. Each is an essential tool for graphic design, and each has specific roles that the other two cannot duplicate.

Perhaps you have encountered designers who rightly push back on the completely mistaken notion that Photoshop is a suitable substitute for vector art or general layout work.

As mentioned, some digital illustrators work primarily in Photoshop and other bitmap-based editing software, such as Procreate, Adobe XD, and others. As PrintDriver mentioned, there are specialists in various video jobs who mainly use Photoshop, along with motion software, such as After Effects, Premier, SketchUp, Cinema 4D, or even AutoCAD.

Other technicians, such as photo retouchers and masking specialists, work primarily in Photoshop.

However, no well-rounded, professional-caliber graphic designers work only in or even primarily in Photoshop. Using the same analogy as before, a graphic designer who works primarily in Photoshop would be just about as useful as a carpenter who only knows how to operate a nail gun.

It seems like you’re confusing the tool and the skill. Photoshop is the tool. Photo retouching or bitmap illustration would be the skill.

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You could try first getting in job in an entry level position in the marketing department of a company and then at the job interview ask if you could do some of their graphic design, while in that position.