is photoshop or illustrator better for drawing
Photoshop vs Illustrator: Which Program Should You Use, and When?
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Even if you've never done any digital art, chances are you've heard the terms Photoshop and Illustrator before.
They're both powerful programs, and they can be used to create amazing things in the hands of experts.
But, even for professionals, it can be difficult to know which program is better, or which program you should use for different projects.
Read our guide to learn how you can settle the Photoshop vs. Illustrator debate for yourself!
What Is Photoshop?
Photoshop, originally released in 1987, is one of the world's most popular programs. According to one site, it's the seventh most influential computer program of all time.
Over the last 30-ish years, Photoshop has enjoyed its place at the top of the photo editing and graphic design world.
It's so powerful that the word "photoshopped" is now a globally-used slang that describes things that look fake or are "too good to be true".
Photoshop is used in a variety of different industries and applications, but its main purpose remains the same: manipulating, adjusting, and improving images with different overlays, effects, and brushes.
Photoshop has been Adobe's flagship program since its inception, and no other software has been able to dethrone it.
The basics of Photoshop are pretty simple. All you need to do is import a photo, learn how to edit it using a few tools, and you can create images that look polished and ready for the web in no time.
Of course, becoming an expert in Photoshop takes a lot longer. However, even a few hours of playing around with the program can glean some very valuable knowledge.
Photoshop Pricing
Photoshop is available as standalone software ($20.99/month with unlimited cloud storage), in a "Photography Package" ($9.99/month, comes with Lightroom but only 20GB of storage), or as part of the full Adobe Creative Cloud ($52.99/month, comes with every existing Adobe software).
What Is Adobe Illustrator?
Illustrator is a vector-based software, released by Adobe one year after Photoshop—1988. It's been used across the globe ever since, for everything from graphic design to cartooning and digital painting.
Using Illustrator, you can create images like this one:
We'll get more in-depth about this below, but the biggest advantage that Illustrator gives artists and professionals is that your work can scale up or down in size without losing quality.
This means a poster you make in Illustrator will look exactly the same on a laptop screen as it will on a 40-foot billboard. You don't have to worry about choosing the right file size, because Illustrator projects can be translated perfectly into any size screen or print!
Illustrator is a key tool for digital artists, graphic designers, and animators.
Anyone who needs a powerful tool to create images from scratch should look to Illustrator as one of their top options. Chances are high that, every day, you come across dozens of examples of content created (in part or whole) with Illustrator.
Illustrator Pricing
Illustrator is available as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud ($52.99/month) or as standalone software that costs the same as Photoshop: $20.99/month.
What's the Difference Between Photoshop and Illustrator?
Photoshop and Illustrator are very similar programs; some artists use them almost interchangeably.
The main surface-level difference between the two programs is that Photoshop is mostly used to edit and perfect images that already exist, whereas Illustrator is designed to create new images from a blank canvas.
This means that Photoshop's editing tools are tuned toward that purpose: changing a picture that was imported from outside the program.
Illustrator's features and tools are pointed toward creating from scratch.
If this all seems rather conceptual, it is. From the outside, it can be difficult to truly see why Adobe maintains two different programs that look so similar.
Raster and Vector
Now it's time to get technical, because Photoshop and Illustrator differ more than just on a concept-level.
Photoshop edits using a raster/pixel basis; Illustrator is a vector-based program.
Raster and vector-based art look the same on the outside, but they're quite different below the surface.
Raster-based art is any digital work that's based on rows and columns of pixels.
A digital photo or video file is composed of thousands of tiny pixels, each assigned a different color. Thousands (or even millions) of those pixels are arranged to form a complete photograph.
When you zoom in extremely close, you can see that these pixels are simply colored squares in a grid, kind of like this:
More pixels mean higher image quality, and it also lets the image be displayed on a larger screen.
While you can theoretically increase the number of pixels in your canvas as much as you want, doing so burdens your computer considerably. The processing power required to run Photoshop on a massive multi-million-pixel canvas would crash even a high-end PC.
Even if the computer didn't crash, the file size of projects that large would fill up your hard drive rather quickly.
That's why vector images are the perfect alternative to raster images for large-scale work.
Vector-based art is a little bit different.
It isn't made with pixels; rather, the lines you draw using Illustrator are created using mathematical equations. So, instead of telling the program to change the color of a series of pixels, you are giving it a mathematical equation it uses to draw a line for you.
That's why vector images can be scaled up or down infinitely without losing quality—the number of pixels doesn't matter, because the math behind the images just needs to multiply.
Vector-based images are perfect for applications where the image will be used in different places and displayed at different sizes.
For example, if you have a small business, you'll almost always want to make your logo a vector image. That way it can be easily used on your website, social media, business cards, and t-shirts without having to constantly re-edit it (which is what you'd have to do if it were a raster image).
Photoshop vs Illustrator: When To Use Each Software
So, we know the basic differences between Photoshop and Illustrator, but only on a technical level. In the real world, though, it can be tough to know which program is better for different uses.
With that in mind, let's explore whether Photoshop or Illustrator are better in a few common applications:
Which is Best for Graphic Design?
Graphic design, for most people, isn't a very well-defined term. If we're getting technical, graphic design is the creation of graphics—like logos and symbols—using vector-based software.
That's the bare-bones definition, which would rightly lead you to conclude that Illustrator is the best software for graphic design.
The actual work of a "graphic designer", though, has a wider scope.
Professional graphic designers work with promotional materials, branding materials, and advertising materials to shape the visual identity of brands and companies. They use Illustrator, Photoshop, and other creative software programs to do their jobs.
We mention this because it would be misleading to say that Illustrator is the only program a graphic designer needs.
Illustrator is best looked at as the foundational program and backbone of graphic design, not the "end-all, be-all" solution!
Which is Best for Photo Editing?
Editing photos is much different than graphic design or illustration. You're not starting with an empty canvas; rather, you're importing a detailed image and working from there.
Photoshop was purpose-built for photo editing, and it (rather obviously) takes the position as the best software for this application.
But, what about it, exactly, makes Photoshop the best photo editing software?
First of all, Photoshop is equipped to process advanced image formats, like RAW images, better than any other software. That means it's the ideal tool for editing high-quality images straight from professional-level cameras.
Second, Photoshop has a range of powerful "one-click" editing tools that can instantly improve the quality of a photo.
Finally, Photoshop's layer-based design and advanced masking tools give you unlimited and precise control over every different element in a photo.
Want to brighten someone's face without brightening the rest of the picture? Simply create a mask over their face, move it to a new layer, and brighten that layer.
That level of control, combined with intuitive and repeatable step-by-step processes, makes Photoshop one of the most powerful creative programs in the world.
Which is Best for Digital Art?
This is where things get tricky.
On the surface level, Photoshop and Illustrator have nearly identical tools for digital drawings and painting. This is because, as the different generations of the software have been released, more and more features have started to overlap.
Since we're well into the 20th+ generation of both Illustrator and Photoshop, they have more in common than they don't. Photoshop and Illustrator are both well-suited to digital art; it's nearly impossible to choose a real winner.
There are some ways, however, you can decide between the two for digital art.
First, if you like to sketch your work on paper before going to the computer, Photoshop will be your friend. You can scan your sketches, import them into Photoshop, and add color/finishing touches.
Illustrator is a better choice for work that will be printed on a variety of different materials or displayed in many different sizes.
It's good for painting and drawing, but the images you make in Illustrator have a "digital" look to them. This is great if you're a graphic designer or cartoonist, but not ideal if you want to create "watercolor" paintings digitally.
Photoshop is better for artists who want to create artwork that looks similar to what they can make with physical materials.
Raster images are better suited for this by nature; you can think of one pixel as one tiny segment of a piece of paper or a physical canvas.
If you're into painting, watercolors, or realistic sketching, Photoshop should be your go-to. Plus, your subscription to Photoshop also includes Adobe Fresco—more on that below.
When To Use Both
The real trouble with choosing between Photoshop and Illustrator is that you aren't really supposed to choose one or the other.
Since the release of Adobe Creative Suite (CS) in 2003, which was replaced by Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) in 2011, Adobe has tried to get customers to adopt the full range of their software and use them together.
This means that Photoshop and Illustrator are designed to be used together, on the same project, to give you unlimited options.
For example, if you want to start an art piece by sketching it out in Illustrator (which has better sketching tools) and take it over to Photoshop to fill it in with color and texture, you'll take advantage of the best of both programs.
More to Consider
Wait, What's Adobe Fresco?
Adobe Fresco is a lesser-known program that you can subscribe to as a standalone, although it is included with any Photoshop subscription.
Fresco is designed specifically for drawing and painting, and to be used as a companion for Photoshop.
If you're a digital artist who focuses on sketching, painting, or drawing, Fresco + Photoshop will almost always be a better choice than Illustrator alone.
You can use Fresco and Illustrator together, but not as seamlessly as Fresco + Photoshop. This is because Fresco, just like Procreate and other digital art apps, is a raster-based program, and images would have to be vectorized before being used in Illustrator.
Really, there aren't many reasons to use Fresco and Illustrator, unless you were making a vector/graphic design project using a Fresco drawing as a jumping-off point.
What About Lightroom?
Lightroom and Photoshop are like cousins.
Photoshop is used to change images by adding or manipulating different visual elements, and Lightroom is used to make photos look better without actually changing what's in the frame.
Using Lightroom, you can get the most out of a photo like this:
Images like this one already have a lot going on, and don't need Photoshop to change anything about them. They simply need a powerful program to make all the colors "pop" and appear exactly as intended—that's exactly what Lightroom is for!
Lightroom is a powerful but specific program designed to edit and color-correct photos before they're finished with Photoshop.
Think of Lightroom as the world's best set of photo filters and color controls.
If you're a photographer or incorporate photography into your digital art/graphic design work, you should strongly consider adding Lightroom to your arsenal.
Should I Get Adobe Creative Cloud?
At the end of the day, it's almost impossible to recommend that you get one program over another, especially when you can spend a bit more and have access to every program Adobe has to offer.
The Creative Cloud suite of programs includes every conceivable program a creative person could need. From video editing to illustration and even web design, Creative Cloud has it.
Adobe packages all of its programs for a purpose: most creative projects require the power of more than one program.
Buying a subscription to Photoshop or Illustrator ($20.99/month each) is certainly cheaper than paying $52.99/month for the full Creative Cloud, but the advantages are clear.
If your work is anything more than very limited types of graphic design, digital art, or photography, you'll need more than one program.
The greatest advantage of having the Creative Cloud in its entirety is that you'll never have to choose between one program. You can do anything you need to without constantly being hampered by one program's limitations.
In the end, only you can decide if Creative Cloud is worth the extra cost. However, if you think you'll ever need more than one or two programs to do your work, the answer is clear.
Adobe Creative Cloud is the ideal tool for creative people who work across different disciplines, or for professionals who need more options than one program can give.
Conclusion: Photoshop vs Illustrator
Choosing between Adobe programs like Photoshop and Illustrator is never as easy as we'd like it to be.
In general terms, though, Illustrator is best for people who are working with vector-based images, and Photoshop is best for people who edit photos or create other raster-based art.
Beyond that, the actual features of Photoshop and Illustrator overlap a great deal. This means you're free to choose the one you like best—or just get both!
Have you decided on whether you'll get Photoshop, Illustrator, or the full Adobe Creative Cloud? Do you have any more questions for us?
Leave them in the comments section below, and don't forget to share this article on Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you and your creative companions hang out online!
is photoshop or illustrator better for drawing
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