Today there are three worthy graphic editors for web designers. I will not compare them in any way. I'll just do it short review and I will share my opinion regarding these applications.
Adobe Photoshop
The first version was released in 1990
The most popular graphics editor. Appeared a long time ago and was No. 1. It is used: f otographers, print designers, web designers, interactive designers, video developers. A very powerful application that has everything. The program is used and supported everywhere. In any studio, company, printing house.
Initially it was intended for retouching and working with photographs, but then it acquired wider functionality and capabilities.
My personal opinion:
Pros: A truly advanced editor with all sorts of functions, such as support for 3D, GIF animation, scripts, addons. A huge library of ready-made graphics, templates and more. There are a huge number of cool actions for Photoshop, where in one click you can make a beautiful picture from a photo:
Photoshop is great for working with photographs. There are no restrictions; you can create and manipulate the image as you please. There are a huge number of tutorials on Photoshop on Youtube.
Minuses: With the development of Photoshop, which every time tries to cram into itself everything that is possible, it has become very heavy and clumsy. The program takes a very long time to load, and it also takes quite a long time to perform some functions. The application only works through a subscription. On weak computers, opening Photoshop can be very problematic. There are a lot of inconvenient things. We have to imitatesome styles and others.A window with effects is neededopen and close every time.Confused managementtext styles and sizes. And yet, do not forget that the application was originally created to work with raster graphics, not vector.
Conclusion: Photoshop is great for editing photos first. The format and program are supported everywhere and by everyone. If desired, you can create anything you want in it. Designs, icons, banners and more. But the question is how convenient and fast it will be.
Sketch
The first version was released in 2012
Vector graphics editor for Mac
After Photoshop, the Sketch program appeared.It’s as if the Sketch developers took a powerful vector graphics editor and threw out all the unnecessary stuff. The application interface is similar to classic Apple programs.
The developers write the following: creating good graphics can be quite a complex process, and you need an application that is designed specifically for this purpose. So they, rather opaquely, hint that Photoshop was not intended as a program for drawing website designs, interfaces and icons. Also in the description of the program there is a clear emphasis on the simplicity and accessibility of the tools, which in no way detract from the capabilities of the program itself.
One of the main features of Sketch is the associated styles for shapes and text. This allows you to combine different elements, giving them the same appearance and in a few clicks change the appearance of all your objects. The same goes for the text. You can also create symbols, turning the selected layer into a convenient one for reuse element.
Sketch, in my opinion, is the ideal tool for developing application and website design. Today's most advanced UI/UX tool.
Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer is a new graphics editor for Mac and Win. Compared to Photoshop, it comes out the winner in several respects: speed, smoothness and easy interface.
Buy: http://affinity.serif.com (unlike Adobe, you buy the program once and use it forever)
Affinity Designer was truly a real discovery for me. It was developed from scratch specifically for designers, taking into account all modern new technologies and trends. Affinity is incredibly fast, convenient, practical and thoughtful.
I became acquainted with this program when it was only in Beta versions and helped developers find bugs and gave recommendations for improvement. And in general, any designer could participate in the development, thanks to the active discussion of the program on the official developer forum. You can safely call this application from the people for the people.
Now the program has very quickly acquired new functionality and incredible capabilities. Working in this program, you understand that everything there is thought out to the smallest detail. I won't talk about all of her super features. Detailed description can be found on the official website. Just watch the video:
Replace video
I can definitely recommend this application without any doubt. Do you want to create illustrations, want website layouts, draw icons, logos. Develop various layouts for printing. The program is perfect for all these tasks.
If few people know about it today, then in the near future all designers will use it. If you are a beginner, start with Affinity Designer. If you are an experienced designer, then take a closer look at this program. I'm sure it will make your life a lot easier.
Thanks to Affinity, my work speed after Photoshop increased by 50-60%; everything is 10 times easier to do in this application than in Photoshop. You get great pleasure working in it. I studied this program simply thoroughly. Every button, every function is really necessary, important and good.
Pros: Program performance. Friendly interface. Many unique features tailored specifically for web design. There are a lot of features, such as: saving a project with history, the ability to view the history of changes with a slider, the ability to customize the interface as you see fit. Designed for both vector and raster applications and much more. In Affinity, even the layout can be made adaptive. Which is also very convenient when you need to make several screen sizes. The program can export and import files of any popular formats.
Minuses: Honestly, I didn't find it for myself. The only thing that distinguishes it from Photoshop is that the developers have made a second application for fine work with photographs. Affinity Photo, Almost everything is the same, only tailored exclusively for photographers. That is, there are much more opportunities for photographs there. Well, this is not a big problem. When I need to retouch a photo, do subtle color correction or some other manipulation, I open Affinity Photo and do it. The programs are interconnected and files can be transferred simply by copying ctrl+c/ctrl+v or by saving the project. Each other's application formats are supported and readable.
Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is a program of the same type as Affinity Designer, they can safely be called brothers, but it specializes exclusively in working with photographs. So, this is more of an application for photographers, but it also complements Affinity Designer well and is suitable for certain tasks for a web designer, for example, sometimes it is also necessary to process a photograph.
It has p Full-featured RAW converter.Work with various color spaces: RGB, CMYK, LAB, Grayscale, 16-bit density.File compatibility with Adobe Photoshop PSD, support TIFF, JPEG, PNG, EPS, PDF, SVG and other formats.
It is indeed made on the same engine as Affinity Designer, but is fundamentally different. You shouldn't draw website layouts in it. For example, there is no support for Artboards, and many other functions. Here we work exclusively with photographs. The program has, for example, the ability to automatically stitch together panoramas, make 3D panoramas, use Liquify tools and much more. If you are developing an application interface, then you do not need all this at all.
Therefore, the developers, in order not to interfere with all the processes in one pile, made two applications. Do you want to work on projects based on... Vector graphics(design of websites, applications, banners, icons, etc.) - useAffinity Designer. Need delicate work with photographs or raster images- use Affinity Photo.
When working with design, I'll be honest, I rarely open Affinity Photo, since Affinity Designer handles all the basic tasks. In order to cut out a photo, for example, and adjust the color and brightness, you don’t have to open Affinity Photo; all the basic functions for working with raster images are in Affinity Designer (cut out the background, adjust colors, brightness, etc.), but if you need something more (change perspective, use the Liquify tool, you need fine color adjustments, face retouching, etc.) then yes, you can’t do without Affinity Photo. Everything you need to work with photographs is here.
Figma
Relatively new product on the market. Figma is very similar in concept to Sketch, it is focused on UI/UX for creating applications and websites, but is focused more on cloud and collaboration with a team.
Its meaning is that programmers and designers can work together in real time in one website window. This is a very convenient tool for large companies with many designers and developers. There is version control, you can leave comments on layouts, edit layouts and much more.
The disadvantage of the program is that it has a very specific “engine”. I don't really like the rough interface of the application. But you can completely live with this.
What to choose?
I highly recommend purchasing it right away Affinity Designer And Affinity Photo for working with design: icons, illustrations, graphics. Start learning with Affinity Designer, since we are still primarily interested in web design and everything connected with it.
To test the convenience of the program in terms of working with illustrations, I wasn’t even lazy and drew a VHS tape in vector and completed it in a couple of hours. It was very convenient and easy to work with.
Affinity Designer/Photo- ideal for developing icons, illustrations, banners, SMM booking, various printing layouts and everything else. I recommend!
When it comes to creating an app design, I recommend learning Sketch or Figma.
For what purposes are programs needed?
Before using programs for website layout, you need to divide them into several categories.
Working with graphics. First of all, the layout designer must be able to work with the layout he receives. If he cannot cut out the necessary parts from the layout, then further layout is impossible in principle.
Working with code. Once you have figured out the graphics and cut out everything you need, you will need to start the main work of a layout designer - writing code. To make this as fast and convenient as possible, you need to use the appropriate software.
Checking the work. When you have already done the main work, you will need to check its result. As a rule, you can make a lot of mistakes during the writing process, especially if you do not have much experience. Also, the finished layout usually has different requirements. Checks will help to adjust it to these requirements.
To work with the layout
The layout designer needs to remember the need to work with the layout. There is PhotoShop for this, although you can use GIMP as a free alternative. Both are suitable, although Photoshop is, of course, a little more convenient.
You need to understand that a layout can contain hundreds of layers. To work with it without brakes, you need to work on less powerful hardware. Much depends on the layout itself. The fewer layers and elements, the smaller the file size, the faster it will be processed.
The actual layout
Everything is very clear with the layout, but what software can be useful for layout? Maybe you need a program for website layout using only html and css. In this case, you can choose something simpler. The more complex the work, the more functional the solution is worth using.
Notebook. The simplest thing you can have for editing code. No functionality. In what cases will you have to use it? Let's say you need to show a friend some piece of code, but there is no suitable program on his computer. Notepad is not suitable for editing, much less writing code.
Rice. 1. Notepad does not have syntax highlighting, so it is not suitable for working with code.
Notepad++. But this is a much more advanced tool. It is often called the programmer's notebook. It supports syntax highlighting, multiple languages and encodings. Writing code is easy, convenient, it is possible to connect plugins and work with a large number of files at the same time. Depending on your knowledge of languages, you can enable or disable tooltips. Experienced coders usually turn them off because they only interfere with writing code.
Rice. 2. Notepad++ has excellent syntax highlighting. Tags, attributes, attribute values, and plain text are highlighted differently.
Adobe DreamViewer. More powerful program, which includes not only an editor, but also tools for completely visual creation pages and elements. You will have to learn how to work with it, since it is quite complex. It must be said that any visual editor inserts a lot of unnecessary code.
This is also true in the case of Dreamviewer, but here you have to pay for speed. The program is suitable for professionals when they need to quickly get code pages to show it to the customer.
SublimeText. Very similar to Notepad++. It differs mainly only in the interface and various plugins that can be connected.
Front Page. Another program from Microsoft. It also allows you to work with images, videos and JavaScript.
Again, the choice depends on whether you need a visual component or if you intend to write more code yourself.
Statistics show that most developers use Sublime and Notepad++. This best programs for website layout. But they are suitable for you if you already know the code and don't really need help. Then these editors will give you more freedom.
You can also select UltraEdit. Although the program is not very popular, it opens quite quickly large files and it is also convenient to write code in it.
Many people also praise NetBeans. This development environment is well suited for writing web scripts and scripts. Recommended for beginner programmers.
Among more modern software we can note text editor Vim. In terms of functionality, it is considered one of the most powerful. For example, you can work with many files in one window, compare two files, and then quickly make edits. Another feature is the unlimited ability to cancel and redo some of your actions.
Checking the layout
As a rule, normal code editors already contain tools for checking what has been written. For example, code highlighting makes it easy to identify occasional typos and minor errors (unclosed tag, extra semicolon, etc.)
But checking the layout is not only about this. For more complete testing, you need to use other programs. For example, the same debugger. I have already mentioned it several times. Firstly, it is an opportunity to quickly find a problem and solve it. Because you can disable any styles in the debugger, it's a quick way to check if your media rules are working if you're also implementing responsiveness.
This may also not be enough. If the template should look the same in most popular browsers, you need to check the layout for cross-browser compatibility. There are several online services for this. One of the most popular is crossbrowsertesting.com/. Certain functions on the site are only available for money. The service gained popularity due to the ability to check the site in more than a hundred versions different browsers.
Rice. 3. Crossbrowsertesting is one of the resources that offers cross-browser testing in hundreds of browser versions.
It may still be necessary to adapt the layout for older versions of browsers. As you know, the most problems have always arisen with Internet Explorer. I previously wrote about IE Tester, a program where you can check for free how a site will look in older versions of this browser. NetRederender is also suitable for this. It allows you to see the appearance of the site in IE versions from 5.5 to 9.
Conclusion
Layout of a website may require quite a lot of services and programs. The minimum configuration includes a program for working with graphics, 1 code editor and 2-3 services for checking layout. I've seen people who have a much larger set of tools. It all depends on the complexity of your activity as a web developer. That's all for today. Subscribe to our blog if you want to know everything about website building.
QuarkXPress is a program designed for layout of various printed products - newspapers, magazines, brochures, catalogs, etc. QuarkXPress allows you to create not only “paper” layouts, but also develop designs for e-books, websites and interactive applications (Flash). Over the 25 years of its presence on the market, QuarkXPress has managed to gain respect among designers and layout designers around the world - the program supports international color standards and can automatically detect potential problems already at the pre-press stage. The application supports drag-and-drop and hotkeys, allows you to work with transparency and effects (drop shadow, etc.), manage layers, align graphic elements on the layout, drag fine tuning text parameters (kerning, tracking, hyphenation, etc.). QuarkXPress supports Unicode encoding and OpenType fonts, can import tables and texts from Word documents and Excel, and is also capable of importing graphics in PSD, EPS, GIF, JPG, PDF, PNG, PostScript and TIFF formats. QuarkXPress can automatically update elements used in layouts (texts, images), allows you to apply styles and automatically monitor compliance with project specifications.
Key Features and Functions
- a wide range of tools for working with layouts, texts and graphics;
- automatic control over compliance with project specifications;
- automatic detection of potential problems at the pre-press stage;
- support for multiple graphic formats;
- import data from Excel and Word;
- the ability to develop the design of e-books, websites and web applications.
Layout programs
There are several computer programs, intended for electronic layout. Which one to choose in a particular case is decided by the publisher and (or) layout designer depending on the type of layout (type of publication), as well as on the basis of experience, guided by considerations of convenience.
Many programs have been developed to create multi-page layouts. Among them are Adobe products (PageMaker, Frame Maker, InDesign), as well as QuarkXPress, Corel Ventura Publisher, TeX. They all have their own characteristics and may be optimal in different cases.
If the source text has a heterogeneous structure, it often contains formulas, tables and other complicating elements, then it is better to type it up using Ventura Publisher, TeX or FrameMaker. They help automate text formatting.
If the text is more uniform, but you have to insert pictures, then XPress, PageMaker, and InDesign programs are suitable for its layout. They are successfully used in book, newspaper, magazine and advertising layouts.
What is the best program to use to make layouts for publishing a book? Opinions may vary, but first of all you should pay attention to InDesign and Xpress programs. Each of them has its own advantages, but experienced layout designers often prefer InDesign for book layout.
Layout of business, technical and scientific magazines is done in FrameMaker. For layout of illustrated magazines and catalogs, it is advisable to use InDesign.
In principle and text program Microsoft Word can be used for layout. Once you install the necessary add-ons, many special functions will become available in Word. software products- PageMaker, XPress or InDesign. Some publications are systematically laid out in this way, but still this is not the best way and not the most professional solution. A program originally designed for layout will always be more convenient. But in the end, the main thing is how the reader perceives the book, and we must focus primarily on readability, no matter what program is used.
Adobe InDesign
Adobe InDesign is one of the largest software products from Adobe Systems. Its direct purpose is publishing, which includes the design and layout of documents for various purposes. Manufacturers called InDesign the successor and direct successor of the functions of the Adobe PageMaker program. First of all, the program is intended for designers and layout designers - both those working in professional studios and individual creative people. Using Adobe InDesign you can design any periodical or book publication.
Besides printing, it allows you to export ready documents into the current PDF format and other formats, preserving all the variety of designs and unique design solutions. InDesign was the first of its kind to combine so many publishing functions into one. In addition to integration with other Adobe products: Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat, it allows you to use Unicode fonts for design, that is, thousands of character options.
Also in the Indesign arsenal are the most modern transparency functions and visual special effects, styling and the use of OpenType fonts, as well as optical layout alignment and cross-platform scripts for electronic documents.
IN latest version Adobe InDesign includes features such as access to Adobe servers for publishing content designed for tablets; an article palette for managing a document without changing the layout; the ability to add audio and video recordings to electronic documents, and much more.
Adobe InDesign desktop software is universal application for publishing content that gives you precise control over design and typography at the pixel level. Create stylish, expressive pages for print, tablet PCs, and other screens. Convenient adaptation of layouts to various formats pages, orientations and devices while maintaining high image quality.
Create layouts in Adobe InDesign that automatically adapt to screens and pages different sizes, using the Liquid Layout feature for .folio files. Use the Alternate Layout feature to gain more control over your workflow. Increase your productivity with features like related content, content collection tools, recently used fonts list, grayscale viewing, and more.
"Liquid" layout
Easily design and create multiple layout versions for various devices and printed materials in one InDesign file.
Related Content
Link content contained in one or more InDesign documents; this will apply changes to parent text or objects (including interactive elements) to all associated child objects.
Content Collection Tools
Extract text and objects from your existing layout using content collection tools. In your new layout, use the Content Placer function to add and organize elements.
Interactive HTML Documents
Add interactive HTML content -- e.g. Google Maps and animation developed in Adobe program Edge™ -- to InDesign layouts. Interactive elements are preserved when exported to HTML formats, EPUB3 or .folio in Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.
Improved layout support
Compose InDesign projects for submission to the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite while maintaining features such as overlays. You can also include an IDML file in the package.
Integration with other Adobe solutions
Easily bring your creativity to life across a wide range of projects with seamless integration of Adobe's industry-leading solutions, including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and Flash Professional.
Improved PDF export features
Export PDF documents compliant with PDF/X-4:2010, PDF/X-5:2010 and PDF/VT-1 standards to provide tight integration with Adobe Acrobat X and Adobe PDF Print Engine 2.5.
From books and brochures to digital magazines and iPad apps, InDesign CC lets you create page layouts and typography with pixel-level precision. Easily adapt the design to any page or screen size and orientation. The app is part of Creative Cloud, so you can sync settings like keyboard shortcuts, styles, and workspaces across all your devices.
Scribus is a program for layout of printed materials: books, magazines and booklets, brochures, business cards, etc. Scrybus was created as free alternative expensive paid editors, so the application has many professional features. Thus, the program supports the CMYK color separation system and ICC color management. You can download Scribus for free on this website.
The standard interface of the application is simple: users familiar with similar software can work with it without any problems. The program works with many modern image formats, has support for texts and fonts in Unicode, as well as support for hot keys. If necessary, it is possible to set your own hot keys, work with layers, embed fonts and manual kerning.
The application can be easily mastered by inexperienced users, thanks to help system in Russian and other languages, the user will be able to find answers to questions that arise while mastering the program. Scribus allows you to create layouts from scratch, as well as using templates available in the database. In addition, it is possible to change the templates prepared by the developers at your own discretion.
Before creating a new project, you need to set operating parameters - sheet format, font and many other parameters. After setting the parameters and confirming them, a program window appears, which contains a work area, a panel with a set of tools, and context menu. The tool icons are well made and intuitive, and they are conveniently located. According to their own functionality Scribus is not much different from expensive paid programs, therefore, to master this application it will take some time.
Key benefits of Scribus
- Wide functionality.
- CMYK format support.
- Convenient help system.
- Availability of built-in templates.
- Hotkey support.
The functionality of the application allows you to create documents in PDF format. It is also possible to import and export documentation from SVG format, PDF and EPS. The created layouts are ready for printing on professional equipment.
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