Difference Between Illustrator and Photoshop

Difference Between Illustrator and Photoshop

What’s the difference between Photoshop and Illustrator? Good question!

In a nutshell, Photoshop is great for editing files with pixels (like photos) and Illustrator is great for creating high resolution, vector files (no pixels). I’ll explain further, it’s not as complicated as it sounds.

Photoshop

jpeg, tiff and png are files also known as raster or bitmap files that Photoshop is ideal for working with. These files are made from millions of microscopic squares (pixels) that also make up screens such as your computer. Each pixel shows its own colour and is so tiny, our eyes are tricked into seeing the overall blend of colours the pixels show rather than the pixels themselves. But, in a low resolution image, like in the example photo, there are less pixels to blend the colours together, therefore images have less detail and look more rough or jagged where different colours meet. A high resolution image has 300 pixels per inch, also known as 300 ppi or 300dpi (dots per inch), this is classed as a high resolution image and will print with great results. Photoshop comes with a wide variety of tools, allowing you to manipulate any or all pixels in an image.  There is no limit to what can be created, so learn Photoshop and let your imagination run wild.

Illustrator

Images created in Illustrator are based on outlines and shapes instead of pixels. These shapes are made by the user and can be circles, squares or text for example. Think of them more like hand drawn artwork or cartoon style illustrations, graphics and text. Images created in Illustrator are well suited to be printed on paper and/or made into signs. Again, vector images have no pixels so, whether the image needs to be small to suit a business card or a huge sign to go on a semi-trailer, the same image will be 100% sharp.

In the sample image you can see vector files can be zoomed to any size you like, maintaining beautiful crisp, clean edges that will print perfect every time thanks to Illustrator’s format.

Should you choose Illustrator or Photoshop?

They both have their advantages but, basically, if you are more interested in working with pixel based images like photos, want to blend colours together or into each other with an even gradient and only see yourself using your creations on the Internet, I would sign up for Photoshop.

If you are looking to create files that need to be printed and have defined edges with separate colours for each shape, I would go with Illustrator. I hope my example pictures help you to see that Adobe Photoshop is more suited to photos or blended colours and Adobe Illustrator is well suited for line style artwork. Text is also included in this style of artwork.

Link to Software

If you would like more info or to sign up for Photoshop or Illustrator, click on the Creative Cloud image to head straight to the right page on the their website.