What is the overall best digital art software?

Espen asked:


I have Photoshop Elements, but I really need to know the opinions of everyone else.

I’ve been working on an illustrated graphic novel (the plotline and character descriptions) for about three or four years off and on..and then, I only used graphite..but now I have a 9 x 12 inch Adesso graphics tablet and I’d like to know the simplest, most effective program that would work with my tablet. Digital art as in ink and coloring scanned works..not photo-manipulation.

Thanks in advance!

4 Comments
October 24, 2009 by admin in Drawing & Illustration

4 Responses

  1. Jack S
    October 26, 2009 at 11:41 pm

    The industry standard right now is Adobe Illustrator, but you might get a much better look with both Illustrator and photoshop since photoshop can do a lot of things that Illustrator can’t (and vice versa). Good luck!

  2. Taylor R
    October 28, 2009 at 10:58 pm

    Ok…you need Adobe illustrator…You can use it to trace over your drawings after you scan them in. It’s a great program, and I use it all the time.

    Photoshop can work for what you’re doing but I really need to see what you’re trying to do to know what I should tell you…

    You CAN use both of these programs together, make the outlines in Illustrator and then take them into Photoshop and color them because frankly if you’re going for texture looks, Photoshop handles that much better.

    Illustrator is easier on your computer too. It doesn’t use as much RAM.

  3. bo_fra
    October 31, 2009 at 5:20 am

    digital art software…
    photoshop elements is a good start, photoshop itself and illustrator as previously mentioned are very good, adobe has a good selection of all products,

    corel has draw and paint shop pro, which may very good as well

    sounds like you’re looking for software to edit pre-sketched images, which is close to illustrator, may look further into importing and export file types, that change lines into guides and characters and back…
    ..

  4. D R
    November 2, 2009 at 2:43 am

    Adobe Photoshop is the best overall graphics software. It is the best for scanning in line work then coloring in the scans.
    For vector drawing Adobe Illustrator can´t be beat.
    You can see some illustration work that uses Illustrator and Photoshop here:

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