Expert: Laith Ibrahim - 2/13/2008

Question
HelloI am a newby to the graphic art world and I'm investing in a new imac.  I want to buy adobe software -something simple off ebay.  what is the differnece between adobe illustrator 9, 10, cs2 and cs3.  The Cs2's and cs3's are like hundreds of dollars while adobe 9 or 10 are cheap. Ideally i'd like to buy adobe illustrator 9 for 30 bucks but will i regret it? Also is there a big differnece between photoshop and illustrator?  Man I'm overwelmed and could use some help

Answer
Hi Khara,
Your decision on choosing the right version depends on what you're going to do with the software and how much you want to spend. There's no doubt that Illustrator CS3 is much more advanced than CS2, CS, 10 and 9. However, If you've just started learning Illustrator, you won't benefit much from the new features of CS3.
I personally advise you to buy an older (and cheap) version of Illustrator and start learning the basics. Try it for a couple of months to see if you have enough passion for Illustrator to go to the next step and buy the newest version. I don't think you will regret spending $30 on learning Illustrator but you may if you spend hundreds of dollars on CS3 and later decided that you want to learn something else or don't have the time to continue.

As for your 2nd question; yes there's a big difference between photoshop and Illustrator. The first is mainly used to create backgrounds, edit photographs and add effects, prepare web images and you can also use it to enhance images to make them look better. I personally use Photoshop to clean images and prepare them for website design. Illustrator is a program that you can use to design posters, logos, brochures, etc. Almost all Graphic designers use both programs. This is a very simple comparison, I didn't want to overwhelm you with graphics jargons.

If you plan to buy Photoshop as well, it's better that you start with Photoshop Elements which you can buy for less than a hundred dollars. You can start with Elements because it will give everything you need as a beginner.

Don't forget that you can always download the latest versions of Illustrator, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements at the Adobe website. Check the following link:
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/?ogn=EN_US-gntray_dl_downloads

Try any program you like for a month before you buy anything. This will help you make your decision.

Good Luck!

Laith