First, I'm a big fan of GIMP and Inkscape. They are my products of choice and a lot of cool sites are built with them. For example, the drupalcon DC 2009 site was designed with inkscape.

Just because two applications use X11 doesn't mean they will look the same. Think about applications for windows. It's not hard for two of them to look very different. The same is true here.

Is the plan for print or web. You would need CMYK if you are doing print design. If you're not going to it's not an issue.

I bought Photoshop CS3 for about $250 the week after CS4 came out. It's plenty for my needs... I'm sure I'll buy the upgrade for cs4 when cs5 comes out.

Blessings,
Tony

Hey everyone,

Tony, that sounds like a good idea. I usually buy hardware that way. But I guess I never thought about purchasing software that way.

Matt, I guess GIMP appears easy because when I open an image to work with... Well, I have an image to work with. So I can experiment with different functions to see what they do. But with inksape...You have to create it!

My plan? Well, to simply get good enough with inkscape so I make some neat graphic designs! Then I can worry about CMYK

Thanks

So I come back to Texas all pumped up and ready to purchase Adobe Creative Suite 4....Until I saw the price... OUCH. I'm sure it's worth it, but it's a little steep for a volunteer :-o.

I am just getting into graphic designing and I looked at the price for this and had the same thoughts as you did, so I looked at paint shop pro and went to ebay and I bought paint shop pro for 20 bucks from ebay, and I have to say, it is really a nice program.

I also learned a new trick with the program today. I was reading a post on this forum and someone was asking for help with masking in cs3, and I said to myself "What is masking and can my program do it?" well, I went and did a search and BAM! I seen tons of tutorials on how to create custom masks with paint shop pro 11. Anyways it is a sweet program, and I love it. Woohooooo Masks are sweet!!! :-) God Bless

I've never used Inkscape so can't comment on it.

I did a lot of graphics for my church's website and basically had no talent in graphics other than what I could eek out for the Kingdom. I was perfectly fine with The Gimp and think it is a wonderful program if you never used Photoshop. I heard a lot of noise about how horrible it was from PS-ers but for free and as an amateur it's a GREAT program.

I started watching Bert Monroy at Pixel Perfect and learned tons! The man is a graphics genius and has a talent to teach. Problem was that he uses things very heavily like the brush engine that The Gimp doesn't have which frustrated me. A friend was selling the entire creative suite for $400 (CS2) and I snagged that and my skills have increased because the program was compatible with my teaching source.

If you are not a pro and have never used PS then you'll love The Gimp and it will do amazing things for you. If either of these are true, however, you may want to get the older PS and upgrade. Remember, if you want to get into heavy vectors you may want a suite to get Illustrator and Photoshop. PS does vectors but Illustrator is made for them so keep that in mind.

Hope it helps!

I came across this the other day, I think it was through delicious bookmarks - http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-handy...

This might help someone

Also check out Photoshop Elements, it is a scaled down version of Photoshop. I have used that for a lot of web design on my home computer.

Adobe, both on its own and through Tech Soup offers really good deals to 501c3 buyers.

Adobe has different pricing structures and versions for different kinds of non-profits.

Churches should go to CDW. Currently, the entire Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection is $942 USD. That's amazing, considering it runs $1500 for an upgrade license. It includes basically every major Adobe product.

Photoshop runs $284.99.

Blessings,
Tony

Adobe CS4 Design premium is $160 for qualified 501(c)3's

While religious organizations can belong to Tech Soup, vendors such as Microsoft and Adobe exclude religious organizations from receiving products. Here's one of the categories of "organization types that are ineligible for Adobe donations":

Organizations, such as churches, houses of worship, and seminaries, whose primary mission is religious

Curt

While adobe does not sell to churches on it's website, it does allow it's partners, such as CDW to distribute non-profit pricing to churches. See my post above on this thread. I had to contact Adobe, and they are the ones who sent me to CDW. I have no idea why they don't do it directly, but they certainly didn't act like I couldn't do it, just that I needed to do it through CDW.

Tony

This is confusing. Tech Soup, which apparently offers the "best" price, disallows churches because of, what they say is Adobe's, policy. However, CDW, offers the products at a higher, yet reduced rate, price for churches also apparently because of Adobe's policy.

Personally, it irks me that producers like Microsoft and Adobe don't recognize the positive influence of churches, and other religious organizations, to a society as a whole and actually discriminate against them through their policies.

Curt

My understanding (this is not completely firm, so take it for what it's worth) is that CDW pays for the right to be Adobe's US distributor to churches, which precludes Adobe from selling them on their website, and also others, like TechSoup. It's a distribution thing, is my understanding, not a discrimination thing.

My understanding has been wrong before, so it might not hurt to just call up Adobe and ask.

Tony

I could see how big companies would shy away from the pea-soup PR issues that some could raise by giving discounts to churches so it may also be that they don't mind if CDW loses profit as long as Adobe distances itself from the "church issue".

At least the discount is available, but I agree that there is a discrimination that's becoming acceptable just because it's a church and it's the churches & other religious groups that tend to make the best impacts on society.

I guess we should expect it - regardless if the end times are next century or next week, we are closer to them now than ever before so it should be no surprise we are less accepted now than before. Do what God tells us and we'll overcome!

on things like whether you have a school connected to your church. Sorry about that. The mixup stems from another organization I worked with, Brothers and Sisters in Christ Serving, who fell under the "secular community designation" exception. (we didn't help only Christians, so we gained that designation).

Reading this my gut is saying, we are not entitled to a lower rate for products and services. By we I mean the church. Many places have given non-profits and churches a discounted rate and when they do it's great. But, no where is the bible or anywhere else does it say we are entitled. We shouldn't get upset when we don't get a discounted rate or when we have to do some work to find it. Instead, we should be glad when we do get one.

The attitude seems to be all flipped around here. I don't mean to hijack the thread but our intentions and attitude do matter. Let's be thankful if and when we get a discount.

Matt is absolutely right that we are not entitled. Instead of expecting or demanding a discount then why not just trust the Lord to provide however He wishes - more money, free gift from a believer, etc.. but not try to tell Him how we want it... "Lord, send someone to give me this tool" when we have extra money in the bank He has blessed us with. :)

The thing that disappoints me is when someone gives discounts to everyone except churches. These are usually the same ones that want to keep the church out of government and our pledge -- and by keep out I mean exclude them. "Church people" should have equal footing with others because when it's all said and done we are all people. It bugs me when we are considered more lowly than anyone else, but we were told it would happen and that's ok because our worth comes from God, not man.

As Christians we will be persecuted. Jesus points it out. The bible tells us it will happen. In western cultures we have experienced a break from persecution. Now we get minimal persecution. And I do mean minimal. We need to be careful how we react or respond to it. How we do this says a lot about our character and how people view our God through us.

I expect the persecution to increase over Christians in the coming years. I just hope Christians handle it in the way God calls us to.

Maybe something to remember is that the church is Gods people and a local church is an instance of Gods people in a place on a particular mission. A church is not a building, a worship service, where you go on Sunday morning, a non-profit, or any of that. This is what we have built, organized, and put in place.