Use Cases for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign

Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign are arguably the most popular and useful graphic design tools in the Adobe Creative Suite (soon to be Adobe Creative Cloud), but unless you’re a seasoned designer, you might not know when to use each one. Whether you’re just starting out in design or are already on a marketing team and want to help with some of the art without giving your designers a headache, follow these use cases to ensure you create the highest quality and most usable pieces as possible.

Photoshop

Photoshop is perhaps the best-known and most widely used of the Big 3, but that doesn’t mean it should be the go-to solution for your design projects. Photoshop is a pixel-based, or raster-based, software, meaning the graphics created in Photoshop are based on a finite number of dots that come together to create an image. Pixellation happens when a raster image is enlarged, causing those dots to spread further apart, creating a fuzzy image with a low-quality appearance. You’ll want to use Photoshop to create or edit images that will stay at a fixed size to avoid pixellation. You should never rely on Photoshop to set type; text has its best appearance when it is vector-based (more on vectors shortly). Because of these properties, Photoshop is best used in the following scenarios: 

• Editing photos. Photoshop is among the best software available to edit photos. Not only can it handle the basic functionalities of red-eye removal, blemish touch-up, and light levels, but can also be used to blend layers and add advanced filters to achieve professional results.
• Designing for web, software, and mobile. Photoshop is also a great tool for creating visual elements for web use. Although many visual effects can be achieved using advanced CSS and software development tools, Photoshop can be a great starting point for creating website mockups, patterned and textured backgrounds, or custom graphics.
• Digital painting. Use photoshop to mash up stock, open-source, or personal images together using masking, brushing, and cloning to create original pixel-based artwork. Try out some of these advanced features and you’ll be able to create a masterpiece of your own.

Illustrator

Illustrator is my personal favorite, and oftentimes an underlooked powerhouse. Illustrator is a vector-based software, which means that graphics created in Illustrator are shapes based on mathematical equations that can be infinitely sized. You should use Illustrator to create art that will have multiple uses and needs to be available in a variety of sizes:

• Logos. Logos are perhaps the most common objects created using Illustrator. Because Illustrator can outline fonts, you can manipulate text and paths, or incorporate elements from existing stock art, to make a truly unique logo. Logos exported in vector format from Illustrator can be safely distributed to internal marketing teams, vendors, and partners without risking pixellation or loss of quality.
• Creating or editing vector illustrations. You may frequently need items such as icons for your website, visual aids for a presentation, or supporting graphics for a whitepaper. Creating these graphics in Illustrator will allow you to export them to other applications without sacrificing quality.
• Simple print projects. Illustrator is the king of simple print projects like business cards, postcards or signs that don’t require heavy manipulation of paragraphs of text. The ease of layout in Illustrator plus the ability to manipulate vector objects and text directly from the artboard make it the ideal candidate. Illustrator will output vector-based text to prevent any pixellation in the finished product.

InDesign

InDesign is the master of multi-page layouts. InDesign combines the most useful vector-editing functionalities with its robust text processing features. InDesign allows you to package together all the fonts and images used in your project for easy delivery to the printer or export to PDF. Here are some of the most valuable uses of InDesign:

• Multi-page documents. Many of the brochures, magazines, and whitepapers you see today were laid out using InDesign. Features like character and paragraph styles for consistency, page numbering, text wrap and auto-fill make designing corporate marketing and sales collateral a breeze.
• Data-merged material. With InDesign’s powerful data merge technology, it’s easy to create documents that have corresponding data, such as name badges, or numbered items like tickets. Using a master page template without painstakingly laying out each individual item can save hours of time and effort.

Bringing it all together

More often than not, you will be leveraging a combination of these applications to finalize your print or web projects. For example, you may create the perfect shape for a button in Illustrator, but then bring it into Photoshop as a Vector Smart Object to add advanced shadowing or raster effects. Or, you may create a cool background for your magazine in Photoshop, but place it into InDesign as a master page object before you start laying out text. These tools are always evolving and new features are added with every release, so my advice is to experiment and have fun pushing the limits of the software.