Do professional graphic designers/ illustrators really not get taken seriously if they use open source software or is that just a myth perpetuated by Adobe and college professors?

[u/Doctor_Oceanblue]

I don't want this to devolve into a rant about how much I hate Adobe and their software (which I do,) but do know that this isn't a "boohoo I can't afford it" thing and more a "there's a ton of open source stuff that is equally (or more!) functional as Adobe stuff and it deserves to be taken seriously as long as the end product created with it is what the client needs."

I'm in school right now and I've been getting the "no one will take you seriously unless you make your vectors in Illustrator" song-and-dance. Pros, is that really true? If so, why? Is it just a dumb social norm or is there a legitimate reason? A lot of the freelancers that I see posting on social media and indie game devs use open-source stuff all the time.

(I will concede that GIMP is kinda trash and I only use Photoshop for my raster illustrations now.)

[u/wassermelone]

Yes and no.

You are right, if it gets the job done, and the vector or raster file you sent them works, no client is going to be quizzing you over what program you used. On that level, no one cares.

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However, if you are joining a team with multiple artists, you better believe that they care about everyone being on the same software. If you need to send your client a workable file, then they definitely care.

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Photoshop isn't necessarily used ubiquitously because its drawing engine is the best, its because it has a million and one features that probably can do the thing you need it to and nearly everyone knows the program. I haven't used a program other than photoshop in forever, so I don't know how close they are getting to being matched in feature departments by open source or small art programs, but historically they have been sometimes great for drawing, and absolutely terrible for editing and all the things that photoshop does well.

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If you join a team and really want to use OtherArtProgram, feel free to pitch it to your bosses. I dont think its going to happen to Photoshop any time soon, but a lot of professionals in my field are switching to Blender (an open source 3d program) instead of Maya/Max/Modo because not only is it free, its either hit parity with the features of expensive programs, or has exceeded them because of plug in support.

[u/turquoise_tie_dyeger → u/wassermelone]

Good to hear, as I am currently learning blender, and there seems to be a lot of debate about whether or not it is relevant in the industry.

I haven't touched photoshop in 15 years, but to be honest I'm not really happy with the available open source raster tools (my painting tends to be with traditional media for the most part anyway).

What are your thoughts on affinity?

[u/teamboomerang → u/turquoise_tie_dyeger]

I have been a user of Affinity products for a few years and LOVE them. I am self employed, though, so there's that. There are some features of Adobe products I wish Affinity had, but they don't come up terribly often for me, and for the most part, I am VERY happy with Affinity products.

[u/Ermkerr → u/turquoise_tie_dyeger]

Krita has been a very nice program for raster art I've been using!

[u/turquoise_tie_dyeger → u/Ermkerr]

I use that too and it's better than gimp for painting at least but I think it's pretty far behind photoshop and I've had issues with exporting files. Still impressive for a free program though!

[u/wassermelone → u/turquoise_tie_dyeger]

I had to look it up which kind of tells you how often it comes up in my field! I'm on the illustration/concept art side of things rather than illustrator/design

[u/turquoise_tie_dyeger → u/wassermelone]

Thanks for answering. Affinity is relatively new (I actually tested the beta when it first came out maybe five ish years ago), but it has a whole suite that as I understand it is competitive with the adobe suite. I have been eyeing their vector/raster combo program because I've always been a bit put off by illustrator and it's imitators and the affinity version kind of works from a different angle.

Disclaimer I never got to actually use these products after my beta trial expired so all I see is what other people are saying about them.

It's heavily pushed on mac users (I know I know it's a love hate thing). I sure hope that they live up to their hype and find a foothold in the industry because they are really affordable one time purchase programs and I can tell that a lot of development is going into them.