11-12-2014, 09:13 PM
I've tried several programs before buying PS - mostly Photoline 32, which is a PS clone but comparably cheap, a very old version of Corel Painter (never got really warm with it, and it crashed a lot), Pixelmator (still in it's baby shoes - good progam, but limited in its painting capacity when I tried it), and probably some others I don't remember ... but mainly worked with Photoline. Never tried Sai, Mangastudio or similar since I didn't know about these back then, or they were not available for Mac.
When I finally decided to just give PS a try, it kind of felt like someone had untied my hands, or removed clunky gloves from my hands - making nice strokes, pressure sensitivity, everything just felt SO much better! As if finally it is me who sucks and needs to get better, and not the program. So it was kind of a instant-decision to buy (with student's discount) and one I've never regretted, despite being quite hard on myself when spending money on stuff. Love on first sight :D
So I guess it's just mainly because it is - mostly - stable (more than Painter), and a high quality product since many years, so people got used to using it as a default option. As for courses, I don't think you really need Photoshop, if it is just about painting in general - but maybe instructors don't want to have to bother with people using weird programs that might make trouble during the course?
As for better line quality etc - I would suspect comic / linework heavy artists do indeed use other programs than PS for their work... or a mix of programs, using the strengths of each.
When I finally decided to just give PS a try, it kind of felt like someone had untied my hands, or removed clunky gloves from my hands - making nice strokes, pressure sensitivity, everything just felt SO much better! As if finally it is me who sucks and needs to get better, and not the program. So it was kind of a instant-decision to buy (with student's discount) and one I've never regretted, despite being quite hard on myself when spending money on stuff. Love on first sight :D
So I guess it's just mainly because it is - mostly - stable (more than Painter), and a high quality product since many years, so people got used to using it as a default option. As for courses, I don't think you really need Photoshop, if it is just about painting in general - but maybe instructors don't want to have to bother with people using weird programs that might make trouble during the course?
As for better line quality etc - I would suspect comic / linework heavy artists do indeed use other programs than PS for their work... or a mix of programs, using the strengths of each.