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Re: TCS v4: Where's Photoshop?!

Subject: Re: TCS v4: Where's Photoshop?!
From: Lauren <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:02:42 -0800

On 1/11/2013 1:27 AM, jimmy -at- breck-mckye -dot- com wrote:

Does a technical writer really need Photoshop? Maybe Elements for crops and simple edge effects, but a full PS license seems a bit overkill.

I think it depends on the quality of the artwork the TW has to use and whether various things need to be added or removed to the artwork, like for copyright issues and in cases where the documentation precedes development. I used Photoshop years ago and then PaintShop Pro came out for free on Tucows. I continue to use PaintShop because it is better for web graphics and I use Photoshop for high-end graphics. GIMP and other free apps work well for general image manipulation and are easily stored on a USB drive for a portable office.

I have had great frustration with some clients who want me to use their computers for documentation and they want graphics in the document but refuse to provide any sort of graphics program other than Paint. A few times, I have been provided large bitmaps and asked to use those in documentation. The client systems were so old that the documentation would crash the computer while loading graphics. I would copy and paste the graphics into PowerPoint or Word and use the conversion options available in those programs to reduce the size of the graphics. It took time and I think it would have been more cost effective for my clients to give me access to a graphics program or let me load GIMP.


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References:
TCS v4: Where's Photoshop?!: From: Keith Hansen
Re: TCS v4: Where's Photoshop?!: From: jimmy

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