Goodbye Photoshop. Hello Sketch
I started using Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator while attending The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. CS2 was all the rage and quickly becoming the industry standard. I didn’t think twice about the cost. It was an investment in the tools I would be using when I graduated. You paid for the suite you wanted, installed the software on your computer and called it a day.
Halfway through college Adobe released the CS3 Creative Suite. I had just bought CS2 and now there was a newer version. I held out as long as I could, but eventually I upgraded. This pattern of holding out and trying to get more mileage on my software continued for years. Adobe then moved to the cloud. A monthly subscription service for their products.
“Creative Cloud gives you our entire collection of creative tools for your desktop, like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Adobe Premiere Pro. Plus some really great mobile apps so you can create whatever you want wherever you are. And all your creative assets, including Adobe Stock, are always right where you need them.”
–Adobe’s elevator pitch for the current creative cloud.
At first I was thrilled about the idea of having so many powerful tools at my fingertips. Then I realized there was only a handful of actual programs and functions that I use. I don’t need Photoshop’s mosaic tool or all the nifty photo editing capabilities. I’m a UX designer and a good, solid vector application would handle 99% of all my work. I think I simply kept using Adobe products because their weren’t any good viable alternatives.
Until now. Enter Sketch. A tool that has freed me from a monthly subscription. It simpler. It doesn’t nearly doall the things that Illustrator and Photoshop can. But I don’t need all of those things.
My co-worker Paolo turn me on to Sketch as a possible replacement. Sketch is made specifically for designing websites, user interfaces, icons, and mobile ui. It’s a vector powerhouse with a simple interface and some super helpful features.
For example, when I design icons for mobile I often need @1x, @2x @3x sizes. Sketch’s export feature makes this a snap!
Editing paths are also a snap. This visual too below makes it clear what the point on your path will do.
As with any new tool, there is always a small ramp up period. Treehouse has an excellent Sketch Basics Course.
And for those of you who loved the shortcuts in Photoshop, below is how you do them in Sketch.
Here are some other nifty Sketch Resources:
I have been using Sketch as my main tool for six months and I really like it. I have finally found a good replacement for Photoshop. But what if I really need to do some pixel pushing? If I do need to do some photo manipulation I will pick up Pixelmator .
Photoshop, it has been real but I’m moving on.
