Bryce, Poser, Photo Shop? Help, I'm lost!

DeluxeNames

Ok, in the last week I've heard of too many new types of Graphic Design software that I'm not familier with:

Bryce (sounds like someone's name)
Poser (sounds like a fake Graphic artist trying to look legit)
Photo Shop
Paint Shop Pro

Which mainstream Graphic Art software is missing from my list? Can anyone please explain what the best of these softwares is? If we are not Graphic Artists and we might play around with just one of them, which would you reccommend?

What's your favorite?

Nuvo

Bryce is a 3D modelling application, though it isn't quite up to the same standard as the widely used 3D Studio Max.

Poser is a tool for posing and editing character models and props, often from it's prefab library.
The editing in Poser is limited to build types, colours and a few other things and the scenes you can make with it are often simple as you're supposed to export the models to a proper 3D editor.
Some editors like Cinema 4D have some Poser models as scene objects, but if you can avoid using Poser models, you should as it's often very easy to spot a Bryce backdrop with a Poser figure in it.

Photoshop is Adobe's photo editing suite which used to be in competition with PaintShop Pro and a few Macromedia products.
Photoshop is hailed as the graphics editor and since PSP is slowly dying and Adobe owns Macromedia, there's not much to say otherwise.

Paint Shop Pro used to be a big player, but has died back recently.

Macromedia Fireworks is possibly one of the biggest and best vector editing tools that's released commercially.
It does a lot and is pretty nice to use, but it's not the only tool out there that does vectoring well.

Inkscape is a free SVG and vector graphics editor that runs on a few different OS's.
While it does what it does well, it's SVG compliance means that it lacks non-SVG features such as feathering.
Inkscape feels very much like Xara Xtreme as they both have a similar interface and some of the same key commands.

Xara Xtreme is a vector editor from Xara Software (UK).
Xara has been the most innovative name in vector editing since the Titans roamed free, but they haven't always been the top dog as larger companies like Macromedia came onto the scene.
Xara Xtreme is released as a commercial application under Windows, but has been ported as an open source project by Xara in an attempt to go where other companies won't.
It's actually pretty neat and my editor of choice right now.

GIMP is a free, multi-platform photo editor that's designed for the same sort of tasks Photoshop is for, but it's interface can annoy people as it makes it a pain to use.
A version of it called GIMPshop aims to fix this by making it look like Photoshop.

If you're looking to get some realistic effects, it might also be worth looking at ArtRage and Pixia as both are free.
Pixia aims to provide Photoshop like tools for creating paintings and things like Anime while ArtRage is pretty much built for use with a drawing tablet and is aimed at painters that want a realistic feel to their tools.

Katra

Poser is now far more advanced now, particularly with the morphs that can be applied to create different characters. There is no longer a need to export to any other 3D program. Poser has work rooms for material. morphs, hair etc., and one can create a character that is far more sophisticated than a lot of 3D programs. Effects and lighting are superb.

Photoshop is a Rolls Royce and ideal for postwork and is what I regard as an artists tool, great for postwork etc. and actual "creation"

Paint Shop Pro is like the Ford car in comparison to Photoshop, very good for the nuts and bolts creativity and super for learners.

Bryce is one of the most interesting programs to use, it needs a few more facilities but then every program needs a tweak tool wise. Bryce can create some phenomenal effects. I am at the moment teaching a course on Bryce and the best thing about it is that each persons input on one lesson creates an individual piece of art.

Vue by e-on software is my all time favourites but is sooooooo expensive.

JaredRitchey

All very good information; Yes, one extra thing Bryant is that the rumor mill suggests that since Adobe owns Macromedia now that fireworks may fade away as a product and have its features integrated into Photoshop at some point.

Naturally there is no way to go beyond speculation at this point but logic would suggest keeping them both now that Microsoft has grown intollerant of Adobe and its attitude toward Microsoft prompting the giant to develop its own suite of web developer tools including a competing product for Photoshop.

Microsoft would never sit back idle and allow Adobe to grab such a huge market without Microsofts permission. LOL

Editors. Download the beta from Microsoft while its still free to do so. Its not bad. A bit HEAVY but it has great features.

~ Jared

daboss

go for photoshop when editing raster graphics and illustrator when drawing/creating vector graphics...

i've self-taught myself some photoshop but am only starting with illustrator... both are excellent pieces of software...

DeluxeNames

Nuvo, Katra, Jared, and Daboss, thanks for that excellent explaination

I can't wait until there is an industry standard among these options as there are too many choices.

Jared, do you know the download link to that beta of the new Microsoft product that's free?

Nuvo

Macromedia Fireworks isn't likely to be killed off so quickly as it's a big name in vector editing while Photoshop is 90% raster editing.
While it's possible that Fireworks' vector tools will be integrated into Photoshop, it's not likely to be killed off as quickly as Freehand.
Adobe will probably drop their own WYSIWYG HTML editors before dropping Dreamweaver as Dreamweaver is one of the biggest names in commercial web design tools.

Microsoft's new tools aren't entirely Microsoft developed.
Microsoft bought another company which made a number of different editing tools for graphics and web use and has rebranded and updated them a bit.
While they might be nice apps, many will stick to Adobe products.