Should I use Adobe Illustrator for all my pattern making? Could I use Adobe Photoshop instead? Isn’t Adobe Illustrator the industry standard?

If you are new to the world of surface pattern design, chances are you’ve been asking yourself these questions, just as I did when I started out a couple of years ago.

Some artists will say that yes, the industry standard IS Adobe Illustrator because it’s a vector based program, while companies are not so keen on Adobe Photoshop as this is a raster program.

First things first, what is a vector image and what is a raster image?

A raster image is made up of pixels. These are tiny little dots of different colour and tone that put all close up together, produce and image. If you zoom a raster image you will actually be able to see these little dots that, for some reason, will show up as tiny squares. The bottom line is, you can’t enlarge a raster image indefinitely or, at one point, it will pixelate and become out of focus.

A vector image is made of anchored dots connected by lines and curves and they are infinitely scalable! That is why many people love this type of images as they don’t have to worry about image size beforehand. And it’s so easy to change the colours of your artwork!!

I actually love to use both programs depending on the type of art I want to create and how fast I want to be. I have to admit, I can create a pattern in a much faster way in Illustrator, while Photoshop will take more prep time and also more planning ahead.

However I do like Photoshop because I can retain that painterly feeling from the motifs I create in watercolor and the good news is, many artists work only, or primarily, with Photoshop and they have no problem whatsoever in licensing their patterns.

I learned Photoshop from a really great teacher, the lovely Sarah Watts. When I took her course I was afraid to even open the darn program! But she taught me everything I needed to know about the program so that now I feel so much more confident using it.

I loved her course, From Paint to Pattern, so much that I decided to become an affiliate of hers to spread the word to everyone who is still too scared to even try to use Photoshop. By the way, I still haven’t found an Adobe Photoshop course as comprehensive as From Paint to Pattern.

If you want to know more about it click on this LINK.

So what program do you use for your pattern design? Do you have a favorite?

Let me know in the comments!