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Nancy Melucci
Courses Plus Student 35,157 PointsDo I need to learn Photoshop?
I enrolled in the Techdegree and finally have time to start working through the Treehouse classes I will need to finish it. I am on Responsive Images and Nick is using Photoshop. Do I need to get that program and learn it? I can also take a community college class in using it, (so not expensive) should I be considering enrolling in that course in 2016-2017? Thanks. NJM
5 Answers
Zachary Kaufman
1,463 PointsIts really up to you I think, most people when they make websites work in teams that way the weight of everything (programming and design) doesn't fall on a single person. BUT if you want your websites to look exactly how you want them too, then yes you should probably learn Photoshop so that you can create your own photos to put into your websites. I'd personally try to learn Photoshop, you have the opportunity too and you certainly won't loss anything by learning it. Your websites will be more unique if you do, so I would personally learn Photoshop but that's just a suggestion :) good luck with your Techdegree!
Jason Anders
Treehouse Moderator 145,858 PointsHey Nancy,
I agree with Zachary. I don't feel that you need to learn Photoshop, but if you have the resources and are able to, then I would learn it. It can't hurt you, but it will give you that extra edge over developers who don't know it.
Liliana Brissos
7,686 PointsIt's really down to personal preference and what you're intending to use it for primarily.
Personally, I taught myself Photoshop as a Photographer but in my new role as a Junior Web Developer I haven't used it at all as I found that there's better tools out there that suit my workflow.
A popular alternative to Photoshop for web design, which creative agencies nowadays tend to lean towards, is Sketch.
Treehouse have a great course on getting up and running with Sketch and they also offer a sweet discount of 50% on the purchase of Sketch 3 :)
Nancy Melucci
Courses Plus Student 35,157 PointsThank you everyone. I am sorry I can only choose 1 answer. I will take that course at the college AND the Sketch tutorial. Have a great weekend, wherever you are...
Mayur Pande
Courses Plus Student 11,711 PointsHi,
Great answers, I am kind of in the same boat here. As I am more of a php developer I am not the greatest designer. But keep getting people to ask me to design for them, am thinking of branching out and learning to use a tool like photoshop/illustrator but now sketch seems interesting.
Can sketch files be used on Adobe as well?
Liliana Brissos
7,686 PointsYou can export Sketch files as JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDF or EPS, and SVG.
However, PSD: Adobe Photoshop’s file format is closed and not supported for export. If you have access to Adobe Creative Suite, you can export your work as PDF and import to Illustrator. From there, export the project as a PSD file.
And AI: Adobe Illustrator files are not supported, but Illustrator can open PDF or SVG files exported from Sketch.
Hope that helps!