Produce a magazine using Photoshop?

Dave!

Hi,

I'm considering producing a magazine of some sort, as an experiment if nothing else, and I was wondering – is it possible to do it using Photoshop? I have InDesign and Illustrator, but I'm not very comfortable working with them. I am quite comfortable with Photoshop though, so if it were possible to use it I'd like to do that.

What file format would a printer expect a magazine to be sent as? Presumably PDF, but is there a particular order that the pages should be ordered, etc.?

Thanks for any advice

biketard

Hey, Dave!

Well you CAN do it all in Photoshop, but it's a lot more work than it needs to be. Illustrator is OK for doing layout for a small number of pages, but anything more than, say, eight pages, and it's just not an efficient way to go about it. Out of the three software packages you've got, InDesign is the desktop publishing one, and it's the one you should be using for the magazine. It would be worth your time to wrap your head around it, because it will save you a load of time in the future. It's really not hard to get fairly comfortable with (PM me if you've any questions--I'll be glad to help), and for the slightly more tricky things like creating a table of contents, well, a but of study will get you competent at that in no time.

I say all this as someone who started with Photoshop and resisted learning Illustrator and InDesign cos I thought I could do it all in Photoshop. Again, yes, it's possible, but it's not a good (or efficient) way to do it.

In my experience, printers will mostly be happy with pdf (at least 300dpi for any embedded images, but you can talk to your printer about that). I know why you think you may have to re-order the pages, but I've never had a printer ask me to to that. I think they're well set up for dealing with that themselves. There are a few other things to consider, such as RGB vs CMYK, or whether you need to outline text (which changes the fonts to actual graphic images), but again, you can talk to your printer about that. They're usually very happy to tell you what works best for them.

P.S. This is just my own experience, mostly from writing manuals--others may have different advice.

Dave!

Thanks a lot mate, very helpful!

I have been resistant to closing Photoshop; I managed to do a printed leaflet thing recently (1 A4 page front and back) in Photoshop, so was thinking I might do a full magazine the same way :pac: But I guess it might not be scalable to do it that way.

Alright maybe I'll give InDesign a go! If you've any recommendations of tutorials or any other resources, I'd appreciate that!

biketard

Hey Dave!

I'd say you're OK doing an A4 in Photoshop. Depending on the content, you may or may not be better using Illustrator for that, but it all depends on how much of the content will be text, how much will be bitmap images (photos, snazzy embellishments, etc.) and how much could be done using vector graphics.

Again, a magazine COULD be done in Photoshop, but seriously, it's like cleaning a floor with a toothbrush when there's a huge floor scrubber sitting right there, but you've never learned how to plug it in.

I think I mostly learned InDesign using the software's own help files They're basically tutorials, and quite easy to follow. Same with Illustrator. Anything I couldn't work out, I'd just Google (again, you're welcome to PM me or post here if you get stuck on anything specific). Obviously, any bitmap images you need would be done first in Photoshop and then imported in, but then I'm sure you already know that. So in that respect, it's good that you're already proficient in Photoshop. It's not like learning Illustrator or InDesign will mean Photoshop is no longer required.

I know InDesign might seem a little overwhelming at first, but basically all you need to know is how to set up a new document, size it accordingly, work out how to make text automatically flow from one page to another and possibly how to set up a table of contents which will automatically update. You could learn all of that in a couple of days if you set your mind to it.