Screen Printers Open - A Forum for Screen Printing and Embroidery

i found a book that has helped me.  It's called "Photoshop 7.0 for Screen Printers" published by Ballew.  I think i got it from Amazon.  i found several things out there but finding something specific to screen printing is the challenge. 

www.lynda.com for a few months and then Youtube as needed,,,,,

Do people in the screen printing world use illustrator or photoshop more? I am definitely one of the worst excuses for a "graphic designer" but use primarily Illustrator. Should I be focusing more effort on learning the other? What are the primary differences as far as what you can do in one that you can not do in the other?

Thanks!

I've worked primarily in Illustrator and have very good experience in Freehand at the beginning stages since Sept. of 1989.

I can say that I'm very good in Illustrator. I taught Illustrator and also taught Photoshop at a community college. I have trained many others in my own workplaces along the way as it pertains to screen print art. With that said, I currently use Photoshop about 85-95% of the time for both creating my own art as well as separating other peoples art.

I can say for sure, that if all I had was Photoshop, I could continue running your print shop and never miss a beat. That includes all flat/solid vector looking art like  Logo's.

While I use it and like it over all other programs, I still purchase and operate the others so that I can accommodate all of my customers with their unique individual needs.

I bought a book from Lynda.com on Dreamweaver years ago and the tutorial seemed pretty thorough. With Photoshop, there's so much stuff in there I sometimes wonder if anyone knows everything about it. Kind of like the tax code, except with Photoshop, at least you really get your money's worth. If I had to use only one program, that would be it.

I found PS a bit confusing at first because I started with vector first, mostly Freehand, then Illy. So, I started trying to do just one thing at a time, so it wouldn't be so overwhelming. It's a lot like playing the guitar, it's easy to do a few simple things, hard as hell to master. There was no web to search out when I started, so I had to learn a lot through reading and trying out what I read. Just take it slow, you'll be fine.