Till now I wasn’t quite well acquainted with CorelDRAW. It was recently when I had to start learning Corel pertaining to my work needs. Photoshop and Corel are masterpiece softwares for 2D graphic designing. Photoshop used to be god for me till I stumbled on to Corel. Then I realized when it comes to vector based designing, nothing can beat Corel. Corel is perfect for vector graphics. Photoshop is wonderful to work on if you are working with bitmap.

Bitmap vs vector

Bitmap vs vector

Vector : Is a type of graphic where lines are defined by mathematical descriptions. So, no matter what the zoom is, the line would never get pixellated. Details are not lost.

Bitmap : Bitmap is made up of number of dots called pixels. So, if a bimap graphic is zoomed, unlike the mathematical curves in vector, each pixel gets zoomed and the image looses clarity.

Thus, working with Vector is obviously rewarding when you have to enlarge the graphic to unusually high resolution. You would finally have a zoomed image without any loss of quality. Vectors also have a small size if stored in vector supported format like Corel’s ‘.CDR’.

Its not just lines. Texture or gradient fills can also be vectors. Unlike bitmap textures and gradients they don’t loose the color detail at the transition. No matter what the zoom is.

When I learnt to use Photoshop, I did it in a trial and error way. It took me a little more time to master but learning this way helped me to remember through mistakes. The best way to learn online is, looking at step by step tutorials and following them. This helps well to get well acquainted with the workspace, shortcuts and predefined techniques. I started with the Corel documentation at first. Now I’ve started to follow some random online Corel tutorials.

Photoshop:

Corel: