Best Application for drawing

I wanted to create some tattoos and will be drawing freehand using my wacom tablet as well as some of the features included in the software , what is the best application for this out of Photoshop , Adobe Illustrator or the Corel Drawing software , ive heard Corel is a good one but I always imagined Photoshop as the 'be all and end all'.
Thank you

Have you tried inkscape?

http://www.inkscape.org/

Photoshop is the best overall. If you want superb paint-effects, however, go with Painter.

If all you want to to do is plug in your tablet, and start drawing freehand, you'll have much more immediate success with a raster based program like Photoshop or PSP than a vector based program like Illustrator or Corel Draw. The names of the vector programs are slightly deceiving in this regard. Using them is not well analogous to "drawing" in the traditional sense. They're both great programs though, and you can do great things with vectors. Just don't expect it to feel like drawing. For that you want rasters, and the best raster program is Photoshop.

If you're looking for a natural media feel (you're probably not with tattoos, but for other things maybe), then Michael's suggestion of Painter is a good one. I was going to suggest Deep Paint 2, since it's free, and it can plug right into Photoshop, but it seems it's not available anymore at download.com. I hope that's just an error or something, and that it's not gone for good. It was there just a few months ago. It's not as full featured as Painter, but it works really well. If you can find it, it's worth having.

As Chosen mentioned, working in vector-based applications with a stylist is a massive bitch, and takes some serious getting used to--I'd rather use a mouse in Illustrator.

I agree with Chosen and Micheal about Photoshop and Painter, though do have to say from an actual *feel* point of view, Painter does appear to have a better immediate handle on pressure sensitivity. I am far more likely to get something that *looks* like a pencil did it, with all the tonal variations and such, with Painter, than I am with Photoshop. On the other hand, Photoshop is great for blocking out colour and form quickly, so whether I end up finishing my digital work with Photoshop OR Painter, i usually block in my colours quickly in PS.

From a tattoo point of view, given that you'll probably want to deal a lot with transparencies and getting the tattoo to look like it should be on skin, PS is far more equipped to handle that, imo. If you do end up vectoring something out in Illustrator too (such as a tribal tattoo - though you should also be able to do this with the Pen tool in PS), you can still import it and manipulate it in PS later.

Thanks for all your help , this answered all my questions , I am currently trying to learn a graphics program properly and your suggestions will help me in deciding which one i'll choose , thank again!

Phaedra,

I've found that freehand drawing, even using a tablet, is less than satisfactory. There's not a tight enough feedback link between your hand and the onscreen cursor.

There are two ways to overcome this, one very cheap, the other very expensive.

The expensive way is to get an Intuos Cintiq tablet/monitor device. On this, you draw directly on the monitor surface. It's like an electronic version of pencil and paper. The problem is, it costs about $2,500. A very good choice if you make your living in the graphics arts, but out of reach of the casual user.

The cheap way is to simply use a pencil and paper. Sketch out your design. Scan it into the computer, and use it as a template to trace your final design into Photoshop.

I disagree, Lindal. Drawing with a tablet just takes a little getting used to is all. And you have to make sure you have the right one. If you've got anything other than a Wacom, the experience will be unpleasant. There is Wacom and then there is junk. It's that simple. Nothing else is even comes remotely close.

I find drawing with a tablet to be slightly superior, actually, to drawing directly on screen. When you're drawing right on ANY surface, whether it's a screen or piece of paper or canvas, your hand and the tip of your instrument obscure some of the work. With a tablet though, there's nothing bocking any portion of the image, ever. It's a small thing, of course, and not one most people would ever think about, but it is a real difference.

The awkwardness in the beginning disappears quickly as you get used to the feel of drawing on one surface while looking at another. You just have to keep at it.

And speaking of that, you'll find that "drawing blind" is fantastic exercise for any visual artist. In the best art classes, instructors routinely have students do this. Look at your subject while drawing, without ever looking at the paper until the drawing is finished. With enough practice, your eyes and your hands learn to trust each other. You end up drawing just as well, if not better, by not looking at the paper than by looking it it. In the beginning, the results are most often disastrous, but over time, they get MUCH better.

If you do this exercise regularly, the improvement to your overall drawing skills can be immense. By never taking your eyes off your subject, your eyes learn to study the subject's shape in a way they otherwise would never have time to learn to do, and your hands end up learning to mimic your eye movements with great precision. It's a wonderful skill to develop, and it preps you perfectly for drawing on a tablet.

And by the way, you already do it, to an extent. You never have to look at your mouse in order to move it exactly the way you want, right? You just keep looking at the screen, and you don't even think about what your hand is doing to make the cursor move. You just do it. The mouse is second nature because you've been using it for years. After a time, the tablet becomes just as natural.