Creating Clothing...what type of Photoshop?

Im just starting to dabble in clothing creation and need to know what version of Photoshop and/or Paint shop is needed for this. There are several versions of each product to get. What version is best for creating the textures needed for clothing? I know Paint Shop is much cheaper than some versions of Photoshop. Just not sure what type of Paintshop or Photoshop to get. Do I need a photo editing version or what? Any help or suggestions?Thanks!

You generally want a graphics application that will suport multiple layers, and that is capable of saving in a 32-bit TGA (Targa) file format.

Photoshop Elements offers a low-end range of tools. Not sure it can save tga files though.

Any full-function version of Photoshop works fine. I made do with Photoshop 7.0 for years, and only upgraded to Photoshop CS3 after an OS upgrade made PS 7 unable to run any more.

Thank you...dont want to buy a version that wont work for what I need! Thanks for the reply!

Just to add: Photoshop Elements does save as Targa. I don't make clothing (yet?) but it's worked fine for all the texturing I've done so far.

Great! Thanks

I seem to recall that a recent post in these forums stated that the older Photoshop Elements 3.0 could save tga's just fine, but version 4.0 lost that ability? May want to check the forum posts here, to be sure.

Yikes! I didn't realize that, Ceera. I'll check the version I have when I get back to that computer. That would be kind of a dumb thing to do, but nothing surprises me anymore.

Photoshop Elements will work, but only in a roundabout kind of way. It doesn't give you direct access to many of the requisite tools, so you need to learn the ways to do certain things in a far less obvious way. For best results, use the real Photoshop.

One thing to keep in mind is that, contrary to what the name would have you believe, PSE is not a scaled down version of PS. It's a completely separate program that just happens to share the first part of its name with Photoshop, and which has a similar interface. Its ancestry follows a different path than Photoshop's. Adobe just likes to capitalize on the Photoshop name as much as possible, which is why we now have programs like Photoshop Album, Photoshop Lightroom, and Photoshop Elements, all of which don't really have much, if anything at all, to do with Photoshop itself.

If you can afford the real Photoshop, by all means get it. If your budget is in the PSE range though, then I'd recommend Paintshop Pro. For the same amount of money, PSP delivers far more power than does PSE. PSP has gotten quite good in recent years, almost completely transforming itself from a program I really used to hate to one that I now really do like (just not nearly as much as I like Photoshop).

Just for the sake of thoroughness, I should also mention that GIMP will do the job as well. GIMP is almost as powerful as Photoshop, and it's free, which are both obviously great selling points on it. However, its interface is highly problematic for most people. It doesn't follow many of the principles that have become the standards of the rest of the graphics industry. People who are really into GIMP love it, and there's no talking them out of it. But most people tend to struggle with it (myself included).

Again, go with Photoshop if you can afford it. If you can't, then go with PSP. It doesn't hurt to give GIMP a try since it's free, but be prepared for a battle with it.

Actually, that's not the case. The experience reported in the thread you're referring to was a simple case of user error. The author was just working in the wrong color space. He/she never responded to confirm after I pointed it out, but from the file formats he/she listed that were showing as available, it was obvious that he/she was working in CMYK mode instead of RGB. None of the RGB formats were on his/her list (TGA, BMP, etc.). Everything that was listed was CMYK.

Since TGA is a format intended for the screen, not for print, a CMYK document cannot be saved as TGA. It must be converted to RGB first (or better yet, started in RGB to begin with).

All versions of PSE can save TGA files. Putting alpha channels in them has to be done in a very non-obvious way (explained in the transparency guide at the top of the forum), but it works just fine.

OK, glad to hear that, Chosen.