In fact, years ago Corel made a great move when they built in more pixel/raster support for images.
There are free demo versions of all of the software mentioned (Adobe, Autodesk, Maxon Cinema 4D, etc.Never leave a piece of photorealistic artwork untouched.Īlthough Adobe Photoshop is the defacto standard raster/pixel based program that the world uses for pixel based images – many of the tools found in Photoshop are also found in Corel Draw and Corel Photopaint.
A small majority of us medical illustrators use Cinema 4D because it is pretty much as powerful as Maya, but it is famous for having the most intuitive user interface of all 3D software- its a very clean experience and has a large community of scientific illustrators handy to answer questions specific to scientific visualization (search google groups), however, getting an academic or student license is still a bit tricky and involves registering your entire university before students can apply for licenses, so you'll likely have to pay a few hundred for the commercial version of the academic license, and the "street price" is ~$3,500 US for the full package. Maya is powerful, but it also takes a career to learn, so its definitely worth considering if you plan to shift careers into scientific visualization, but otherwise you may prefer something easier. They also have a new R&D team working on biology specific projects. it doesn't have to be: The package Maya from Autodesk is incredibly powerful- the workhorse of Hollywood, and Autodesk is brilliantly forward thinking offering free 3 year licenses to academics. I've seen dozens of researchers get introduced to 3D via Blender and effectively just never touch 3D again because its such a nightmare experience. As many others have already mentioned, in 3D, the software package Blender is very powerful and a free open-source project, but it has one of the least intuitive user interfaces I've ever experienced, so unless you are a programmer or plan to do 3D as an open-source hobby, or really really really want to spend $0 forever, I'd steer clear of it. Photoshop is not intuitive either, but after a half day's worth of tutorials or a workshop, most researchers can perform most of the tasks they need quickly and efficiently compared to GIMP, so ask yourself if you have more time or money to decide which route is best. I've had people use free software in my classes and have explored it myself, but unless you used it on a very regular basis, it tends to be highly limiting- not in its capabilities, but in its usability and intuitiveness. Also, design students interested in building a portfolio are also potential allies. Some of his projects are netting him a thousand a month (100 for his designer) - that's good pay for a book cover to receive "forever." If co-authorship is important to someone creative (someone in a design college perhaps), they might be willing to help for free. Another of my colleagues, a very successful author, gives a graphic designer friend a cut of his electronic book sales. Get someone to help you if you have a reliable friend or have a budget for it. Being able to visualize something well and create a compelling graphic is not something most academics are trained to do. Indeed, many of the newspaper informational graphic designers are excellent, I included their work in a chapter on design and infographics in my Public Relations Writing book a few years ago.
One of my colleagues designed informational graphics for newspapers before he became a professor a few years ago ( ).
Pay attention to informational graphics in other publications (newspapers, books, etc.) and save copies of the work and the designer. Start a "swipe file" (a cardboard box or folder on your computer where you collect samples of excellent designs of all kinds that you can browse when you need ideas). Obviously there are many excellent design professionals as well, but I recommend finding a designer whose work you like and going to them directly.
I have been involved in several projects where someone was hired for their design skills and never delivered, refused to make changes to their initial design, refused to provide final document files so that changes that they refused to make could be made, asked for more money after putting in what looks like a few hours work, download their designs from the internet, etc. I agree with Ariane, but there are a lot of bad (lazy, incompetent, etc.) designers out there.