Get advice to help you create your t-shirt graphics. Discuss t-shirt design software, special effect techniques, or other topics related to creating a t-shirt design on your computer. If you'd rather hire a graphic designer to do the work for you, please post in our Referrals and Recommendations section here.
I'm creating a clothing line that has more focus on statements and words rather than the graphic. I'm looking for a program that has the biggest range in shaping and editing text. I've taken a class on photoshop and know how to mess around with it, but one thing I don't like about it is that it doesn't allow me to move my text around with enough precision. Is there a better image editing software that I should look into? What's the difference between Illustrator and Photoshop?
Photoshop moves text with I believe, pixel level precision. It's a very fine increment of movement, but you may have to zoom in close to "nudge by tiny increment. The vector applications like Illustrator will let you choose the size of the increment of movement. So if you select an object and press an arrow key, it will move by the amount you've chosen. As far as I can tell, Photoshop though is more than precise enough for anything I've ever seen or put on a t-shirt. Try selecting your text/object, zooming in close and nudging it with the arrow keys. You shouldn't have any problems. Make sure you working with at least 300 dpi in Photoshop, and actual print size or greater.
For any type that you would expect to print on a t-shirt, Photoshop is more than enough. Scaling, moving, etc are done at pixel level. You can move an object by 1 pixel. 1 pixel in a 300dpi document is roughly a quarter of a point Nothing on a t-shirt is that detailed. Traps range from a half point to 1 point and they're meant to be invisible.
Yes, even Kerning and tracking have microscopic adjustment in Photoshop. Maybe you're using the key commands for these which only move by increments of "20". If you press Control T to get the type panel. Select some text or letters in your document, and place your cursor over the "AV" label tracking or kerning box, hold Alt, click and slide left or right and it will move your kerning/tracking by increments of 1! This is very fine movement, and should serve you well for any t-shirt job. As for Photoshop 7, I've been with Photoshop since version 3. I can't remember having any t-shirt job that has ever needed finer adjustment than what Photoshop has offered. I don't remember when improvements were made, but I suspect that this fine kerning and tracking has been there for a very long time. Certainly during the time of PS7, that's when Photoshop was really starting to take off.
I have to say that my favorite for text is CorelDraw. Although it is a PITA for some things it allows the user to easily manipulate text.
I have found that many sign guys use Corel for this reason, and perhaps this is why I use it since I started out as a sign designer.
But with out a doubt any vector based program be it Illy or CorelDraw or Inkscape would be better then a photo editing program.
If your new to vector programs use Illustrator. If I could flip a switch in my head I would (although I love Corel) the entire graphic design world uses adobe, and I often at times have conversion problems.
But old habits die hard.
What program to use for focusing on text 
