What jobs can I get with Photoshop skills?

You have learnt Photoshop and now you are wondering what jobs are available to you with your Photoshop skills. The good news is that there are plenty of jobs on the market especially with the digitalisation of e-commerce and the rise in online businesses. In addition, there are increasingly more people who are either home working or home learning or both.

Jobs with Photoshop skills

As technology evolves and more Photoshop professionals are needed to enhance websites photos, logos and images so too are graphic designers. Graphic designers can work as freelance contractors, as part of corporate agencies or in-house at companies. Starting salaries typically range from £17,000 to £24,000 in the UK. From  print houses and media advertising to film and television, there is an absolute myriad of job roles related to a career in graphic design, and knowing Photoshop will help you get on your way. Job roles that include illustrators, animators, concept artists, and web designers can all benefit from a qualification in graphic design.

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However, even though it might be possible to find jobs that will be mentioned below knowing only Photoshop without other software makes it difficult to find jobs requiring other Adobe software.

Photoshop alone can make it harder to get some of these jobs, as in some cases you are required to have a large knowledge base of software designing skills. So, before we go on to tell you what jobs you can have with your Photoshop skills, let’s have a look at what Photoshop is and understand what it is used for?

So, what exactly is Photoshop?

Jobs with Photoshop skills

Adobe Photoshop is the most extensively used software tool for, image manipulation, photo editing, photo retouching, image creation, and adding effects. Photoshop is a keystone for photographers, graphic artists, graphic designers, web developers, and many other creative professionals and it can be used in a versatile way. Photoshop tends to be used for editing, creating, and retouching images as well as adding special effects. Graphics can be created and then exported to other programs. The truth is that Adobe Photoshop is the most extensively used software tool for, image manipulation, photo editing, photo retouching, image creation, and adding effects.

With Photoshop it is very easy to enhance, create, and edit images, artwork, and illustrations. It makes it possible for designers to create visual brand identities for print and digital media on behalf of their client and perform simple functions, such as erasing a blemish from a photo, or advanced photo editing and creation. While there are a few Photoshop versions you can choose from the latest version of Photoshop is Photoshop 2022.

Photoshop is a very important tool for designers, graphic artists, web developers, photographers, and creative professionals. So, if you have any of these skills there are many job opportunities out there that can make use of Photoshop professionals around the globe.

So what job opportunities are there?

Below we give you a list of the most common jobs that use Photoshop on their day to day activities.

Graphic Designer

Jobs with Photoshop skills

Whilst there are some slight variations based on the organisation you may be working for there are some common duties expected of a graphic designer. Here are some of the things you are going to
find yourself doing as a graphic designer:

* Meeting and greeting with clients and taking briefs to understand what they want out of a project, and helping them get those ideas out in a workable way;

* Drafting a design brief so it fits a client’s budget and expectations;

* Creating designs by sketching with your hand or using computer software to achieve similar ends;

* Pitching an idea and touting for business so as to actualize a client’s requirements;

* Designing advertisements, books, letterheads, stationery , annual reports, brochures, logos, magazine covers, signs, stickers, tee shirts, web pages and other branding and communication materials;

* Revising a design or project deliverable to meet specifications;

* Learning how to use a new software program.

Keeping in mind, that most job opportunities as a graphic designer require more than just Photoshop knowledge (a common prerequisite is knowing illustrator and InDesign), though it is still possible to get a job as a graphic designer by knowing only Photoshop.

While there are a few ways to get trained up such as going to university, taking a course, or learning it yourself, by enroling yourself onto some form of education will help you massively along the way to becoming a graphic designer. A course that teaches you the  fundamental skills needed to become a graphic designer will often open many more opportunities than just passively watching videos or reading a book, especially with theory and portfolio building- a prerequisite for when it comes to interviewing for a graphic designer role.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpCTA4LlEmI

You may be able to get the skills and training you need to work as a graphic designer through a technical training program and through software training courses such as the 0110 graphic design course at Blue Sky Graphics.

Jobs with Photoshop skills

Designers often need to know how to create visual products for print and digital media, from newspapers to corporate branding.  They often need to design books, magazines, flyers, posters, business cards, and much more. Graphic designers use Photoshop efficiently to add or subtract elements to and from images, to combine text into a photo or to totally transform the universe of an image.

A graphic designer can be requested to design a company’s logo on illustrator and then incorporate it into a photograph using Photoshop or could be required to put together a book using master’s in InDesign.

If you are serious about becoming a graphic designer and enjoy the prospect of enriching lives and progressing society, using creativity and technology to build a better-connected world then why wait until tomorrow? Perhaps you should consider enroling yourself onto a professionally led graphic designers course with the direction and guidance of a tutor to help you build a portfolio. At Blue Sky Graphic we help our students with the full benefit of job opportunities and how to best find freelance work.

Web designer

A web designer is a professional that is responsible for designing the layout, visual appearance, and usability of a website.

Jobs with Photoshop skills

Web design includes all the elements of a website such as a font, colour, typography, and content. It is about the aesthetics and the way those aesthetic work with the elements down to the details of the very information on the website. A common misconception of web design is about coding and front-end development which is not really web design at all but rather web development (note the difference). For many web designers you are not expected to know coding language (HTML, CSS, Java), but, of course, it would be an advantage on any CV to say that you have front-end development knowledge. In one sentence, web design is to solve the communication problems between users and web page information.

Web designers use Photoshop to create web graphics, UI elements, functional mock-ups, and wireframes. These designs are used in the modern web design workflow to produce beautiful websites. Therefore, you could for example work as part of a web designing team where you are responsible for the creation of the functionalities created in Photoshop, such as the web graphics.

The web design process is one of planning how your website will look, what purpose it has, and how you’ll navigate around it, and then putting this plan into action.

Photographer

Jobs with Photoshop skills

Now you must be wondering, what does photography have to do with Photoshop? Well, everything. You see, Photoshop has been the industry standard software for image editing for photographers all over the world. The possibilities are endless, they can apply adjustment layers to their images, they can turned them to black and white, use camera raw filters, healing brushes to retouch imperfections and blemishes, they can saturate and desaturate images, use light and contrast, blending modes and also create image manipulations by blending and combining in-between images, just to name a few things photographers can do on Photoshop.

The reality is that not all photographers know how to use Photoshop, and if you can reach out to them and show how you can offer your Photoshop skills to help them improve their photos then you have a job opportunity right there. Sometimes a job doesn’t have to be permanent, in fact this brings me into freelance design.

Freelance design

Jobs with Photoshop skills

A freelancer is a person who works for themselves, rather than for a company. In many cases, they still work with companies but as a freelancer rather than an employee.

A recent annual report (05/2020) on freelancing has found that there are over 2 million freelancers in the UK up 48% from 2008.

The freelance community is growing at increased rates and this is because there is a high demand for freelancers, not only in design but in other sectors too. The same report has predictions that by 2030 this number will increase to over 10 million. And while it is still possible to get big jobs as a freelancer knowing only Photoshop it should be emphasized that in order to take full advantage of the many great opportunities with freelancing as a designer, it is important that you expand your knowledge beyond Photoshop. We know that wherever there is demand, there is also competition, and if you restrict yourself to only Photoshop then you might be losing out on some big opportunities.

Graphic artist

Graphic artists are masters at creating graphics. They create the artworks to be used in graphic projects such as for advertisement or book covers. The artist can be an illustrator or even an animator. Each graphic artist has their own style, and they are normally hired when someone needs a piece of art in that particular style. One could be an illustrator who creates pieces that look as if they are fine art. Another might create cartoon-like art that’s perfect for the cover of a book. Graphic artists are often commissioned to create art for a specific project or projects.

In some cases, this type of art can be done on Photoshop, so when it comes to landing a job position as a graphic artist your Photoshop skills can come in very handy, as in some cases these illustrations
can be done using Photoshop.

Now that you know some of the jobs you can do with your Photoshop skills let’s look at the other software that go hand in hand with Photoshop depending on what career path you want to follow.

By now you know what Photoshop is and what it is used for but what about illustrator and InDesign. Let’s have a look at what these software’s are and what they are used for.

Graphic design. Graphic designers use 3 different software, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

What is Illustrator?

Adobe Illustrator is the industry standard design application that lets you capture your creative vision with shapes, colour, effects, and typography. Work across desktop and mobile devices and quickly create beautiful designs that can go anywhere, from print, web and apps, video and animations, and much more.

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Inc. It is a software that allows designers to create drawings, illustrations, and artworks. It was first released in 1985 and since then the software has evolved massively to become part of the Adobe Creative Cloud.

Illustrator is used by graphic designers, web designers, visual artists, and professional illustrators internationally to create beautiful quality artworks. Photoshop and illustrator have a lot of similarities but their differences are bigger than their similarities.

InDesign

InDesign first version was released on August 31, 1999. The program began development long before this, with a different company known as Aldus that was based in Seattle and created desktop publishing software.

InDesign is a desktop publishing software application used for creating brochures, flyers, magazines, books and newspapers, and other types of documents or visual communication. Projects created using InDesign can be shared in both digital and print formats.

InDesign was previously available as part of the Creative Suite. It is developed and produced by Adobe Systems and is available individually, or as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud.

InDesign is used by graphic designers, publishers, artists and marketing professionals.

InDesign is an industry-standard for publishing design and is used by graphics and marketing professionals around the world.

It is often used in conjunction with applications that are part of the Adobe Creative Cloud such as Illustrator and Photoshop. Illustrations and images are usually not created within InDesign, but rather layouts using text. Images and drawings are often built in other programs and then assembled into a layout using InDesign.

What are the differences between Photoshop Illustrator and InDesign?

Illustrator works off vectors, which are points used to create perfect smooth lines. This program is very useful for creating and editing vector-based work such as logos, graphics, and many other design elements. Vectors are scalable images that can be sized as large or as small as you need them to be, but it still looks the same when it comes to clarity and resolution.

Illustrator is not good when comes to creating multi-page documents and to use the program this way can create some drawbacks. Illustrator does not have a way to set up master pages the way that InDesign does. This is an important tool when building documents that use templates. Illustrator also does not allow to automate page bullets or numbers. Another great feature InDesign supports, which is especially useful when dealing with large documents.

Photoshop is a raster-based programme which uses pixels to create images and it is used to edit, manipulate and touch up photographs too. Photoshop was initially designed for editing and creating photos or raster-based art. When the program was launched it was aimed at photographers, but over time the program grew to help all kinds of artists to do many different kinds of work. Now Photoshop is known to create web pages, interface design, banner ads, posters, video graphics, and also the original use of editing and creating images for print.

InDesign provides the tools you need to design pages and create visual layouts that can be used for both print and digital media. It provides a simplified way to create professional pages that can be published and distributed in print or online.

InDesign is especially useful for documents containing multiple pages, (masters) layouts that combine text and images.

What software do web designers use?

Professional Web designers have a hand full of software options available for their daily professional activities. These software can be broken down into different categories, but it all depends on the website solution or application being designed.

Adobe Creative Cloud

Photoshop is the go-to and possibly the most widely used software program for creating wireframes and for designing websites. While there are other options available for creating design layouts,  some may argue including us here at Blue Sky Graphics that Photoshop tops them all.

Web designers use Photoshop for the creation of page elements like banners, buttons, icons, and so on. Whatever the page, graphic is needed, it may be- a cover for an eBook, an attention-grabbing banner, and so on, web designers can achieve through Photoshop.

Other uses of Photoshop by web designers include Photo adjustment and manipulation, Image optimization, creation of web assets and building web layouts.

Professional Web designers use Illustrator to create graphics and illustrations for web projects.

Web designers sometimes use InDesign as this is a great program that gives them a lot of useful options for the integration of text and images.

Adobe Xd

Adobe XD is also a go-to Web designers for front-end design and also prototyping user experience on websites and mobile apps.

Word press is probably the most widely used (CMS) content Management system today. It is easy to use, widely available, and highly customizable. The word press platform offers high flexibility in terms of design and functionality. Web developers use word press for websites they build for clients.

Conclusion

While it is still possible to make money out of Photoshop, with the fast-growing competition and the need for better designers, one has to question if Photoshop is enough. As I said if you are just looking for occasional work then Photoshop might be enough, but if you want to be a full-time designer and explore this amazing world of design then you should look for a designing course. 

On the one hand, a huge part of being a graphic designer is being able to operate specialist software but on the other hand it’s about knowing how to design. Luckily design is something that can be taught through design theory, colour theory as well as having a good eye for detail.

Successful graphic designers have many soft skills including high-level communication skills to interpret client briefs, artistry, and creativity, teamwork, ability to collaborate and flexibility and passion, and enthusiasm for design.

Many graphic designers go to school to further their careers and at Blue Sky Graphics we have made this easy with our over 15 years of experience and teaching training. Information about the graphic design course can be found here. You will finish with a commercial portfolio and certification with a major or concentration in graphic design.

A fun and challenging introduction to these three programs, regularly used together for everything from infographics to packaging and magazine work. Learn how to integrate vector graphics, photographic images, and page layout and design.

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