No brainier for me, illustrator (the monthly subscription we have now) Is the only reliable program that works on the laser cutter.
Many members use it and many members have files saved on illustrator .
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You’re taking about using it as a print driver?
No, I am using it as the best design tool we have in the space @charlottecou Has generously given sessions on how to use it.
I find it much more intuitive than Inkscape
It is constantly updated so there are no bugs in it .
And it works!
And if you noticed I said many members have files saved on illustrator, therefore many members have used it to design things on it.
Plus I think we are losing sight of the amount of members we have that use illustrator regularly
This alone is a valuable source of knowledge and experience that would be lost if we stopped having illustrator
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Walk into the space and ask someone to help you to design something on a graphics program and see what program they go to first.
At any time there are more members who can help with illustrator than Inkscape.
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Can I sum up?
There is definitely demand for Illustrator. The space should resubscribe to it.
There should be a PC apart from the laser cutter one so that people can design on Illustrator and not tie up the cutter. We need two seat licences for Illustrator.
There is demand for inkscape, so that there is a free open source route for those who prefer it. We should have inkscape on both machines.
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Job Control is licensed for 1 seat.
lets clear things up a bit.
the facts
- a business licence (we’re a business) for illustrator is £25.28per month
- we should probably buy 3 instead of pretending we cant count = £75.85per month
- exactly the same for photoshop
OR
- we could buy the whole suite for £177per month
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I don’t understand why this is so contentious, no one bats an eye lid at the expenditure in the wood workshop.
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Job control only needs one seat
There was a thread of conversation within this where someone was asking about having it on your own laptop, theoretically if you had that (Windows only) you’d be able to prep the files on your own laptop, save the plate and take it to the laser computer.
in my opnion i would be happy for the space to pay any of the following:
- £75.85 per month for illustrator (3 licenses)
- £151.70 per month for illustrator + photoshop (3 licenses)
- £177.00 per month for the whole suite (3 licenses)
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********* hold the front page **********
I agree with @unknowndomain
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i don’t know why its contentious either.
but its odd what people say when they don’t want something.
Personally i think that the money that the members contribute should be invested and spent well. Not just sat on and dithered over. There’s far to much penny pinching and arguments over tiny things that could make a positive difference. No one is asking for gold taps.
Is that the first time?
The planets must have aligned.
I feel we should spend money wisely, if something is needed we should get it but we do need to stop spending money on big expenses if we want to save for the future.
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If we want to buy property in 2020, every pound saved before then is worth four pounds when used as deposit on a 75% mortgage.
But I agree that two illistrator seats would be useful. Not so sure of the worth of the full suite at that price.
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This sort of expenditure warrants and needs a good debate - for the top package were taking £2,124 per year, that’s a decent amount of cash - if however we (as a combined membership) think we will get value out of that investment then that’s the call we should conceder and discuss
Its interesting to hear the debated between Open and Paid, were are in a fortunate place to be able to consider the two and not just be stuck with the open versions but like Tom says above, we do need to be a little penny wise.
The question to the group then is do we consider the extra investment to be one we will get value from or are we looking at a lesser investment that gets us continued access to Illustrator and keeps the status quo ?
Courty
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Continued access to an Illustrator license on the laser machine is a must in my view.
The argument used to be that Inkscape was free and good enough, even if not as easy to use but it’s increasingly evident that the software isn’t reliable when used with the laser cutter, it appears to actually be causing issues with the document not appearing or being rastered.
Illustrator is the software used for laser cutting outside of engineering applications. That and Corel draw.
We could look at using Affinity Designer and other cheaper fixed price packages but they aren’t even being asked for so it’s a conpromise that nobody asked for.
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Surely 2 is enough? When are 3 people going to be using it at the same time? I’m sure we can just add another, if necessary, as it’s monthly.
Maybe nobody publishes or discusses that?
How much is one of those? Does it do anything else?
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I think 2 illustrators would work
In fact I think we should just renew the single one and see what happens. Currently we can use simultaneously on the Mac and the laser cutter pc.
If it doesn’t work on both then get the extra license.
I cannot see the point of getting the whole suite .
Photoshop may be useful for screen printing but I think you can import pictures into illustrator @silkscreentechs please advise
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