Design software advice needed

[gibbajabba]

Hi, i'm completely new to the printing scene and have a few questions. I have ordered a Graphtec 7000, Roland BN-20A and one of the cheap manual laminators.

I'm going to be doing bumper stickers and wine bottle labels, i've been making designs on Canva and thinking how easy and fun it all is doing the designs. The fun diminished when i came reading on these forums and discovered that Canva is frowned upon lol

I've just taken delivery of some Orajet 3165 calendared PVC and Orajet 210 film so i'm just about ready, just waiting for the printer to arrive next month.

Are the any lower cost alternatives to Photoshop or CorelDraw for the designs? I'm running windows 10, also can my Canva designs still be used at all?

 

[victor bogdanov]

It is best if you learn how to use illustrator or corel draw. You can use the canva designs once you learn how to fix them in corel or illustrator

 

[greysquirrel]

You can do 90 percent with illustrator. Why the bn20?

 

[binki]

Either AI or CD is about $20/month. You should be able to make that up in just one job.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

Inkscape is about as low cost as you'll get for vector design software.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Inkscape is going to be about the lowest that you are going to get with vector work. I tend to favor vector work for stuff like this, but if wanting to look at alternatives to Ps, there is Photopea (web-based Ps clone), GIMP. Krita (which really isn't a Ps alternative but Corel Painter one, but I would use it over GIMP, but I don't do a lot of photo manipulation either) maybe an alternative for you as well.

Of course, if wanting to slightly go up in price, always have Affinity Products as well. At least those wouldn't be subscription (at this time).

The biggest thing is try out and see what does what you are needing it to do. That should be thought of first, get a trial and see what works/doesn't work for you and after that compare prices on what you know works for what you need.

 

[gibbajabba]

Thank you for the replies, very helpful. I went with the BN20 due to not having much room, it was the smallest decent printer i could find. Thanks again

 

[cbdigital]

I do most of my design work in Canva and then import it into Graphtec Pro Studio, which is a slimmed-down version of Flexi. It's very rare that I have to open Illustrator these days.

 

[gibbajabba]

I do most of my design work in Canva and then import it into Graphtec Pro Studio, which is a slimmed-down version of Flexi. It's very rare that I have to open Illustrator these days.

Thanks that really helped, things can be so simple once you know! Much appreciated!