Thursday, January 10, 2008

Help me please!

Hello readers,

I often think I should turn to my readers for my electronics questions. You never know who is out there reading.

So readers, I need your help. I would like to post some patterns on the blog, but I don't know what software to use to design them. I don't want a pattern to look like a third grader designed it. But, I would like to be easy to use and affordable.

The program I was using looks so cheap I really don't like to use it. I would like to have one that looks like THIS.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

Deanna

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Deanna,

That particular pattern looked to be relatively simple in that most of the shapes involved are pretty common. MS Word has everything but the horse shapes.

That is a 'vector' type graphic, meaning it plots the begin and end points vs 'raster' which plots every pixel on your screen (photos are raster to capture all the grayscale). Software that accomplishes vector graphics are those like Macromedia Fireworks and Adobe Illustrator.

If you already have a graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, much of what you need to accomplish that level of vector drawing is included. Look for "lines" and "shapes". Both have preset shapes like arrows and circles and squares.

Hope this helps!
Theresa
http://bumpypath.blogspot.com

Deanna said...

Hi Theresa!

Thank you so much for your information. You gave me some great ideas for a starting point to research what will work best for me.

I am going to try out MS Word first, and play around with some simple shapes without the horses, and then later I can try another program. So much to learn!

You have a well written blog by the way.

Thank you again. Soooooo much.

Deanna

Unknown said...

Hi Deanna,

You're welcome, and I do hope it helped. Word isn't always an easy program to work with, but it'll give you an idea of more specifics to look for in a graphics program.

Thanks for the kudos on my blog! I'm enjoying writing it!

Let me know if I can help more, any time, ok?

Theresa

Deanna said...

Hi Theresa,

You did help a lot! I was clueless in which direction to go. I have works (the program is from like 2002) instead of word and it is not user friendly. I am going to get word now because I don't really like works AT ALL anyway.

I will probably take you up on that offer for help ;)

Thanks again!

Deanna

Matt Jenkins said...

Microsoft Visio would also do a good job for what you want. My wife is into dog agility and there are a few companies that design software just for that purpose (one such is http://www.coursedesigner.com/). I suspect these specialized programs are pricey.

Here are a couple ideas for horse course design:
http://www.jumpdesign.net/?online=1&topic=31

http://www.olaf-petersen.com/popup_produkte/en/parcoursdesign_e.htm

Good luck!

Deanna said...

Those are really cool Matt. That Olaf Peterson course design looks awesome...

I like the dog agility course design as well, and that one is affordable, now if they would just make one like that for the price for horses.

I checked out your horse pictures from your profile. Very nice! You need a blog.

Thank you! You guys rock.

Deanna