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Question

How do you create flow chart in Photoshop?

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
December 27, 2014
4 replies
19104 views

I am trying to make a massive flowchart in Photoshop but connecting the arrows, lines, etc is a total pain in the butt. Is there a template, or a better way to do it? It is very easy in excel, power point and so on. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

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Mylenium

Legend

You are using the wrong tool, plain and simple. From various commercial vector drawing apps (with illustrator actually being the least suitable one) to dedicated charting/ graphing tools like Visio to OpenOffice Draw to NathLab/ Mathematic to EasyStat to specific web-based services for generating SVGs I can think of a million better ways to do it. There are even some pretty nifty graphing apps for iPads.

Mylenium

station_two

Inspiring

You can use a pair of pliers to drive a nail, or even a screwdriver to tighten a nut. But the right tool will make it a lot easier.

This jobs calls for Adobe Illustrator!

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

Hi Station

I think I'd use InDesign. There are flow chart templates available which would make it orders of magnitude easier than using Photoshop.

station_two

Inspiring

Trevor and John,

I'd probably use InDesign too, since I have it.

But I acquired Illustrator years earlier, and I associate InDesign with typography and text. My personal experience or shortcoming only.

The few flow charts I had to make (long time ago, between 1990 and 2005) were very easy to make in Illustrator, and that included true flow charts, showing the processing of oil in a refinery. No templates there.

John Waller

Community Expert

bartyco wrote:

I am trying to make a massive flowchart in Photoshop but connecting the arrows, lines, etc is a total pain in the butt. Is there a template, or a better way to do it? It is very easy in excel, power point and so on.

Any specific reason for using Photoshop for this? As you have mentioned, it's a painful process when you're not using the best tool most suited for the task - which Photoshop definitely is not in this case. My preference would usually be Microsoft Visio.

How "massive" is this flowchart? Is it a one off exercise or does it need to be maintained over time?

How will it be shared with others? What format?

G

G_Hoffmann

Inspiring

About MS Visio:

This seems (still?) to work entirely in RGB, like all MS programs. CMYK is not available.

Therefore it's the wrong tool for editing diagrams, flow charts etc. for offset printing and

toner printers.

RGB black for lines and small text should be printed by K-only. Colored lines by one or

two inks instead of four inks in order to avoid visible registration errorrs.

These diagrams should be vector graphics, then a conversion by Photoshop

(Vector —> Vector) is impossible.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

G

G_Hoffmann

Inspiring

For clean illustrations you'll need a vector graphics program.

Adobe Illustrator comes into mind, but until some time ago a line with arrow

appeared longer by arrow length than the line without arrow....a really idiotic

behaviour.

Better use InDesign. This programm is probably not intended for these graphics,

but for me it's really very pleasant (if you redefine a plain line as a line with arrow,

then the line keeps it's length).

There are all necessary features, lines with different arrows, stroked or/and filled

boxes, typographical text in vector quality, grouping etc. etc.

Here's an example:

http://docs-hoffmann.de/cmsflow03072013.pdf

My suggestion is based on a quiet workflow, doing everything manually, besides

group, copy and paste.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann

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