Home Plans And Home Designs - Design Software

I recently used Photoshop to modify details in my kitchen, and it works wonders! The one function you can do almost anything with is transform/skew, where you can take other pictures and skew them into the right perspective and size for your original picture. More about this at: Using Transform in Photoshop (http://www.tutorial9.net/photoshop/using-transform-in-photoshop/)

I've also started using Home Designer Suite 8 from Better Home and Gardens to design an addition for my house. It costs $100. I started with putting my old house in there. It makes it really easy to put in wall and window dimensions and create a floor plan that you walk through in 3d. It's limits are in getting you the exact furniture or fixtures you want to see, so for more detail-oriented projects you're better off with Photoshop. I also wasn't able to get the roof to the shape I wanted in this program, it generates an automatic roof with only a few options to influence it.

Hi Alex,

The main difference between Photoshop and BHG is the fact that Photoshop is a program for image manipulation and BHG is a Home Design program
In Photoshop (or similar), the program doesn't know if it is drawing a fine art picture or your kitchen prints
In a Home Design program like BHG, the program understands that you are drawing a wall, for example, and you can calculate the materials for that wall

I agree about the limitations of BHG. Customization is not one the best things of this program. However, in V8 they added a great feature--> you can import objects, windows, etc from sketchup, this helps al lot for customization purposes

Note that Sketchup is a drawing program, not a design or home design program, therefore you can draw a plan but you can't use the info for technical purposes as you can do with a design or home design program