Pro tools don't make you a pro
Paolo wrote something today that I have been thinking about lately:
It's true that you must be a good photographer to take good pictures, but it's also true that today anybody can take pretty decent pictures with any modern digital camera, while just a few years ago this simply wasn't the case. Digital technology improves qulity. The same is true with graphic design, video, music, cinema and many other crafts. From this POV the fact that an average user thinks that better tools provide better quality is natural, because it is true that for him the current tools are providing a better quality than what he was getting with the previous generation of tools
I don't really think very visually which makes a great many tasks that I would like to do well into difficult challenges. I am always on the lookout for a tool that aims to improve this or that but, quite often, they don't seem to get me very far.
For example: The switch from Visio to OmniGraffle gave me an immediate boost in the quality of my diagrams. But the boost is less about me and more about the fact that OmniGraffle naturally produces better looking output.
In a sense it's become a little frustrating. I sometimes feel even more helpless using a "pro" tool because it becomes inescapable that I'm the limitation, not the tool.