Photo Software

Right now for photo software I have "Microsoft Picture It! 9" which is an okay program if you just want to crop, add some text, and maybe change the saturation, or make it black and white. But I'd really like to get into (possibly) some manipulation and I'd like the sepia feature (which my current program is lacking)

At the moment, I don't think I'm ready to go out and buy Adobe Photoshop, so is there any less intense (and less expensive) options that anyone knows of?

Thanks a ton :bigteeth:

I use microsoft digital image suite. I have Photoshop, which I use from time to time to mod GTA:SA, but I think it's unnecessarily complicated and over priced.

I don't know what you could get other than Photoshop. Rendering the entire of this post absolutely useless, but there never was a better time to preach the joys of Photoshop. No, really, there never was.

It's a damn powerful piece of software if you can get used to it. I admit the first time I got CS and loaded it up, I spent a few days - no longer than a week - in frustration. Questions like "I can fill in a line in Paint, why is Photoshop expecting me to do all this?" almost made me give up a million times, but once you get the hang of it you'll wonder why you didn't use it before.

I use it for anything from compressing files (Save for Web is a great feature), to modifying screenshots, creating avatars, editing photos, etc. Most of my stuff is web/computer oriented though, so if you intended to print a picture out from it or do something more traditional with your pictures I don't know how well it fares. Judging by my experience with other things, I'd say good, but you never know.

It didn't take that long to figure out at all, though. Unless you're really stupid or something you shouldn't have too much trouble understanding layers (gasp!) etc. Once you've got the basic idea of what the crap the program is talking about when it says "you need to render this text layer if you want to draw on it", it's plain sailing.

Never found anything that can match up to it. Although it costs a damn lot. Which is why I might have stole it.

Our super awesome photojournalism department uses photoshop for everything.

Maybe get photoshop elements or a slightly older version? It'd be a lot less expensive.

Or you could be a pirate. :shock:

I don't know how it compares to Photoshop (since I haven't used it in a while), but an alternative is Macromedia Fireworks. It's still fairly expensive ($299 USD), but Photoshop is ($649 USD) when I checked. I've played with Fireworks (he he) a little and was starting to get a little better at it this summer, but I can't afford that either.

It just depends on how much you're willing to spend.

(Just like I really want a Flash so I could make my own cartoons... but that's $699... and I'm not likely to get that for Christmas)

You should definately get Flash :bigteeth: . It's amazing. Even though I got a pirate copy i'm sure it would be worth paying the full price.

Check out Corel (used to be Jasc) Paint Shop Pro X. It's about US$80 and does all of the more common operations of Photoshop - all of the photo-fixing operations (red-eye reduction, color balance, brightness and contrast adjustments, filtering, sharpening, softening, clone brushing, etc) as well as allowing for graphics creation through layers, masks, color and transparency manipulations, and all that other good stuff. Unless you're an advanced user and creating professional-quality graphics, you probably won't run into an operation that PSP can't do that Photoshop can. I have an older version of PSP (v.7 from when it was Jasc), so I can't vouch for the newest version after the change to Corel, but if they've kept the same features and structure, I highly recommend it. It's quite intuitive, and once you know how to use it, if you decide at a later time to upgrade to Photoshop, you'll already know how to use most of its features. (I've worked with both PSP and Photoshop, btw.)

Edit: Also, if you have any friends at university, ask them about the software deals available through their school. At my univ. students can purchase Macromedia Studio 8 for $145, Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium for $170, and Creative Suite Production Studio for $280, which amounts to savings of 60%-90%. Seriously sweet deals.

flash != photo editing software.

ever.

Unless you want to draw vectors but those are useless.

Having used PICTURE IT! and Photoshop, I know more than any of you here. muyhahaha

picture it!... oh god I don't know how I survived with only that program

photoshop... when I got that it took me a few days to adjust but it was definately worth it

Courtney, my 12 year old sister has been using photoshop since she was 10*, so I don't think its hard to figure it out

*she's not exactly great at it but she's okay

yes, but I can't afford Photoshop, so that's why I'm asking :P

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Originally Posted by Courtney

yes, but I can't afford Photoshop, so that's why I'm asking :P
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then download GIMP

its free

it's chunky and sometimes hard to use

but it has pretty much all the features of photoshop

On the other hand, you could say the GIMP sucks. And you wouldn't be enteriely wrong. But it is free.

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Originally Posted by Kaniaz

On the other hand, you could say the GIMP sucks. And you wouldn't be enteriely wrong. But it is free.
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If the GIMP costed money then I wouldn't buy it.

The only reason I use it is because I'm marooned on Linux island and it's free.

Yeah. I tried it once, before I just gave up and got Photoshop. It was pretty pathetic. I don't think it had any of the features I was looking for, but it made a thumping good gradient.

GIMP you say?

Hrrm.

Courtney will google....

Well you can't buy it from stores, and you need to DOWNLOAD it, but your parents will probably like this better than paying for a $700 program.

If they get suspicious as to why this is free and photoshop is $700, just tell them it was made by programmers that don't like paying $700 themselves. And that's not a lie.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Download

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/images/gtkicon.png GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment (version 2.8.18, for Windows 2000 and newer)

first, install that, then download

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/images/wilbericon.png The GIMP for Windows (version 2.2.13, fixed installer)

install that then you're done. :D

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Originally Posted by Courtney

yes, but I can't afford Photoshop, so that's why I'm asking :P
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Here's a hint for you: HARR HARR.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Courtney

Well you can't buy it from stores, and you need to DOWNLOAD it, but your parents will probably like this better than paying for a $700 program.

If they get suspicious as to why this is free and photoshop is $700, just tell them it was made by programmers that don't like paying $700 themselves. And that's not a lie.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

Download

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/images/gtkicon.png GTK+ 2 Runtime Environment (version 2.8.18, for Windows 2000 and newer)

first, install that, then download

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/images/wilbericon.png The GIMP for Windows (version 2.2.13, fixed installer)

install that then you're done. :D
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Nice images.