photoshop

[kemplefan]

i have heard great things about photo shop, but how much is it, what alternitives are there, and if it is say the same as a 50mm f1.8 nikor lense, wich one should i get, i am using nikon picture project. this program works but its not that great

 

[Johnboy2978]

Photoshop CS2 (current version) will run you about $650 unless you go to ebay and purchase an older version and do an upgrade. Still, you are looking at a significant chunk of change. Alternatives....? PS is pretty much industry standard for graphics imaging, but you might like photoshop elements. I think it's current version may be up to 4.0 now. It is probably around $150 and is a scaled down consumer version of PSCS2. Still it does quite a bit (at least 2.0 did haven't tried the newest version).

A free download would be GIMP (google it) which is supposed to do all that PS will, more or less. (downloaded it, never tried it). PSCS2 is quite a piece of work. I find it pretty clunky and takes a lot of resources to run it well. I use a previous version 7.0 for most stuff just b/c it loads so much quicker. Not sure how that compared to the price of the lense you were looking at. You can get a free 30 day trial from adobe.com

 

[kemplefan]

ok for the cost of that i could get my sigma 2.8 zoom

 

[Iron Flatline]

Also, Adobe is about to launch a product called Lightroom, a photo-only hybrid of Photoshop, Bridge, and Organizer. Probably all you'll need.

 

[Dweller]

There is some kind of plugin or something that gives GIMP the look and feel of photoshop, but I too have never used it. I really should spend some time with it.

As for Lightroom, that sounds very interesting.

 

[JohnMF]

i think google have a free image editing software called picassa. Ive never tried it myself but it's meant to be ok

 

[Iron Flatline]

http://labs.macromedia.com/technologies/lightroom/

You can download a beta if you're on a Mac, or soon for PC.

 

[bobaab]

There is some kind of plugin or something that gives GIMP the look and feel of photoshop, but I too have never used it. I really should spend some time with it.

As for Lightroom, that sounds very interesting.

It's called Gimpshop. Download GIMP, install Gimpshop, and you got yourself a free, open source editing software that is just as good as Photoshop.

 

[Rob]

Picassa is fine for organising and viewing images, but I don't trust it's algorithms as much as PS and it's really easy to alter an image by rotating in a way which may degrade its quality.

Rob

 

[kemplefan]

thanks a lot every one i downloaded gim and its very good and i saved big bucks

 

[bobaab]

yup, and if you have never used photoshop, downloading GIMPshop will be kind of pointless because it doesnt really matter. It's more of a Photoshop user friendly hack for GIMP.

It's useful though, if you ever feel like using photoshop in your future in your case. Good luck!!

 

[kemplefan]

thanks any tips on what to do with it or how to use it to mazimize its capabilitys

 

[Rob]

thanks any tips on what to do with it or how to use it to mazimize its capabilitys

Photo editing programs are not like any other set of programs. I'd advise asking some specific questions like: how do I convert to B&W or say how do I adjust levels.

Rob

 

[kemplefan]

ok so say i want to cahnge the color of my hair how woyld i do that

 

[bobaab]

I'll give you a basic idea of what you have to do, because I have not really done something like that.

Basically, select the area that you want to change colors. Try using the Polygonal Lasso tool or the Magic Wand (if you are using GIMPshop, those should be the names). Use those tools to select the area. Then either go to Color Balance or Curves and play around with that...

There are MANY MANY tutorials online, so try looking for Photoshop Tutorials or something on Google. Good luck!