Photo-editing software

[Bugsy]

I'm currently looking at what's available for my iMac. I always had Paintshop Pro on my 'Windows' PC's but its sadly not available for a Mac.

Photoshop Elements 8 is available, of course and seems to be highly rated by I wonder, before I shell out the cash if anyone has any experience of any of the 'free' programmes that are currently available.

Any recommendations welcome, thanks.

[NormanH]

I have heard good things about Gimp, but am not an expert.

http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

[Dog]

Why not sell your lovely boat and buy the real thing - Photoshop.

[Bugsy]

[quote user="Dog"]Why not sell your lovely boat and buy the real thing - Photoshop.[/quote]

I really don't need the full Photoshop especially as PS Elements gives the user 80% of the programme for a fraction of the price. Currently on Amazon UK for £57.00 (Photoshop £600.00)

I downloaded a 30-day trial of Elements last night and initial impressions look good.

.

[bubbles]

I make a lot of greetings cards using (embarrassing) photos of the victims usually.

I use The Print Shop on my Mac.

Probably not enough for you though, Bugsy.

[Russethouse]

I use Irfanview and looked last night to see if it was compatible, sadly it isn't unless you use one of those facilities that allows you to run programmes desighned for PC on a Mac, I think something called 'winebottler' was mentioned (sorry I'm a bit vague about the name)

[woolybanana]

Anything with the word 'wine' makes you go vague, RH?

[Bugsy]

[quote user="NormanH"]I have heard good things about Gimp, but am not an expert.

http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/

[/quote]

Thanks Norman, I've just downloaded it and initial trials look pretty good.

And thanks for all the other suggestions.

.

[tenniswitch]

[quote user="Bugbear"][quote user="NormanH"]I have heard good things about Gimp, but am not an expert.
http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/
[/quote]

Thanks Norman, I've just downloaded it and initial trials look pretty good.


And thanks for all the other suggestions.


.
[/quote]

I hope that Gimp works out for you, but if it doesn't and you're still considering Photoshop Elements, see if you can find someone who has it and play around with it a bit first.  I have both Photoshop Elements and Photoshop and would never use PE for editing- it's way too limited for the things I do (and I'm no pro).  PE is useful for organizing photofiles, though.

[kimg]

i use elements

well worth the money

kim

[woolybanana]

where best to buy elements svp?

[Bugsy]

amazon.co.uk wooly is the best I have found at £58.00.

.

[woolybanana]

thanks buggy. I am a bit wary of ebay

[Russethouse]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Anything with the word 'wine' makes you go vague, RH?[/quote]

http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/

I wasn't dreaming after all - Irfanview gets very good reviews, I'm sure I only use a fraction of its capabilities.[:)]

[Bugsy]

[quote user="woolybanana"]thanks buggy. I am a bit wary of ebay[/quote]

Wooly, I've PM'd you with some further info.

.

[kimg]

i bought on ebay

genuine

cheap

look to feedback

kim

[Bugsy]

Well, I've bit the bullet and ordered PSE 8 for iMac from a UK seller on Ebay. He advertises with both a 'Buy it Now' and 'Make an Offer'.

I made an offer which was accepted (saving over £20.00 on the Amazon price) [:)] so its, hopefully, winging its way over to me.

I found this site on the web which has some good tutorials plus a magazine subscription. You can get a free copy of the magazine as a PDF download.

Looks good and well-written, as in easy to understand.

Gary.

[Bob T]

We use Gimp in this house. It is free and is very good once you have got used to it. All the tutorials and manuals are also free and on the web. Updates are free for life.

I used to use Photoshop SE, but I find Gimp just as good.

[dr orloff]

I use Lightroom now for 90% of 'developing'. It's also brilliant as a catalogue of your photos.

It's great advantage for photo processing is the non-destructive nature of the way you change the photos, so there is no loss of image quality for each change you make. It saves you a lot of disk space too as there is no need to keep a raw and a jpeg, for example.

Photoshop is now reserved for correcting the odd eyesore and the more 'special effects' type of processing - eg: layers and filters. But if the shot is mostly right in the first place then Lightroom is great.

[Bugsy]

Just an update for those interested.

My Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac arrived this morning from an Ebay seller.

Genuine, Sealed Version and no problems. A massive saving over Adobe retail price.

Now all I have to do is learn how to use it. [:D]

.

[Jonzjob]

Most of the folks in the photo club I belong to use Photo Shop with a couple using Gimp. At the moment I use Paint shop X, but with my new camera I will be having a closer look at Gimp. This thread has given me the shove to do it! One of the advantages with haveing a raw file is that you can get rid of digital noise far easier than with a JPEG file and with disk sizes as they are now space is not really a problem.

Santa gave me a nice shiny, black Canon 500D with an 18/200mm Canon lens so I want to make the most of it.

[IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/Jonzjob/Johns/Mydreamcar.jpg[/IMG]

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

That's a really good image, and yes RAW images are so much superior to jpegs.

[Jonzjob]

Thank you CdL. It's filling a hole in a dry stone wall up in the vine fields on the garrigue up above where we live.

I love that photo!