Recommend Photo Manipulation Package please

snodog

snodog

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looking to buy a Photoshop type prog, mostly to crop, alter and compress/optimise my own photos for posting onto my website.

No idea what's good or more importantly, what's easy to use.

Suggestions from the gurus?

www.gealachmor.com if you want to see what I put out there
 
It depends on what you want to spend I guess.....

The full, all singing dancing version of Photoshop CS2 is the best at around £539 and is really the benchmark for all others.
Paint Shop ProX is pretty good at around £100 and has a lot of function.
Photoshop Elements 4.0 has a lot of the function of Photoshop CS2 plus some quick fix tools.. at around £70.

All the above prices are only a rough guide and you can probably buy for less if you shop around.

If you want a basic free package you can use Irfanview It is OK for basic stuff but has a lot of limitations.

I use CS2 and IMO it is the best software package of any I have used in any area of computing.
 
Photoshop

The full, all singing dancing version of Photoshop CS2 is the best at around £539 and is really the benchmark for all others.
Photoshop Elements 4.0 has a lot of the function of Photoshop CS2 plus some quick fix tools.. at around £70.

Just got both off of SHAREAZA
 
Crop/resize then Irfanview is the best choice because it is free!

Mike
 
One thing I never commented on was ease of use....

Photoshop needs a bit of perseverance to start with.

What worked for me was getting hold of Digital Photo Magazine .
It's a monthly mag with the first 1/2 to 2/3 covering technique, the back section is on equipment. It comes with a CD with tutorials which are excellent and are usually used alongside the tutorials in the mag. In addition there are things like templates for calendars etc.
It mainly focusses on Photoshop - CS and Elements, but has some coverage of Paintshop Pro.
 
Cheesy Mike said:
Crop/resize then Irfanview is the best choice because it is free!

Mike
Click to expand...

Mike... have to disagree... yes, it's free and is OK for what it is but it is very limited and clumsy to use IMO.
 
MasterDabber said:
Mike... have to disagree... yes, it's free and is OK for what it is but it is very limited and clumsy to use IMO.
Click to expand...

not often i would disagree with the Dabber but i think irfanview has the easiest to use crop cut and resize resample... photoshop takes to long to open an can get complicated :)

irfanview has a crap red eye function :(

Photoshop for if you want to DO stuff with photos, irfanview for the standard stuff for the likes of this site :)
 
TUNED IN said:
not often i would disagree with the Dabber but i think irfanview has the easiest to use crop cut and resize resample... photoshop takes to long to open an can get complicated :)

irfanview has a crap red eye function :(

Photoshop for if you want to DO stuff with photos, irfanview for the standard stuff for the likes of this site :)
Click to expand...


I understand your point and I guess Irfanview is OK if you just want to crop and resize.
It isn't very easy to fine tune how big the resulting file will be however, a bit too trial and error for my liking.
But I agree it is simple to use...

Snodog also referred to optimising and I guess that depends on what he means... but Photoshop is so good at sorting out badly exposed, out of focus photos. Photos you would perhaps dump unless you could tweak a bit.

But I have to agree that Photoshop takes a bit of effort to use initially. Once you've grasped the basic points doing the basics is very easy. Of course, as you play around more it gets more and more complicated but the advanced features can be learnt as you go along.
 
MasterDabber said:
I understand your point and I guess Irfanview is OK if you just want to crop and resize.
It isn't very easy to fine tune how big the resulting file will be however, a bit too trial and error for my liking.
But I agree it is simple to use...

Snodog also referred to optimising and I guess that depends on what he means... but Photoshop is so good at sorting out badly exposed, out of focus photos. Photos you would perhaps dump unless you could tweak a bit.

But I have to agree that Photoshop takes a bit of effort to use initially. Once you've grasped the basic points doing the basics is very easy. Of course, as you play around more it gets more and more complicated but the advanced features can be learnt as you go along.
Click to expand...


Thanks guys, knew I could count you lot. Although Photoshop CS at 539 is way beyond my little hobby.
I currently use a couple of free progs, xat.com and Interactive Jpeg Optimiser. Neither of which really do all that I want.

Optimising or compressing - not sure of the correct technical term - I want to reduce the size of the photo file without degrading too much so that my webpages don't take too long to download for viewers. Both of the progs I currently use have limitations and are a little vague in operation.

Sounds like Elements might be the thing to try.
 
Snodog. I think Elements is pretty good.. have a shop around re prices.

As Mike and Tuned have suggested... have a (free) download of Irfanview and have a play.
Perhaps try looking at the UKGSer photo posting FAQ which talks about resizing both in terms of physical dimensions (width and Height) and also file size reduction/compression and is based on using Irfanview.

Irfanview was used for the FAQ as a program that is available to all - being free of charge. The FAQ doesn't cover cropping or any area of photo manipulation... just the physical dimensions and file size. As you will have gathered, I feel there are some limitations with Irfanview on the file size reduction function. The physical dimension function is fine.

HTH
Derek
 
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