| Author | Message | ||
     Bads1 |
I'm looking to buy Adobe Photo Shop Elements 6. What is the opinion's of the knowledgeable about this stuff. I'm all new to it. I take alot of pictures with my Canon and they are great but when I size then on zat.com they go to crap. So I'm thinking on buying this soft wear to clean these pics up and maybe then some. Any help I'd appreciate. | ||
| Birdy |
Here try this The Gimp is now ported to windows. This is an old photo editing program that was developed for Linux. Very much like Photo shop other that it's FREE! Here's the link the the web site of the folk who keep it running. Birdy http://www.gimp.org/ | ||
| Barker |
+1 Try gimp first it FREE! I use it almost everyday. | ||
| Ft_bstrd |
No, you use the Gimp in the box every day.  | ||
| Danger_dave |
Photoshop is still the best and most comprehensive way of dealing with pixels. Elements is only part of it - but if it gives you an upgrade path to the full deal it's worthwhile. Depends what you are after. Professional output is best with PSD or equivalent. I even do many of my adverts and magazine layouts just in photoshop now. Adjusting exposure and sharpening can be done on freeware. | ||
| Birdy |
No doubt Dave but for the duffer like me Gimp for fine. I have seen a Pro at Photoshop and man could she whip a photo into shape in no time at all. Photoshop is a pros tool | ||
| Bads1 |
Adjusting exposure and sharpening can be done on freeware. Dave,it will let me do more I know but I've used Zat.com for years and it work's great for what it is but it doesn't do what I like. The pictures aren't crisp,sharp. | ||
| Danger_dave |
>>The pictures aren't crisp,sharp.<< 'Unsharp mask' is our friend. I should have said - just as easily on the freeware - iPhoto will even do that stuff. (Message edited by danger_dave on November 05, 2007) | ||
| Bads1 |
elaborate for me please. I'm learning. | ||
| Danger_dave |
Sure - sorry for the obtuseness.    | ||
| Bads1 |
Dave,but after you unsharp mask is the pic shrunk down so that it could say be posted here on the bad web?? I see you use photo shop,it seems like the thing for me to do. Zat.com has the sharp option but not unsharp. | ||
| Bads1 |
Tell ya what. Can I send you a picture and you clean it up and resize it and send it back to me??? PM me your email if you would. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I have been using elements since 2.0... though I am only on 3.0 now, never upgraded... never needed to do so. Its great for home users, or even light serious work. The Gimp can do a lot of stuff, but for the $80 or so that I paid for Elements the last time I bought it, it was very easy to do great things very quickly. The Gimp generally leaves me confused and frustrated.... though I confess to never spending the time necessary to get past the learning curve. | ||
| Danger_dave |
yeah - full deal photoshop - but I have a graphic design (amongst other things) business and I output to a variety of media so It's the tool. No - masking and sharpening are just that. Resizing is a whole different issue. Most pics benefit from a sharpen filter of some kind after they have been resized. Google 'interpolation'. | ||
| Danger_dave |
mail@davidcohen.co.nz | ||
| Danger_dave |
      then sharpen them as above if required. | ||
| Jayvee |
I had Elements on a bootleg before (lost it since) and I loved it. It's easy fix improperly exposed photos, etc. It is very easy to use for simple things, but allows pretty complex things for people who have the time. I think the best deal was to buy the older version, 3.0 as I recall. I was looking into it, to pay for this time, but lately I barely have time to upload my pictures to PC, much less fix them afterward. For simple size-reducing, the best by far is available free from Microsoft under their Tweaks area. | ||
| Henrik |
IMO, for the average digital photographer, Elements will work well - really well most likely. I use Photoshop as well - work stuff - but one of the few photo task you can't do in Elements is CMYK color; and if a user doesn't know what that is, they'll never miss those "missing" features. Again, just IMO. Earlier versions of Elements didn't have any of the automation features of Photoshop, but I believe it does now. If Gimp doesn't do it for you, I'd suggest taking Elements for a spin. Is there a Demo download? There used to be a 30 day trial version you could play with. Henrik | ||
| Danger_dave |
>>There used to be a 30 day trial version you could play with.<< Yeah - you used to even get it free with some scanners. | ||
| Bads1 |
Dave, Thanks for giving it a shot for me. Heres a pic of Stoner and Pedrosa at Laguna this year that I took. Just wondering though if this pic could be cleaned up and the quality even better??  | ||
| Danger_dave |
If it was for a magazine I'd spend 5 minutes on it. Type would go over the blank spaces  | ||
| Bads1 |
Dave now thats alot better. Looks like I'm getting photo Shop. | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Dana - Elements is the thing to get. Only about $70 on amazon. Lots of pros just get it for free when they get a new camera or scanner and just give it away, ( My brother got mine). Ask around. The Photoshop community is even larger than the Buell world, (by about a ten thousand times), so there is lots of support available. Like the Buell, it is the world standard of excellence.  Danger - Perhaps you might give "Smart Sharpen" a try. It is a little more sophisticated than Unsharp Mask, and it the name has a better ring to it:-) | ||
| Buellinachinashop |
I too am a graphic designer and the only program to run is PS. But I understand that not eveybody needs filters, layering tools, masking tools etc. For most folks a program that allows image resizing is about all you need and Elements is a nice way to do that. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Wow! I need to spend a little more time learning some tools... thats an impressive result... | ||
| Danger_dave |
Yeah I use the smart sharpen too. I find better noise control with the unsharp though. | ||
| Bads1 |
Thanks Dave and all for helping me. John,Since you aren't far from me I'll have to have you and the Mrs over have some dinner and you can maybe give me a hand with learning the PhotoShop?? I forgot what you did for a living....Sheesh!!! | ||
| Bads1 |
Reep, I'll tell ya them GP bikes arent exactly easy to catch. They hold corner speed like you wouldn't believe. I had alot of erasing to do on the camera. I have many..many shots that I'd love to share. I just don't want to destroy them resizing them incorrectly. I'd like to clean them up,Zoom some in and crop some. Photo Shop is the tool I need. | ||
| Danger_dave |
load the original files onto your computer and burn them to a CD or make another copy in another folder. Manipulate the images and 'save as' a new file. If you **** up go and grab the original file off the CD and start again. | ||
| Sanchez |
I like the GIMP. If you try it out, get the latest 2.4 development version instead of the 2.2 stable version up at gimp.org. GIMP 2.4 release candidate 3 for Windows: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gimp-2.4 .0-rc3-i586-setup.exe?modtime=1190592348&big_mirro r=0 It's still a little buggy, as it's a prerelease, but it's way ahead of the 2.2 version. | ||
| Sanchez |
Honestly, I don't even bring out the GIMP for 99% of my photography work (well, photography play). The Canon Digital Photo Professional software that came with my 30D does all the post processing work I need it to. It does all the usual white balance, saturation, contrast, black/white points, sharpening, etc, and I haven't found anything that handles batch cropping more easily. The only thing it really doesn't do at all is categorization. I've also used Lightroom, and I do like it better than DPP, but I don't like it enough better to shell out $300 for it.  |
