Which Photoshop? (1 Viewer)

Vanman

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Hi - I take a lot of pictures but have never used editing software (honest). I'd like to give it a go, in some small (read cheap) way but I am a bit confused with all the versions - CS; Elements etc.

Can anyone recommend a version that can be picked up cheaply (say £20-£30?) on ebay that will fix common problems with otherwise good pictures (red eye, light intensity, colour imbalances etc)?

Thanks
 
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You don't need full Photoshop (i.e. CS or CC versions) unless you're a pro user.

If you want to go down the Photoshop route then Elements will be more than enough for what you want. If you then end up getting serious about it you will have a good grounding for Photoshop CC which is the industry standard. At this point you will also want to buy a Mac. Nobody will take you seriously if you're running PS on Windows. :whistle:

If not then as the others say Gimp is worth a look.

I'd be wary of buying anything like that from eBay. You won't be able to licence it so won't have access to updates or support or any of Adobe's online resources. If you don't want to pay for a legitimate version then that's another reason to stick with something free like Gimp.
 

DBK

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Hi - I take a lot of pictures but have never used editing software (honest). I'd like to give it a go, in some small (read cheap) way but I am a bit confused with all the versions - CS; Elements etc.

Can anyone recommend a version that can be picked up cheaply (say £20-£30?) on ebay that will fix common problems with otherwise good pictures (red eye, light intensity, colour imbalances etc)?

Thanks
You might already have something if you use Android - Google Photos. It doesn't have red eye removal, but if you follow the button with sliders on the app you will find some basic controls for colour etc. You can also run it on a PC.
I've been using Adobe Lightroom a lot but they recently did a major upgrade on the mobile version and have more or less broken it. :( An alternative which seems to getting some good reviews is Luminar 2018 which currently costs £53 so a bit more than you hoped to spend but it looks very powerful. https://macphun.com/luminar?utm_sou...BkZ73hHSZS3c1xY3jykkjzQzz_-Ik8uxoCmeUQAvD_BwE
 
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Another vote for Gimp.
A big advantage of Gimp, as already mentioned, it is free so you can try it and if you think you need more advanced processing methods then you could consider photoshop.

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Alistair33

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In all seriousness, I hear elements is a good cut down version of Photoshop. As far as I’m aware, you can no longer buy any versions of Photoshop new except CC, (CS = Creative Suite is the same product as supplied in CC ), which is subscription based at £11 per month, which gives you Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw included in the subscription. The idea behind Adobe moving to a subscription base (except for a steady revenue stream) was so,d to users as being incremental and the way to get quicker access to new features rather than an annual upgrade.

Lightroom is an excellent product, primarily for managing pictures but often you can do so much there that there is no need to open photoshop.

There is absolutely no need to move away from a Windows based system as all function well, as for being taken seriously, work work will speak for you not the tools used to create it.

PS if anyone asks “Do you use a Nikon or a Canon?” ...... tell them a Leica !
 
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There is absolutely no need to move away from a Windows based system as all function well, as for being taken seriously, work work will speak for you not the tools used to create it.

Adobe products simply do not function well on Windows. A very good, very experienced pro user might get Photoshop working at 75-80% of it's potential on a very very high end Windows machine but no more than that. I realise that most amateurs never get it working at more than 5% anyway but that's not the point.

As for being taken seriously, walk into any design studio or graphics office with a Windows laptop and see what happens. You'll be laughed out of the building. (y)
 

Alistair33

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A very good, very experienced pro user might get Photoshop working at 75-80% of it's potential (y)

I’m more interested in tools that help me reach my potential rather than the other way around

As for being taken seriously, walk into any design studio or graphics office with a Windows laptop and see what happens. You'll be laughed out of the building. (y)

Perhaps a little out of date ... see below....... not sure why I’m defending Windows, I stopped using them 25 years ago, but would consider the Surface Studio

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/surface/devices/surface-studio/overview

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I’m more interested in tools that help me reach my potential rather than the other way around

Absolutely. That isn’t going to happen with a flawed tool though.

Perhaps a little out of date ... see below....... not sure why I’m defending Windows, I stopped using them 25 years ago, but would consider the Surface Studio

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/surface/devices/surface-studio/overview

Hmmm. Microsoft marketing. They’re hardly to say anything else are they?

“We think it’s good but professionals still laugh at it” isn’t going to help with sales is it?

In the real world it isn’t happening and isn’t likely to happen any time soon. They can’t even keep up with Apple on displays/screens never mind anything else
 

magicsurfbus

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There's always one awkward one in threads like this who mentions a different package so I'll say consider Paint Shop Pro, which is basically Photoshop in form and function, without all the integration into other Adobe suite software. I used it a lot when teaching and preferred its interface to Photoshop (which I also have). I felt learners found it easier to handle, whilst still being able to do the more advanced stuff as and when.

That said, GIMP is a good freeware route into learning what these things can do, before making a decision about what (if anything) to use next.

If you decide to go for either Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, a low cost option is to buy one that's a couple of versions back, so it's technically out of date but in reality hardly any different to the current one.
 
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magicsurfbus

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@Vanman - as an afterthought, your pictures will be more easily manipulated by software if they're taken in RAW format rather than .jpg. More expensive in camera memory but far better for tweaking the various levels. If the option exists on your camera it's worth trying it out. The better graphics packages should offer RAW editing as standard.

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Riverbankannie

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I have a Photoshop elements on a windows Laptop. I wouldn't recommend it for the OP and his stated needs. I am an experienced user of various software packages but find this version of Photoshop very difficult to use. It is not intuitive.
 
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Most photographers use Lightroom far more than Photoshop. Not talking about everyone that has a camera - I mean pro's or serious hobbyists.

Myself, I probably use Lightroom 95-98% of the time, only using Photoshop if I need to clone something out, or work with layers.

The downside is it's not cheap (there's a photographers pack that around £9 per month subscription from memory which has both software titles).

I've not tried Photoshop Elements, but I know a lot of people that use it and like it. I've used Premiere Elements (for video) which was good tbh (but not compared to full blown Premiere).

Not used Gimp - but seems to be the best free software from what I hear.

Capture One is good - but again expensive

There's a new program being released soon that is billed as an alternative to Lightroom. It looks pretty good so might be worth looking at (far cheaper than Lighroom/Photoshop). It's called Luminar, here's a link:
https://macphun.com/

You could always pick up an earlier version of Lightroom etc secondhand, but it might not work properly with your camera images (depending on what camera you have).
 
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After mentioning Luminar 2018 in the above post, I thought I'd take a closer look at it myself.

In short - it seems really impressive and I'm going to order a copy while it's on offer.

I already have the entire Adobe CC Suite, but can only use it on two machines. This is fine with Premiere, Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc, as I'm the only one that uses these titles (I use two computers for this type of stuff). When it comes to Lightroom especially, the Missus uses it all the time as well. As we just have the two licences, she has to use one of my PC's - which means using plug-in drives to transfer images from machine to machine.

A Luminar licence can be installed on up to five machines, so not an issue - she can have a copy on her laptop as well. It also uses less resources and can run well (so they say) on lower power devices. This would be perfect for us as it should run on our small windows tablet PC's. The Missus carries one of these everywhere, and I keep one in my camera bag.

What sold me on this was this video:


If you watch it, ignore that he uses Lightroom at the beginning. It's a complete stand-alone solution so can be used just as well by itself. It's about time Adobe had some serious competition in this area.

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WynandJean

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There's always one awkward one in threads like this who mentions a different package so I'll say consider Paint Shop Pro, which is basically Photoshop in form and function, without all the integration into other Adobe suite software. I used it a lot when teaching and preferred its interface to Photoshop (which I also have). I felt learners found it easier to handle, whilst still being able to do the more advanced stuff as and when.

That said, GIMP is a good freeware route into learning what these things can do, before making a decision about what (if anything) to use next.

If you decide to go for either Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, a low cost option is to buy one that's a couple of versions back, so it's technically out of date but in reality hardly any different to the current one.
You are not alone. I have had most versions of Corel Draw/Photopaint suite since version 3 (now on version 18!) and find that as a combination there does not seem anything you can't do. I used them to produce a monthly magazine at work and found them invaluable. I must admit that I was disenchanted with Photoshop finding it difficult to work with and also being forced to purchase a new version each couple of years - even at 'upgrade' price it was unnecesarily expensive by making the previously purchased one unusable!

Wyn
 

DBK

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I read this review of Luminar a couple of days ago: (Its from the Dan Bailey Landscape Photographer web.)


Last week I told you that Adobe had broken Lightroom in to two separate versions, Classic (Desktop) and Cloud.
Branding issues aside, (Classic should have been called PRO, since calling something "classic" doesn't inspire confidence for future support), Adobe also added complexity to the subscription price scheme, and they killed perpetual license versions. i.e., Lightroom 6 is now a dead end versions with no future support.
I also gave you a list of 4 viable alternatives to Lightroom and Photoshop.
I want to expand on that today and give you some additional insight about two of those choices: Luminar and Media Pro. Warning, this email is a little bit long, simply because I feel this is important info to share. You can always bookmark and read it later.

LUMINAR 2018 for Mac & Windows

I've been using Luminar for just about one year now, and I've found it to be an extremely easy, powerful and fun program. With a great collection of presets and a host of effective editing tools it contains, Luminar offers everything you need for your photo editing needs in a simple, concise package, and it's added a welcome and efficient component to my workflow.
Luminar has a RAW processor that supports just about every camera format, even Fuji X-Trans files, a huge selection of professional quality filters and image editing tools and some really fun presets. It also offers pro features like layers, masks and blending modes, which allow you to take your photography creativity in whatever direction you want.
Although Luminar is new, the developers are working hard to improve it, and today, they just announced LUMINAR 2018 for both Mac and Windows. The new version contains a streamlined user interface, number of noticeable performance improvements, some great new filters and expanded workspaces that let you customize and create an image editing workflow that matches your style.
Also, coming next year, Luminar will include a full digital asset management system. After Adobe's recent announcement, this is welcome news indeed, and I'm extremely exited about this feature. If it's as good as they promise, then Luminar could give you all the tools you need as a photographer to finally switch from Adobe. Even without the DAM, it still functions as a powerful and efficient image editing solution.


I actually met with a number of the people behind Luminar at PhotoPlus last week, including the CEO and the Head of Product Development. Both of them were very receptive to my suggestions and answered a number of questions I had about the program.
Regarding Fuji and X-Trans RAW processing, the lead product developer assured me thatthey're committed to supporting the Fujifilm cameras. In fact, he's a Fuji X-T2 user himself and loves the system! And, they support every other major camera system out there.
Regarding their forthcoming assent management system, I gave him my input about what I feel a good catalog program should contain and how it should compare to existing programs. He told me that they're using Photo Mechanic as a benchmark for speed, and considering that Photo Mechanic is the fastest browser around, that's a pretty good benchmark to try and attain.

Having used the pre-release version for about a week, I can verify that LUMINAR 2018 is indeed faster and snappier, and it contains some great new UI tweaks, as well as some fun new filters. It has an updated RAW processing engine, speed is improved with a number of features and new algorithms that let you get better colors more quickly.
New filters include SUN RAYS, which offer some incredible fun creative options, from realistic enhancement to over-the-top, image-popping visual candy. A MATTE FILTER allows you dial back and get a subdued, vintage look and LUT MAPPING allows for professional quality color grading.
Overall, I love the presets and I love how fast I'm able to bring up a photo, make my adjustments and bring and image to life with a minimal amount of processing time. It's just so easy to use! Check out these blog posts to see how I use Luminar with my images.
This example below shows you how you can use the SUN FILTER to achieve some cool effects without going overboard. You can see even more dramatic examples here.
LUMINAR 2018 is available for preorder here
, and it will be ready for download on November 16.
If you're an existing Luminar user, you'll definitely want this upgrade, and you'll get a special pre-order price of only $39. If you're new to the program, the one-time, no subscription price will only be $59. Both of those prices offer $10 savings over the full price, which will be in effect after Nov. 16.
If you were a Windows beta tester, you'll save an additional $10.
Also, if you pre-order LUMINAR 2018, you'll get a pack of presets from Nicole S. Young, an exclusive pack of LUT color grading files and more.
If you haven't tried Luminar, and you're not ready to commit to the 2018 preorder, you can always download the demo and play around with it for a couple weeks to see if you like it.
The Pre-order goes through Nov. 15, so you'll have plenty of time to try it out, and still get the special price if you think it will work for you.
Media Pro Asset Management System

When I first went digital back in 2005, I used Media Pro software as my main catalog and image archive system. Developed by iView, Media Pro was an incredible, full featured and powerful management system, probably the best one out there at the time.
Eventually, the program was sold to Microsoft, who, sadly, pretty much let it die. However, a few years ago, PhaseONE bought the program and resurrected as the catalog system inside CaptureOne Pro.
and after playing around with the demo this week, I can attest that it's still the best asset management system around. And although it's not as fast as Photo Mechanic for culling and initial editing, it is built to handle that task with a high degree of speed and efficiency, certainly faster than Lightroom.
With extremely fast drag-and-drop ready import, support for all types of image files, as well as PDFs, auto files, video, and many other types of documents, and full metadata/search solutions, Media Pro will give you full organization of your entire photography life.
To give you an example of how fast and powerful it is, I uploaded my entire 100,000+ image catalog, folder by folder, in just a couple hours. And those were all images stored on my Synology network hard drive. (That's WAY faster than you can do it inside CaptureOne Pro's own Media Pro-based catalog system!)
Then I transferred a copy of the catalog to my second computer, (you get 3 license versions), loaded the catalog and did various search and browse functions. I was amazed at how fast it let me scroll through thousands of photos and find specific photos and groups of photos using keywords, events, dates, etc...
In addition, hitting the "find file" button at the top of the screen instantly showed me the actual image inside the folder, and again, even though it was stored on my NAS system and not on the computer itself.
Using Capture One's image rending engine, rich management features and a wide variety of export options and templates for sending and sharing your work with your clients and social media audience, Media Pro is a very impressive program.

I'm really excited and curious about Luminar's upcoming catalog feature, but with my latest tests this week, I'm thinking that Media Pro could possibly end up being my main asset management system. Things could change, but for you,

Even if that ends up being the case, I'll still use Luminar for the majority my processing needs. This is easily accomplished, because you can simply drag or open the photo in Luminar, right from Media Pro, process, then save the edited file back to your folder and import/synchronize Media Pro to add your processed version to the main catalog.
After struggling with my own workflow for a couple years now, I'm excited and feeling motivated to finally get back on track in 2018. I may very well be on track to say goodby to Adobe and not renew my subscription. My hope is that you can get your workflow refined in 2018 as well.

I've also being trying out Affinity Photo as a potential Photoshop replacement, but I'll write about that in an upcoming email. Stay tuned.
 
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Adobe products simply do not function well on Windows. A very good, very experienced pro user might get Photoshop working at 75-80% of it's potential on a very very high end Windows machine but no more than that. I realise that most amateurs never get it working at more than 5% anyway but that's not the point.

As for being taken seriously, walk into any design studio or graphics office with a Windows laptop and see what happens. You'll be laughed out of the building. (y)
The only advantage of Apple in the graphics market is in colour matching, and the only time that was critical was in product photography. I say was because standards in repro were going through the floor by the time I retired.


Malcolm

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two

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Gimp is excellent value, whereas Adobe is at the other extreme. Clearly an organisation has to survive, somehow. How do the providers of Gimp do it?

Excellent review @DBK !
 

Lenny HB

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If you want to try Photoshop and don't mind an older version CS2 is avalable as a free download on the Adobe site.

I must admit I tend to use several different programs depending on what I'm doing just because I know to do certain things in different programs, silly I know but saves the big learning curve.
 
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The only advantage of Apple in the graphics market is in colour matching, and the only time that was critical was in product photography. I say was because standards in repro were going through the floor by the time I retired.


Malcolm

They’re ahead in display performance and general system stability as well.

Product photography is a dying art now. More and more companies are using cgi instead.

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Gimp is excellent value, whereas Adobe is at the other extreme. Clearly an organisation has to survive, somehow. How do the providers of Gimp do it?

Excellent review @DBK !

Open source projects aren’t intended to be commercial. It defeats the object.

Like many others Gimp probably started life as someone’s college or hobby coding project and has gone from there. The developers usually all have well paid other jobs in software design.
 

DJA

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I have used Photoshop Elements, current cost £86.56, for years on Windows machines and now have it loaded on a Mac. Every so often I have updated it if I felt the new version offered additional features which I thought would be of benefit. I have found it to work equally well on both platforms, with no apparent difference, once you have learned all the techniques you find you need. There are a number of "auto steps" you can follow to improve your pictures Contrast, Level, Haze Removal, Tone, Colour Correction and Sharpening. Ultimately as you get used to it you can then set your own changes to your pictures. It has all the other useful tools like the Clone Stamp Tool for removing the Ex and replacing with the latest!!!! The programme is a cut down version of the market leading software but like other programmes, for instance Word, most people only use about 5% of a programmes ability and Elements covers way more than that.
 
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If you want to try Photoshop and don't mind an older version CS2 is avalable as a free download on the Adobe site.

It's not quite as simple as that. It is there as a replacement copy for people who originally bought or licensed CS2 and have a valid licence number, not as a free for anyone download.

If you download it and don't licence it then it's no different to any other pirate software.

Anyway it's terribly outdated and bears little resemblance to CS2017 so it's not much use as a learning tool. I don't even know if it will install properly on up to date operating systems.

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Vanman

Vanman

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OMG.

I thought I was asking a simple question LOL. Instead of a simple answer I have 3 or 4 alternative options and some rather strange views about ebay and Macs. In truth the answers are so far from what I hoped for I am not sure that I can do them justice. But just to show I didn't ignore them, here are some responses -

Gimp, tried it again but it's just way OTT for what I want. It would take more time than I want to invest to learn it. I looked at a couple of Youtube training vids but after 15 mins of layers that was working towards sticking someone's head on a banana I gave up.

Corel 3 I vaguely remember. Looked at a modern version and it had changed beyond what I remember so would be as hard as Gimp to learn. Really the Light-software is the same too - hundreds of filters with tens of settings each ... life is too short.

As for Graphics designers laughing at me, well I am sure I can live with that* (y) :)

Thanks for the replies anyway. If anyone does come up with a cheap and cheerful option that is easy to use - straight from the box, please let me know.


*I thought we got rid of all the Graphics designers on the "B Ark" ;)
 

two

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or ACDSee. You can suckit & C for free first. Get the 'standard' version.

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GNU Image Manipulation Program = GIMP
You are of course correct and I should know better. Being a massive GNU user for work and leisure I shouldn't make stupid mistakes like that. Thanks for pointing it out.

How do the providers of Gimp do it?
It is opensource. In most cases opensource is written by professional programmers as a side project and they release it under the GPL licence. This means everyone has access to the source code and can make changes/improvements to it on the proviso that any changes they make are given back to the community. They also have to give the source code for any changes they make.

Using the Gimp example. It may be that a graphics company likes Gimp but can't use it as it is missing a feature so they have to continue using Adobe. They one day decide to pay a programmer to add the feature they require which is a one off cost unlike the Adobe continuous licensing fees. So they pay the programmer and get the upgrade they want. The programmer releases the update back to the community and it is added as a core feature. Other ways are that a programmer has an itch to scratch and decides to help out the community. He will get a nice little example to add to his portfolio of work and the community benefits.

https://www.gimp.org/news/2017/03/01/an-interview-with-michael-natterer-gimp-maintainer/

This is not the only way opensource works. But it is a fantastic community system with altruism and profit in equal measures.

RedHat for example is a company that only does opensource and it is a $Billion company now..
 
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Vanman

Vanman

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or ACDSee. You can suckit & C for free first. Get the 'standard' version.

To me that could be the worst of both worlds ... first you have to learn to use it and then pay $60 for the privilege (and that's assuming you don't need the Pro version $100).

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