Doug T.
Lifetime Member
Pettin' The Gator
Posts: 1,199
|
Post by Doug T. on Oct 14, 2010 13:29:31 GMT -5
Hi All! I could never afford Photoshop, so after much searching found PhotoScape. It's a great editing program, fast and easy to use. The best part is that it's free. Give it a try, I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Doug
|
|
mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
|
Post by mickeyobe on Oct 14, 2010 18:33:32 GMT -5
I used to manipulate black and white prints in my now abandoned darkroom. Manipulation included burning and dodging, rubbing an area while the print was still in the developer, putting concentrated developer on an area, both of these to darken an area, using Farmers Reducer or even chlorine to bleach to lighten an area, under and over developing (pull and push) which rarely worked very well, ferricyanide and various toners and with Ilford Multigrade, filters to alter contrast. With Cibachrome colour there was very little choice.
Oh, and the vile odours and the stains. And the mixing of noxious chemicals and strict temperature and time controls. And the disappointment of coming down the next day to find one of your solutions had turned dark brown. And the tedious, back breaking hours stooped over an enlarger grain magnifier while standing on a cement floor.
Little wonder that I think of Photoshop as a major miracle.
Mickey
|
|
|
Post by herron on Oct 14, 2010 20:35:34 GMT -5
I'm using PS4 (the folks at Adobe took too long to find a workaround for the problem I found trying to use PS5) ... but I prefer not to use it all, if I can. I do find it useful for the "snapshot" kind of image (which means most of mine), but when I take the time to set up a shot, I'm usually content with the results, and any tweaking is just that, and usually less than I would have done in the darkroom.
|
|
daveh
Lifetime Member
Posts: 4,696
|
Post by daveh on Oct 15, 2010 1:32:12 GMT -5
I am using Gimp mainly now. I think I have said before that CS3 wouldn't handle the latest Canon CR2 files, and while I did get CS4 (without paying full price) that is too memory hungry to run on my notebook.
There is a secondary problem with the notebook: it is 1024x600 pixels, and the Canon conversion programme, RAW to jpg,needs at least 1024x768 to run in. The same is true of several others. However a small, and surprising fast running, conversion programme does the job. It seems that there is an embedded jpg in with the RAW file and this just picks it off. I put it through Gimp, but mainly just to straighten, crop a little and reduce the size.
The end quality is not as high as using the Canon or Photoshop conversions, but it is significantly faster and generally gives a result that satisfies most requirements. Gimp does most of what Photoshop can do.
|
|