Thread: Image Manipulation Programs

Have a look at Paint.Net. A bit simpler than Gimp but may have all you need.

I used Gimp for a while until i acquired a copy of photoshop. There are heaps of demos/tutorials on the net, it's a pretty powerful program.


Martyn

If you have worked in a dark room developing your own work you will live and justify investing in a Photoshop.
There are old versions available in the market which are very powerful and you will have a complete control of your images.
You can get PSCS3 for $99 and it is heaps better that any free software

I used to use Photoshop CS3 on my Power Mac but when I upgraded to an Intel chip Mac it no longer worked so I 'downgraded' to Photoshop Elements 8, which came free with one my cameras, PSE is plenty good enough for me , still heaps of features I never use, pretty sure you can download it free.

You left the swap to digital late, what Camera did you end up with ? I never liked digital cameras very much until I got My OMD E-M5 , I'm loving it, lots more retro digitals coming on the market now too.

While there are obviously people who can't manage with anything less powerful than Photoshop, I think some people would be surprised at just how powerful a free program like Paint.net is, especially when some of the plug-ins are added.

I had used a few very basic graphics programs and had seen some of the hings Photoshop could do before I had my first look at GIMP. It had so many features and was sufficiently different that I was frightened off very quickly.

I spent quite a bit of time with Paint.net, including teaching school pupils to use it. When I returned to GIMP, I understood a lot more about how it worked and I occasionally use it now.

Download Paint.net and give it a try. What have you got to lose? It's free, it's easy to use, might help you learn about how graphics programs work and as I said becomes a very powerful program when some of the plugins are added.

Thanks for the advice, everybody, I was a bit nervous about GIMP after what I had read on the internet about it and I thought I might be biting off more than I could chew.

I'll download that Paint.net program and practice with it and then maybe upgrading to something more advanced later. Then again Paint.net might have all the features I need!!!

Originally Posted by goingbush

I used to use Photoshop CS3 on my Power Mac but when I upgraded to an Intel chip Mac it no longer worked so I 'downgraded' to Photoshop Elements 8, which came free with one my cameras, PSE is plenty good enough for me , still heaps of features I never use, pretty sure you can download it free.

You left the swap to digital late, what Camera did you end up with ? I never liked digital cameras very much until I got My OMD E-M5 , I'm loving it, lots more retro digitals coming on the market now too.

Yeah, I don't want to bore you with a long story but I used to own a photo retail shop with one hour film processing and doing wedding photography on the side. Finished up losing a lot of money back in 1999 when digital started to come in also the internet was becoming popular and quite frankly I was burnt out. Completely lost interest in photography until recently.

I bought a new Nikon D5100 about six months ago and the old flame is starting to flicker again. now, I have some catching up to do!!!!!

I use gimp and have no problems learning it. I dont think it would be any easier or harder then PS (I think even can even download something to customise the menus to be the same as PS).

There are plenty of video tutorials around to help you learn.

Have not seen or heard of paint.net until now but I am going to have a look.