Photoshop or Something Else?

I have always used adobe photoshop for all my photo editing needs, but recently there have been some credible competitors rising with Apple's Aperture and iphoto, Google's Picasa, and more.

One thing I don't really like about Photoshop is it doesn't seem to work too well for working on many photos at one time. I usually use it for one photo at a time and it is quite time consuming.

I would be interested to know what software other people use and what they think about it. Also what they typically use it for, (cropping, color balance, exposure, brightness, contrast, etc...)

Tags: aperture, apple, editing, iphoto, photo, photoshop, picasa, software

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Blake on January 16, 2008 at 6:58am: Much obliged Craig!!!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Craig Fine on January 15, 2008 at 9:35pm: Oops, this is for Photoshop, not Elements...hope it helps anyway.

Craig; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Phil on February 12, 2008 at 1:25am: If you want to apply the same corrections to a batch of photos then photoshop surely is the way to go......... I have one word for you "actions" ......... this enables you to record the corrections you make on a single photo which you can then call upon at any time to make those same corrections to another one or batch of images. Once you have a little library of actions set up for all your different editing needs life could not be simpler. Try it out!...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by sri on February 20, 2008 at 5:31am: Hi Trisha

adobe CS3 is the best photo shop software comparing to other photo editing soft wares
try for CS3; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Francesco Marzo on February 20, 2008 at 7:09am: Have any of you checked out Adobe's new Lightroom? It works for you in a way; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Andy P on February 20, 2008 at 7:16am: I'm a technical dummy. I got PhotoShop 7 with my first PC figuring it was the best. I had to learn how to use the PC before even looking at PhotoShop. Two years later I was still only scratching the surface of what PS could do.
When I upgraded my PC I also got Corel PaintShop Pro X, what a joy. It's so easy and does all I need as an amateur.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Donald Mark on May 10, 2008 at 6:29pm: Ta DA. Someone else who likes Paint Shop Pro! I've used Photoshop a little bit, but PSP is so much easier, and it does enough for me, most of the time. AND it's MUCH cheaper than Photoshop.

I've used PSP now for 12-14 years, and have had several versions (now on Version 7.04). 99% satisfied.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Richard on May 25, 2008 at 6:19pm: Indeed, yes! I, too, use Paint Shop Pro - an old Jasc version - and could hardly be happier.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Earl E. Gibson on February 20, 2008 at 8:15am: Have you looked at Adobe LightRoom? It is pretty nice for what I think you are looking for. There is a 15 day demo you can download. It is not crippled in any way other then the number of days until it stops working. You can go to the link below to download.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/?sdid=BSRFB&s_...|1220705553; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Patricia on May 10, 2008 at 6:09pm: Windows Vista Photo Editing capabilities do well for me when I'm only cropping and/or rotating photos 90 degrees or more. Lately I've been using Photoshop 7 >Layers> for exposure correction, brightness, contrast and saturation. I just downloaded Topaz Vivacity for special effects, sharpness, cleaning and denoise adjustments. I prefer pictures without much in the way of post processing but I want my images straight (I am tending toward 1-3 degrees off either vertically or horizontally). I am self taught in all photo editing processes and have had no difficulty with Photoshop with all the tutorials that are available.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Poppho on May 12, 2008 at 5:22pm: This is what i'm using:
1. Photoshop CS3 for Image Editing (nothing beat Photoshop, eh?)
2. ACDSee for photo management
3. Image Compressor for image compression and batch RAW converter; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mr Tibbs on May 13, 2008 at 11:53pm: Trisha,

Have you tried looking at the freebies...G.I.M.P. http://www.gimp.org/ Its fantastic and with it's new interface almost like Photoshop (superb), some say it rivals photoshop, I think it's up there with the best and it's free so you can't go wrong downloading it even if you don't use it often.
Another alternative is get yourself signed up for the new Photoshop Express http://www.photoshop.com/express/
It's an online "very" cut down version of CS3 which allows you to do some pretty basic editing but it's all free (For the moment) and it has some rather feature to all the basics that you mentioned for cropping/colour/exposure/contrast etc.

http://www.contextfreeart.org/index.html is quite good if you want to make random vectors for your pictures especially trees etc which is free.

http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/bworks.htm has several free standalone picture transform editors especially B/W works which is superb, I used it with other bits to do my Edinburgh Alleyway Duotone picture, the result can be superb, colourcastfx and clearskinfx from this site are also cool to use. Highly recommended as they are really easy to use and you don't have to spend hours transforming pictures, literally seconds to do impressive pics.

Nothing will compete with CS2 or 3 but you may find the free software I mentioned more than capable of creating quicker and often better pictures as you won't need the knowledge as you would with Photoshop.

Have you tried looking into batch editing / Actions with Photoshop, that may be the answer for editing photos which need the same changes/settings.

Get yourself signed up to www.photoshoproadmap.com as previously mentioned as they send you daily projects via email and some are very impressive and give you step by step tutorials on how to !!! One of my fave websites.

Hope this helps ?; ▶ Reply to This