Enjoying Digital Photography

Could it have been Photoshop Elements? It usually runs around $90.

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Link to the Mac version

Don't confuse Elements with the full version of Photoshop CS3, which is about 6x more expensive and far more powerful.

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A lot of people like Elements since it has many of the features that photographers need without getting overly complex - plus the price is right! You might want to go to the Adobe site or other websites that rate the software.

That would be Photoshop Elements 6, and it was released not that long ago so I would be surprised if they were updating again this soon. The price sounds right to me, as before I got CS3 (which is more like $650) I was seeing prices of 89.95 with promise of a $10 rebate.

::smiling:: Coki and I were writing at the same time.

Photoshop 6 is an older product but it's the one I use here. Photoshop itself when new usually retails for at least $600.

If you are talking about Photoshop ELEMENTS - that price range would be about right. Photoshop is always coming out with newer versions both in Photoshop itself and their Elements product. Elements most likely has all you would need :) Both have a bit of a learning curve but most software now does.

There is also a free product called GIMP but from what I hear, it takes longer to learn your way around that one. If you are just looking for a basic program to try out, Google's Picasa isn't too bad. Photoshop IS a great product though. Hope this helps.

Before you spend a dime, there are numerous sites with freeware available! Try playing around with different things before you commit yourself. tucows.com has a ton of free media editing software for download, & that's just one site.

Kodak Easyshare came with my camera, but I didn't like it & downloaded Picasa. Picasa is fine for touch-ups & has a pretty good organizing system for the non-professional. A big plus is it makes it easy to share your pics with other people thru online albums on Google.

Then because of Eons, I needed a resizing tool (& was curious!), so I downloaded IrfanView - which is also free at irfanview.com. This program is more powerful than a lot of people realize!

And since I'd read so much about GIMP in tech reviews, I took a look at it. I decided it had so many of the same features as PhotoShop, why spend my money when GIMP is free? You can take a look at it at gimp.org & compare it to the PhotoShop suite. If you don't like GIMP, you probably wouldn't like PhotoShop; & at least you wouldn't have wasted $$ either way.

Hope this helps.

I use Kodak EasyShare for simply cropping photos, but then I don't do much more than that. I can see why you don't like it, Sylk. It is pretty limiting. I found GIMP for Mac here: view link

Haven't check out the others yet, but I'll give them a look.

I don't have a lot (well, any, to be honest) experience with PhotoShop (of any ilk), but I understand that you're more likely to appreciate The Gimp if you don't already know/use PhotoShop.

My understand is that this is because The Gimp is a "do alike", but not a "work alike" program. That is, it does the same things, but in a very different way, so if you're used to how PhotoShop does things you're more likely to be confused when using The Gimp.

Also, maybe PS also does this, but The Gimp has a scripting language and there are a lot of scripts out there that people have written that help automate some effects, operations, etc.

I use The Gimp, but that shouldn't be a surprise since I'm a) not a Windows person, and b) an Open Source advocate.

To echo what a couple of other folks have chimed in with - if you have simple needs you might not want PS or TG - just the same as if you live 3 blocks from the store and that's the only place you go you probably don't need a Dodge Viper for the trip. :)

Adobe products cost an arm and a leg. Does anyone know if there a huge difference between Photoshop and Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI ?

Visualizer Photo Resizer is nice program that resizes and watermarks your photos at the same time. Of course you can do one or the other and not both if that's what you need. It's a batch program so that may be drawback for some of you, but it's free and extremely easy to use. view link

I want to thank all of you guys for your help and advice. I really appreciate it and wish you a happy July 4th weekend.