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Paint Shop Pro vs. Photoshop Elements

Wed, 2007-10-03 13:26 — carlp

I've used Paint Shop Pro for several years, and generally like it. I'm not expert at all its features and quirks, but I get around.

I'm two versions behind. Should I upgrade it, or just drink the Kool-Aid and switch over to Photshop Elements, since there is so much more support, knowledge, add-on base, etc. available?

- Carl 


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Wed, 2007-10-03 13:35 — Michael

I'm using PSP 11 after

I'm using PSP 11 after finding that the cost to upgrade from PS was in the "are you insane?" range.

 I like it. Lots. It's fast, easy to use handles RAW format images well and allows batch processing for file naming.

I'd give it a strong positive recommendation.


Wed, 2007-10-03 16:22 — tedder

I've used PSP for something

I've used PSP for something like 8 years. Have PSP9 and 11, but am really frustrated at the browsing feature in 11. The new way of doing it blows, and is even worse on smaller screens.

I finally jumped on the Picasa bandwagon for browsing and light editing (rotating, cropping), which leaves PSP for the higher-end stuff.


Wed, 2007-10-03 16:44 — Michael

Duality in action   I

Duality in action

 

I too use Picasa for sorting and rotating and very basic editing. I've been quite amazed at how capable Picasa is when it comes to making pictures look good for the web. Not so impressed with how it works for preparing images for printing. YPESEMV


Wed, 2007-10-03 21:17 — catfish

Both products are well

Both products are well supported and work great. I used PSP until I bought a scanner a few years ago that came with PE. I also use Adobe Illustrator for technical drawings, so I switched for the consistent ui. Not all windows users like Adobe's ui. They are ported Mac apps that work a little differently than native win_apps.

Catfish ...

PS: I don't care for the generated title being the first 4 words of the post and displayed above it when viewed. Can that be turned off, or the thread title shown instead?

 


Thu, 2007-10-04 10:07 — carlp

"First 4 words"

 What's actually displayed there is the "subject" of the comment. I found an easy way to let the user supply the Subject (as I've done with this), but it provides no default.  It would be realtively easy to omit that altogether, but I think it serves as a decent heading. I'll have to poke around a bit more to see what other options are available.  Hold on to your ats; the "look" may change at any time.

- Carl


Thu, 2007-10-04 10:07 — carlp

Testing with no Subject:.

Testing with no Subject:. Try no punctuation in the first many characters. The way I read the code, this should generate a subject using the maximum number of "words" that fit in 29 characters, after stripping HTML and other stuff. It will also break at a period, trying to use the first "sentence" as a subject. 29 is a "magic number" in the code, not named or documented for any reasoning.

It seems a bit short to me, but I'm reluctant to change it. The Subject field is used in some site admin forms and such, as well as alternate displays - e.g. instead of displaying the whole thread with all the text, it can be shown "collapsed" with just the Subject: for each post.

I did alter the settings to show the first 150 comments/replies with each "topic" (Drupal calls them topics instead of threads), instead of the default 6 or 10 or something.

- Carl


Thu, 2007-10-04 00:14 — rmander

I use Picasa for the basics

I use Picasa for the basics at this point. I haven't had a full adobe suite for mumble-ty years - long enough ago they only worked on macs - which were pretty new.. That's about to change because of the class requirements (and student discount) at UW. Haven't decided if I'm going to spring for a mac, yet, either... haven't had one of those in years either. It's been almost 30 years since I've taken a class on the subject, so I'm WAAYYY out of the loop.

 ...but I take lots of pictures, some of them pretty good.

Robbie


Thu, 2007-10-04 00:18 — tavares

I too use Picasa for the

I too use Picasa for the basics.

I also use IrfanView, which is pretty good.

It is no PS and not even a PSP, but it is decent.

I am eyeing ponying up the bucks for PS. I can get 

PC CS3 for around $300 with KAddee's academic discount.

I have been playing with it on one of the school computers and I gotta say it is pretty slick. 


Thu, 2007-10-04 09:08 — keith

I have Pshop CS3, and while

I have Pshop CS3, and while it is indeed slick I had a hard time duplicating isleman's noise reduction efforts (he used PSP). I was able to sort of do it, but it wasn't altogether easy. Maybe I'm doing something wrong Innocent
Thu, 2007-10-04 16:06 — tkpowell

Noise Reduction

With Photoshop (any version I believe) you can use the smudge tool at 6-10% to smooth out noise or the noise reduction function under Filters (CS2). With the later you might want to select out the areas you want applied rather than the entire photo. I haven't used other programs but I'll bet they also have this function. --Terry
Mon, 2007-10-08 10:48 — Michael

An alternative to PSP and CS3

Picture Window Pro 4.0

http://dl-c.com/content/view/13/27/

About the same cost as PSP XI with some very nice features.

30 day trial available. 

 

Michael