I just bought a digital camera and would like to play with it on my computer. What is a good program to use? I have out of focus shoots and would like to sharpen them.
"The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise." - George Santayana
"To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life." - T.S. Eliot
Thanks for the info guys. If Photoshop Elements does the same why the price hick on Photoshop. Thanks I will look into Photoshop elements. Kind of excited to do my own photos at home.
A lot of the differences are things that someone in a graphic design environment might find it hard to live without. I've also not seen the latest version but the older version of elements did lack some functionality (although unless you've spent hundreds of hours getting to grips with photoshop you probably wouldn't notice it) perhaps making tasks easier for the novice but less malleable for the expert. Basically though, the price structure for photoshop is not aimed at the domestic user but at the professional. Adobe clearly realise that the domestic user won't spend the kind of sums they charge business users for photoshop so with some judicious pruning they created a product that is sufficiently lacking to stop business users stopping short of buying the full package but sufficiently featured to impact on the homeuser market who previously generally used pirate copies.
Nothing says I love you so much as a tongue in the ass. 2884 Posts 1/03
Posted - May 2 2004 : 1:13PM
Despite the high price of Photoshop there is something important to consider for users of digital cameras. If you use your camera at it's highest quality setting you will be generating a Camera Raw file which is the equivalent of a digital negative. Photoshop CS comes with a Camera Raw import feature that previously cost $99. There's also the inclusion of ImageReady that is used primarily for preparing images for the web, creating animations and roll overs. It's just something to consider. The price is high, but there is bang for the buck.
For easy Tasks such as Viewing, sorting, renaming, converting formats pretty much any media file I have to go with Irfanview.
For harder jobs such as touching up, color correction or harder jobs Photoshop 7 (haven't played with CS yet)is my top choice with Paintshop coming in a close 2nd.
I use Photoshop and Irfanview after almost every photo shoot as well as for many jobs working on my website.
Nothing says I love you so much as a tongue in the ass. 2884 Posts 1/03
Posted - Jun 8 2004 : 1:14PM
A raw file is uncompressed and final color information has not been assigned to it. Anything you do to a file is destructive and eliminates information. Every time you resave a compressed file, the quality is being reduced.
That in itself means nothing, as this is a capability any graphics program worth its salt possesses. The fact remains that you cannot freely share the original source of stored graphics between applications, because PSD is not an open format, like PNG. PNG is open, and lossless, and does not require proprietary software to be edited, nor does it lock you in in the vendor's mercy and therefore for all these reasons it is strictly preferred, as are applications whose native format is PNG.
One thing to remember when working with photos how good a program you want or need depends on what the end result you want from them. If you only plan on posting to the web to show off or email to friends a cheap or free program is fine, but if you want to show off your work professionally or print from them you want the best results. Why pay $500-5000 for a Digital Camera and then work your images with a giveaway program? Same goes with quality in quality out, if you are using an instamatic digital using Photoshop CS is not going to help them much.
Main thing to remember is try before you buy. While some people take to Photoshop or Paintshop like a fish to water. They can be hard to learn and some will be able to learn one or the other a lot easier than the other. I have gotten pretty good at Photoshop using versions 5, 5.5,6 and now 7, but I never could do basic jobs in paintshop pro or some of the other programs on the market.
Daylight Savings Time, is it really Necessary? 972 Posts 3/04
Posted - Jun 9 2004 : 3:21AM
I use Photoshop 6 and I like it. I was thinking about trying out Photohop CS just to see if it is really better. Photoshop has a lot of stuff to learn but it has been kind to me.
So you save all your work as png files? How does that work? I mean to say, you might end up with a dozen layers all blended and masked in different ways and what about adjustment layers and paths? AFAIK all you can save with png is the image and an alpha channel so how do you go about creating stuff Em? Moreover, what do you do a year later when you want to change it again?
I also wonder what the advantage is in having a program whose native format is png? Are you saying these programs can create png files in ways photoshop cannot? Why not just use photoshop, use the full functionality of the psd format and just create a droplet to drag any pics you want to convert to png onto?
Yes. PNG, or Portable Network Graphics format, is completely open, and very well documented. It is an international standard. By working with PNG files, I am insured against everything and anything the vendors of graphics apps can do to me, including changes in their proprietary formats.No, no. PNG is a multi-layer, editable format, just like Photoshop's PSD. The difference being that ALL applications which are built on PNG must conform to the specification. What layers of functionality they append is up to their own ingenuity and creaitivity, and they are not limited by the standard itself. Far from it.
You think of PNG as a JPG with an alpha channel. That is not true. You can have a million layers for one image, and each of them be editable separately, with as many channels as you wish. There are no limits.
If I work on PNG, I keep an uncompressed, lossless copy, which I can edit everyday, till the end of my life, and the quality will not, ever, decrease. That is why, if I scan my photographs, I scan them to an uncompressed TIFF program, and then edit dimensions, get rid of small troubles (retouch), and save several copies into editable PNG. Then they serve as source for any graphics I might want to create. To make it simple - think of this as Photoshop PSD format, but open, documented, and unchangeable.
What advantages? There are no disadvantages at all. Photoshop ties you to a format which is not fully documented, and any feature of this format may be removed in the future, with you being unable to prevent it. It is also copyrighted, meaning that you can not add functionality to this format, nor subtract any. This is all possible with PNG. As I said above, I am not limited in the capabilities of the format, and I can share this open format with ANY application, including Photoshop. It's all about freedom, and future-compatibility. The full functionality of the PSD format is also PNG's. It is the application itself that gives you more or less power over what to do with the format, and not the format itself.
If that is as you say then fair enough although i've just spent half an hour googling on this I can find not one reference anywhere to png having a layer capability as present in psd and tiff. I know for certain you can't save layers to a png out of photoshop because I've just tried.So the program you use is as good as photoshop?
I have not worked with PNG files much, but after reading on it some it seems that PNG files can not and will not be saved as multi-layered images the way a PSD or TIFF can. What I have seen from PNG files is they can be compressed down the way a JPG can, do not lose quality the same as a Tiff an can be animated the way a GIF can. So it apparently is a very usable file and is becoming prevalent on the web, but if it can also store multiple layers as a PSD does I would love to find out what program works it best.
I don't work with PSD, because I don't believe in this format. So I am not familiar with Photoshop export options.
What I do know is that I create layers, and edit them at will at any time. If the image has 100 layers, I can select each, and edit separately using a layer selector. Its handling differs from application to application, but it is not true that you cannot have layers in PNG.
A native PNG application preserves all layers. If you export and compress to some format (including low-rate PNG), you certainly lose something. But that does not change the fact that, to use the simplest example of all, I can have text and vector graphics overlaid separately on a single PNG background, and save it as PNG, to be able to edit this at any time in the future, each layer separately.
Photoshop is unparalelled when it comes to image retouch and its base of filters is impressive. No wonder - it is one of the oldest commercial applications with a huge user base. I am not denying its potential. I say that I wish Photoshop's format was PNG.
I do not perform magic on my images, and my area of expertise lies elsewhere. For my graphic needs only one thing matters, in addition to native PNG - killer web export features.
After quickly browsing usenet and the web it seems to me that Fireworks' layer feature may be a (proprietary?) extension to the PNG format. I could be wrong but it seems that no other program supports it. That would rather negate the point of using it for portability. What other programs can load layered PNG's without 'flattening' them?
Layers are not in the specification, unless I'm wrong. Therefore any extension must by necessity be external. Whether it is proprietary or not is a different issue than whether or no it is interoperable. A given company could open the source of the extension, and release the extensions with a GNU license. You are not permitted to charge for PNG, because it is an open standard. But you are free to ADD to the format what you wish, as long as your output is interoperable with any other native PNG application, as well as any PNG-enabled reader. Such extensions may be also incorporated in the future PNG standard versions.
Fireworks is just an example, it is not an end in itself, or an optimum. Macromedia uses PNG as a native format for its graphics application, and as such is much more friendly than Adobe - but it still appends proprietary functionality to its software. Given that PNG is the output, I'm not afraid.
Each layer can be saved as a separate PNG file, and recomposed in any other PNG-enabled application.
PSD files without plugins are uneditable, and as such - useless. The availability of plugins is up to Adobe, as well as the conditions upon which it may be embedded in third-party apps, and viewers. Which is one of the points I wanted to make.
Nothing says I love you so much as a tongue in the ass. 2884 Posts 1/03
Posted - Jun 13 2004 : 11:03AM
Up until now I wasn't really sure what you were getting at about the editability (or not) of Photoshop files. Most applications will only accept certain kinds of files (jpg, tiff, eps) and they are not editable within these layout apps. If you place an image and want to make changes, you have to go back to Photoshop. Granted, it would be nice to be able to adjust anywhere, but for people that are working with a full suite of apps, it's no big deal. Photoshop does come with a very good web app ImageReady , that can create animations and rollovers, outputting the when saving. Pretty much the same as Fireworks . What works best is really dependant on what you're trying to achieve. In print, Photoshop is indispensable. If you're only interested in web capabilities, then Macromedia Studio becomes the suite to consider. They are all great applications.
I know it does. I don't use it though, as it is bad practice to use , sliced images into tables, with rollovers. All of this burdens the pages incredibly, whilst it could be achieved easily without , with 100% of the code saved. It's a huge issue which is off-topic for this thread, so I'll leave it alone for now.I do own the newest studio, but use only a small portion of its features in total.
Microsoft tried to enter the market in 1999 with their PhotoDraw. The app had its own layered format - MIX. The app is now discontinued, as it flopped as a product on all counts. So now people all over the world are left with files in uneditable proprietary format. This world is littered with dead files in proprietary formats :]
The only thing I miss from Photoshop is its impressive library of filters. It is really unmatched...
I do understand the frustration that a users experiences when old formats are no longer inuse. I hate it when I open really old PhotoShop files and all that comes up is "Adobe Photoshop 3.0 for Macintosh"
I then have to find a Mac with photoshop, resave it to the latest version of Photoshop then I can edit it on my PC.
As for your comparison of PNG to the PSD format. I think it has the same problem.
You are refering to PNG as having layers. So far this seems to be only true for the FireWorks application.
If you sent me your multi-layerd PNG file I would only be able to edit it in FireWorks. PhotoShop opens this multilayerd PNG as a single layered document.
This extension to PNG seems to be a propriety of MacroMedia. If they go out of business then you are stuck editing your PNGs in their application.
PNG is a great format. But if extensions to it are added and not shared with the rest of the community then it will be like any other format out there.
I've seen this happen with Open Source application in the scientific community. All the Unix/Linux developers working on the applications add their own extensions. They are supposed to give back, but they don't. their institutions have paid millions in the development of these extensions, they are not about to give it away for free.
I see the same thing going to happen with MacroMedia. Why would they give away the code for adding layers to PNG extensions to anyone else?
If I send you a PNG file that I made in PhotoShop, it is what I expected to send you. Single layer, lossless image.
If you sent me your multi-layerd PNG file. I did not get what you wanted to send me. I received a Single Layer, lossless image. In which I cannot edit any of the layers you had created.
Yes. That is why open formats and standards should be cared for. They tend to outlast everything else.It depends on the company, of course. Some companies help finance standards, and it is their mission to popularize open standards. Some advocate them only to the extent that they help them make money, and do not contribute back. Others, and you know whom I have in mind, try to lock everyone into their own solutions. If it ever happens that filters and layers enter the standard, we shall all be richer. The fact remains though, that the shorter the export channel, the better; the closer to PNG, the better. That is why I prefer FW, although I too would rather like to see the standard expanded, and the functionality of Adobe Photoshop is not going to be contributed back, ever. From amongst imperfect solutions, I believe in choosing the least evil solution.
And then there is an issue of PNG display on the web. There aren't too many formats that are portable on the web, and the most popular browser by far is unable to handle png alpha transparency (at least not without ridiculous behavior hacking). The've been ignoring requests for fixing that issue for years , and the new version, whenever it comes out, will not support it either.
Posted - Apr 28 2004 : 4:31PM
