Should I take the Photoshop plunge?

John Branson said:

Hello:

First post from a newbie here.

Long time Minolta SLR user, Kodachrome 64 almost exclusively.

Got digitally hooked with extensive use of a loaner Oly C-3040 this
year.

Bought an ebay E-10 last month.

Have a boring weekend planned, E-10 is in the Calif. facility
getting firmware upgrade. Also, couldn't format a brand-new Viking
128MB CF card recently, so I'm having them check that also. (Used
unit, still under warranty.)

Have latest version of Paint Shop Pro, but have not spent an
inordinate amount of time learning it yet.

Want to take the already outstanding images out of my E-10 and give
them just minor digital darkroom tweaks to improve their artistic
level.

My question: Should I put PSP 7 aside now, invest the bigger bucks
in the soon-to-be-released PS7, and go to town?

Thriving on every technical post in this outstanding forum -- just
ordered that Hoya Super HMC Skylight 1b filter someone was talking
about recently. I had been a little dissatisfied with focusing
aspects of my new E-10, but perhaps that was because I had been
using a bargain basement UV haze filter...

Glad the forum seems to be past a lot of unnecessary rhetoric, and
perhaps this post will help us return to the business at hand...
Much credit to Miss Beth, by the way.
--
John B.

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Jono Slack said:

Hi Jim

Yes - I use it as an image browser in OSX, but I'm getting kindof
fed up with the speed it takes to create thumbnails and load
images. I'm hoping that the browser in photoshop 7 will do the
trick.

I don't use it for editing much though - I still find it just as
quick (and more reliable) to use photoshop. I'm getting behind the
times too - I have one of the early 400mhz Titanium powerbooks,
with a Lacie 40g firewire drive for a scratch disk (you know, one
of those rubber jobbies!).

I also tried iview pro, which seemed quicker, until I asked it to
produce thumbnails of old scans, in one folder with about 300mb of
files it produced a 120mb catalog file!

I have to say, it is the one thing I miss from the pc - acdsee on
the pc was a great browser. iphoto could be- but only takes 1000
shots, and has a nasty habit of renaming all yyour files for you!
Maybe in version 2.

kind regards
jono slack

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Tom Meeks said:

[other programs] simply do not measure up
to the control and power of PhotoShop.

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Tom Meeks said:

I have studied just about all of the photo processing packages out
there trying to find a less expensive alternative to PhotoShop for
the craftspersons that I help from time to time.

As much as I love certain programs like PhotoImpact or Paint Shop
Pro for their value and ease of use, they simply do not measure up
to the control and power of PhotoShop.

This is especially true with regard to Levels, Curves and the Info
Window.

To me, the real power of PhotoShop is the real-time ability to to
determine technical information regarding the numbers behind the
image as I'm processing that image.

For instance, I use the 10 Zone option when adjusting curves. I
can click on any point of the image and it will tell me which
'zone' on the curve that particular area of the screen is in. This
let me get a handle on how my camera 'sees' so that I can apply
that when I process.

To determine this, I shot a Kodak Grayscale, then looked to see
where each of the patches fit on the curve. By seeing which where
higher than expected and which where lower than expected I could
see the behavior of my camera's dynamic range... and, how much I
have to lower or raise that particular 'zone' for a realistic
output. No other product that I've tested would give me that kind
of information.

And... once you start appreciating the 'numbers' that Photoshop
gives you it just goes on from there finding new ways to use them.

Having said that, I didn't throw away my PhotoImpact or Paint Shop
Pro becuase there are some things that they do that runs circles
around PhotoShop when I want to add a little 3D, etc.

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