PP for TZ5 & FZ18

Good day, What a great group. I am basicly a digital newbie.

I am wondering what is the preferred editing program that is EASY. I realy don't want to get photoshop as I cannot afford it and don't want to spend the rest of my life learning it.
--TIA--
bob

Photoshop Elements plus a few plugins.

What plug ins? Is there a good basic tutorial for elements?
-- TiIA
bob

You might look at the earlier versions of Elements over the more recent ones. While the newer Elements has some additional features, some people think the earlier versions are quicker, simpler, better. Although I bought 2, 5, and 6, I still prefer to use PSE 2.

robert fuller said:

Good day, What a great group. I am basicly a digital newbie.
I am wondering what is the preferred editing program that is EASY. I
realy don't want to get photoshop as I cannot afford it and don't
want to spend the rest of my life learning it.
--TIA--
bob

Click to expand...

I have been trying ReDynaMix and Neat Image with PS Elements 6. They have evaluation versions that you can try before buying. Both are inexpensive. I have used ReDynaMix to add life to some covered bridge photos I took on very overcast and dreary days in early April. Really added some zing to dull pictures, but you can easily overdo it. Occasionally someone on this forum mentions a Photoshop plugin - that is how I found out about the two I use so far.

As far as books go - I bought Photoshop Elements 6 The Missing Manual. Found it to be pretty good. Costs about $40 but I found it on sale a few months ago at Border Books. Check Amazon to see what their price is. Hope this helps.

Steve W.

I have found ImageEspresso to be a great product for these purposes! Powerful, yet easy to use, and affordable. Check it out at:
http://imageespresso.com/

If I were you, I would start out with Picasa (free download from Google). The software will do most of the PP you need as far as contrast, exposure, saturation, cropping, sharpening, etc. It is super easy to use and FREE. It will do about 95% of the PP most people need.

After you have gotten more experience, then I would consider moving up to more powerful (and more difficult) software. Even then, I would keep Picasa around, it is a fast and handy photo organizer.

yeah i like picasa too. the only 2 issues i have is (i hope there is solution within picasa but i can't see how)
1. image resize
2. setting for sharpening

otherwise, i use it most of the time compared to PSE

rgds
--
rgds
ajay

Bob,

I forgot to mention it earlier - download the free trial version of PS Elements 6. I think it is good for 30 days and doesn't have any blocked out features, watermarks or such stuff. Try some of the plugins I mentioned - they also come in trial versions but with some limitations. Compare it to the other recommendations and decide. That is what I did before buying it - Costco had a special offer a few months ago where I got it for $50.

Steve W.

Paint Shop Pro X2 is good and fairly easy to learn. It can take you from basic to advanced image processing.

Roger

You are correct about the sharpening. This is one of the weaker parts of Picasa. It is just a button to apply a pre-set sharping amount. Hopefully future versions will have a slider.

There is a way to resize by using the export button. I do this at work when I need smaller size pictures for different projects. Exporting lets you get to select the width of the resized photo in pixels and from a few levels of jpeg compression. Still not not as powerful as many programs that let you link resizing and cropping :-( Maybe in a future revision.

One strong pint in favor of Picasa: it uses a non-destructive system. If you don't like the changes you have made, you can revert to the original. It doesn't change the original file - it just applies real-time filters. Other non-destructive include Apple iPhoto and Apple Aperture. Photoshop is destructive in that it actually changes the file so you have to make backup originals.

Even if I use other software to PP a file, I still use Picasa as an organizer. Its very fast with large collections and its free.

sjwolfhope said:

Bob,
I forgot to mention it earlier - download the free trial version of
PS Elements 6. I think it is good for 30 days and doesn't have any
blocked out features, watermarks or such stuff. Try some of the
plugins I mentioned - they also come in trial versions but with some
limitations. Compare it to the other recommendations and decide. That
is what I did before buying it - Costco had a special offer a few
months ago where I got it for $50.

Steve W.

Click to expand...

Bob,

Also, if you are considering PhotoShop Elements, older versions are usually available on eBay & such for greatly reduced prices.

As to tutorials, I found a book "Teach yourself PhotoShop Elements - Visually" (see Amazon.com) which helped me up the learning curve. It's mostly a process of learning to "think in photoshopese";-)

Basically, I suggest hitting the local library, checking out all the books (& videos) they have on the subject, and buying a "used - good" copy of the one you like best from Amazon.

Good luck!

-Erik
--



http://www.flickr.com/ohlsonmh/ 'ohlsonmh'+yahoo gets me

You can try GIMP. It has tons of features and it is free.

http://www.gimp.org/

Nathan Margason said:

You are correct about the sharpening. This is one of the weaker parts
of Picasa. It is just a button to apply a pre-set sharping amount.
Hopefully future versions will have a slider.

There is a way to resize by using the export button. I do this at
work when I need smaller size pictures for different projects.
Exporting lets you get to select the width of the resized photo in
pixels and from a few levels of jpeg compression. Still not not as
powerful as many programs that let you link resizing and cropping :-(
Maybe in a future revision.

One strong pint in favor of Picasa: it uses a non-destructive system.
If you don't like the changes you have made, you can revert to the
original. It doesn't change the original file - it just applies
real-time filters. Other non-destructive include Apple iPhoto and
Apple Aperture. Photoshop is destructive in that it actually changes
the file so you have to make backup originals.

Even if I use other software to PP a file, I still use Picasa as an
organizer. Its very fast with large collections and its free.

Click to expand...

I tend to agree with Nathan. Picasa works like a charm on many
levels and is a free download. The organizational aspect of what
the software has to offer is worth it alone and I use it to manage
all of my images, even non photographic ones...scans, artwork, etc.

I'm sure that future upgrades will allow for a little more "user friendly"
control in the "one click" department and will most likely include
slider bars to fine tune the images.

What I have found though, along with Picasa, I also use the free

version of "Neat Image" or "Noiseware" to first de-noise my original, and then make further edits in Picasa. For the most part, the "autotune" feature
works pretty darned good in both instances and can be tweaked as well.

Something about doing it the other way
around though doesn't work quite as well?

Picasa has a way of adulterating an image if you use some of the editing features before taking it into the other 2 mentioned programs...
at least that's what I've found?

Thanks
Kim

--
Shoot first and ask questions later!

The one important aspect about Picasa that I neglected to mention
was this.

When you edit your images in the program, you see them "live"
and they remain that way until you decide to "undo them.

HOWEVER, and this is important...after making the changes to an image,
you need to go to the top of the folder on the right hand side of the
screen and select "Save Changes (?)" It shows you the amount of
changes that you've made.

This will confirm the changes made to the image so that when you
put the images onto a stick or cd for processing, they will be confirmed.
If not, the original will be copied onto the media device without the
changes made to the image.

The great thing about Picasa is that even if you select this feature, you can
always go back and select "Undo Saved Changes". Your original will always
be intact.

I found this out the hard way. Spent a few hours tweaking about 400
images, copied them to a memory stick and took them in for printing
on one of the local kiosks...none of them had the editing or cropping
changes I had made!grrrrrrr.

Came back to Picasa only to find that I didn't hit
the "Save Changes" button...DOH!!!!!!!!!

Thanks
Kim
--
Shoot first and ask questions later!