Photoshop is an incredible program for editing digital photographs and creating art from scratch. It has so many options that many people don't want to try it because they don't know where to start. There are alternatives; much cheaper and much simpler and you ultimately have to make the choice, but Photoshop shouldn't be the scary monster in the closet. It is quite understandably, the king of the hill, but I have a few alternatives for you.
At the least expensive end of the spectrum, there is GIMP, a completely free, no strings attached photo editing program. GIMP is open source, which means that many people are working on it to make it great and although GIMP is only a few years old it is a very capable program with a great number of options. And did I mention that it's FREE.
If free scares you and I know many people who feel that if it's free it can't be any good, then you might want to try Paint Shop Pro. At under $100, it is a very capable image maniplulation/paint program.
For those who can't afford PhotoShop, there's it's little sister Photoshop Elements. This program is often given away, if you buy a digital camera or graphics tablet, etc. However, these versions are often labeled LE, which means that the light version of PhotoShop has been made even lighter.
There are other alternatives to Photoshop in the marketplace and many that I don't know about or others I can't recommend at any price.
Over the next few months I will be sharing tips in Photoshop that I have discovered over the years (I've been using Photoshop since before it was called Photoshop) and I hope you will find them as useful to you as they are to me.
If free scares you and I know many people who feel that if it's free it can't be any good, then you might want to try Paint Shop Pro. At under $100, it is a very capable image maniplulation/paint program.
For those who can't afford PhotoShop, there's it's little sister Photoshop Elements. This program is often given away, if you buy a digital camera or graphics tablet, etc. However, these versions are often labeled LE, which means that the light version of PhotoShop has been made even lighter.
There are other alternatives to Photoshop in the marketplace and many that I don't know about or others I can't recommend at any price.
Over the next few months I will be sharing tips in Photoshop that I have discovered over the years (I've been using Photoshop since before it was called Photoshop) and I hope you will find them as useful to you as they are to me.
Written on Friday, 31 July 2009 21:17 by Rick