Adobe photo software

[TuscNick]

I have just bought a new PC, my old one is falling down when I use Corel Photoshop.

The Corel product was about £60 2 years ago, and does quite a lot. But most of the mags give advice in Adobe photo software.

I would like the best possible and maybe the illustrator software too. However the costs I have ssen for the software are more than the PC.

I am also a little confused at to the diffrence between the Adobe photo software offerings, not sure if I need Elements or CS4.

Can anyone help me shine some light on the software and maybe the best place for competitive prices ?

Cheers

Nick

[mcflurry]

CS4 (and CS5) will cost you a lot more than £60

Corel PSP X3 and Adode Photoshop Elements are both good tools at that price point. The magazine tutorials are aimed towards PSE, although PSPX3 has a lot of built in tutorials and guides too

(I have both)

[GetCarter]

I also use both Coral and Photoshop... and Coral will do 90% of what CS4 will do. Unless you are printing for mags, or want really clever effects/layers etc, save the money.

[DevilYellowCV8]

For scope Corels PSP is better than Elements. But as you say, not much literature for Corel. Most of it's core workings are very similar to Adobes CS software.

My only gripe with PSP was the way it would crash on a regular basis. I eventually sorted it out in the preferences menu after digging around on the net but iirc, Corel are/have decided to stop supporting PSP and throw it's efforts behind Draw. Elements 8.0 is a good bet, nice user interface and you can still achieve many CS type of effects albeit with some long winded methods. Having said that, I got hold of a legit copy of Elements for free then upgraded via Adobe online to CS4 for a fraction of the price of the 'almost full fat' version.

CS4 prices might come down a fair bit now that CS5 is due out next week so that might be a viable route if you still want a 'powerful' photo editor.

[TuscNick]

Many thanks for the helpful replies.

I suppose my main concern is the lack of guidance in Corel PSP or in magazines. I cannot seem to get the effects I want, but the help menus are not great. Online tutorials would be good but my home internet connection is slow slow slow. (living in the sticks).

Corel may do it but tying to apply some of the gudance on CS4 into Corel just does not seem to work.

I am just not sure how much more is in CS4 than in PSP, what is the difference. i could not find any comparisons table etc on the net. It sounds like form your comments, I would be best sticking with Corel (maybe the new version, but I can't help feeling CS$ is an itch i need to scratch ( but cost does make it an expensive itch)

Cheers

Nick

[DevilYellowCV8]

If you're not sure then stick with Paint Shop Pro ~ some of the later releases have a few extra filters and a neat background remover plug-in which is excellent value for the money. PSP handles RAW when it can be bothered (can be a bit hit and miss as to whether it'll open a file or not esp Canon Raw CR2).

CS4 can be power hungry processor-wise and it can be picky about which graphic cards it likes but, it is faster at processing images and has a more serious, streamlined user interface. Also has better file handling (tagging, exif data, organisation etc) which is a big plus for me.

When I used Corel, the only useful book I could find was 'Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 for Photographers' Ken McHahon published by Focal Press. Quite comprehensive. Would put up a link for you but work's pc won't let me!

[mcflurry]

TuscNick said:

I suppose my main concern is the lack of guidance in Corel PSP or in magazines. I cannot seem to get the effects I want, but the help menus are not great. Online tutorials would be good but my home internet connection is slow slow slow. (living in the sticks).

IME both Elements8 and PSP have built in guides. The Elements one is on the right, and can be selected with the easy and medium edit mode button choices. There is also the online help link, but as you said your internet connection isn't the fastest. Easy edit gives stuff like the crop and red eye options, medium then allows white balance, colours and so on, with the full edit being a bit like full Photoshop, but without the full selection tools, filters, actions etc.

PSP has it's on the other side, you select the main category and then specific item, for example "touch up" then gives options to brush teeth and suntan the portrait
It also has stuff like a button to add frames and textures, without the entire adding additional layers process seen in PSE

[SupraTT1975]

One other option you have is GIMP.

http://www.gimp.org/

Heard a lot of good things about it so worth checking it out.

And it's open source - so it's free!

Worth a shot anyway.

Cheers

[andy-xr]

I'll throw Lightroom into the mix then. I tend to do cataloguing/colours/WB/other minor tweaks in Lightroom and only if I need filters, layers or the patch tool does anything make it into CS3.

I've tried PSP a few times, and while the integration of 3rd party filters is better than it used to be, they're easier to get along with in PS from what I've tried.