Cost of Photoshop

[kev@frames]

once you have learned photoshop you can make the most of it - I think custard is right about the time involvbed in learning a programme like that.
here are some others that my photographer mate uses when he doesn't require the full photoshop bells and whistles: he recommended them to me- they are oriented more towards photography. These are all free, because as we all know, photographers can be tight gits (I suspect its because they have no money left after they have bought photoshop )

Photoscape
FXPhoto
Picasa
PhotoPosPro
Gimp
GimpShop (Gimp mod with a photoshop "feel" to it, probably aimed at photoshop users)
I have tried these and they are all handy ones to have tucked away on the hard drive. Photoscape has a lot of other functions I dont use like RAW converters, screen capture, animated gifs and batch editing.
apart from Gimp they seem to be trying to be jack of all trades but masters of just one or two things.

My l "most used" are Paint Shop Pro, and Paint.Net. Photoshop was always a bit overwhelming for me. Too much stuff.

[mikeysaling]

PaintShop Photo Pro X3 - is a winner -next up (i think from PS pro 7) good price easy to learn and good!!

[ceebdub]

Not that I condone this, but for those of you who have children or know anyone with a .ac.uk email address you could buy PS5 for them for Christmas as a student version and then'borrow' it from them...Just a thought.

[Trinity]

www.photoshopuser.com
www.kelbytraining.com
Various posters are right about the time needed to get going on CS5, and having bought magazines etc over recent months I've found the above seriously good sources of information. By but it's hard going!

[Gesso&Bole]

www.Lynda.com is also very good for Photoshop training

[stcstc]

i have been using photoshop since v1. something or other

i use it everyday,

i reckon i know less than 30% of what it does, you dont have to know it all, you need to understand somethings, but learn over time

[Jonny2morsos]

Digital Photo magazine is a good source of Photoshop advice. It comes with a CD ROM each issue with guided video demos of techniques and source images to do the exercise yourself. Most can be achieved with the full versionof Photoshop or Elements

Some of the videos are available on their website http://www.photoanswers.co.uk/Video/

Getting back to the subject title of this thread Photoshop is a professional package at a commensurate price and if you are producing high quality prints yourself it is probably a must have. If you are having prints done elsewhere by a lab/printer then Elements/Paint Shop Pro will probably be OK.

[yasminfrench]

http://www.photoshopuser.com
http://www.kelbytraining.com
Various posters are right about the time needed to get going on CS5, and having bought magazines etc over recent months I've found the above seriously good sources of information. By but it's hard going!

Some of the videos on Kelby training are brilliant.
I've used a few different photo editing softwares. The most similar to Photoshop is Paint Shop Pro, it's got all the basic functions and a few advanced functions. For the average user it's more than enough. For more advanced features Gimp is freeware. It's not quite as tidy to use as Photoshop and the buttons don't quite work the same way (ie., to reference an area you have to Ctrl + Click instead of just right click) but it's good enough, and it will save you a lot of money.

You don't have to be at university to get a student discount for Photoshop, either. If you do any sort of night classes or are a part-time student you usually qualify for a student discount. Family members of uni students can also receive a discount, as long as the student only purchases one license (ie. They won't use it on their own computer)

From the Adobe Photoshop website:

1. All School, College, University students and their family members are eligible!

2.No Student ID required for Microsoft Software*:As an Official Microsoft Partner, our offers extend beyond academic email address holders so that any family member or guardian can buy on behalf of a pupil or student.

*All licensees' must be Qualified Education Users (i.e. students or their parents or guardians)

3. You receive Full Professional version software at an academic price for lifetime use at home only.

4. Microsoft have linked to us from their site - because you may think this is too good to be true. Thousands of customers can confirm this is the real deal.

5. Strict licensing restrictions from Microsoft means that each student is only entitled to purchase ONE software license of each product.

6. Pay Less, Get More. And if you have any problems with your transaction our support team are on hand to help: support@software4students.co.uk

[yasminfrench]

Sorry, I should have posted the link to the information. http://www.software4students.co.uk/Soft ... ticle.aspx