Modern image editing software.

[CaptNKILL]

I've been using Paint Shop Pro 7 for around 7 years now (used PSP 5 and 6 before that) and I keep going back to it for basic image editing.

I've tried GIMP and I've tried Photoshop and they both seem way too bloated and slow for basic tasks. Not to mention that Photoshop is outrageously expensive.

Everything about PSP just seems so much more streamlined than other modern image editing suites and they don't offer any options to make them work like PSP.

For example, I just downloaded a desktop picture from a website. It had a nasty looking border on it, so I attempted to black-out the border using GIMP. I found that it takes dozens of clicks and adjustments in 3 different areas just to get my brush to paint a soft black edge. And even then, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the damned thing to actually paint the correct color (BLACK) with a soft edge. Once I'd reached a certain level of "opacity" it simply wouldn't apply any more black unless I adjust the opacity before every click. On top of all that, I had to keep moving windows out of the way because the interface doesn't appear to dock anywhere. And the whole program seems incredibly laggy and choppy... as if I'm running without my video drivers installed or something.

So after screwing with that for 25 minutes, I installed PSP7 again, opened the file, picked a brush, made it black, lowered the opacity, lowered the brush hardness, and fixed the image in less than 2 minutes. It was smooth, fluid and everything I needed to adjust was in the same window and I never had to move windows out of the way to do anything. Hell, I didn't even have to touch the keyboard since the mouse wheel zooms in and out automatically and you can use it to zoom out and back into any part of the image in a fraction of a second.

I understand that I've gotten used to how this program works after nearly 10 years of use... but still... why are modern graphics programs so bloated and slow? It shouldn't take half a second for the program to respond when I zoom into an image and the cursor shouldn't chop and stutter while I'm drawing a basic line. It'd also be nice to have basic drawing features work without having to click 18 different buttons on three windows just to make a brush almost do what you want it to do (ie, what it does in a 10 year old paint program).

/rant

Are there any image editing programs available that are fast and light yet powerful? Animated .gif support would be nice too (PSP7 comes with Animation Shop 3... which is ok but could be much better).

[CaptNKILL]

Just tried Paint.Net.

Its ok, but too basic and doesn't seem to have any options at all. Its basically MS Paint with image filters.

[bob saget]

really quick hijack captn :o

In paint, how can I make the image a smaller size so i can put it up on here, without cropping it. Is there a way to actually make the picture not as "big".

[bob saget]

nvm, found resize feature :o

[ragejg]

Paint.NET has a large user community and a lot of custom plugins (such as PSD support). It runs super fast IMO and has helped me through two *from scratch* web design contracts.

[Zelda_fan]

My computer is a 3GHZ Core 2 w/ 4GB of RAM (same as yours basically), and Photoshop runs perfectly fine for me. No lag or anything. I use the 64bit edition (with CS4) so maybe that's why.

Photoshop is incredibly powerful. There is a reason professional artists use it almost exclusively. However, if you don't know what you're doing, you'll quickly find it hard to even do something as simple as draw a circle. PSP is good for you because you've used it for the last 10 years and you know how to get stuff done. But you're not a kid anymore. You should learn how to use adult software like Photoshop. If you get good at it you could actually make a pretty decent living with it.

There are thousands of tutorials on the internet. My advice is get an academic version of Photoshop and Illustrator (really cheap) or * cough* pirate *cough*, and learn how to use it. It's a good investment of your time. Nobody in the professional world uses PSP. Everyone uses Photoshop.

Oh and forget GIMP. It's just a steaming piece, and a really bad idea. Tried that for literally 3 minutes then uninstalled it immediately.

[CaptNKILL]

My computer is a 3GHZ Core 2 w/ 4GB of RAM (same as yours basically), and Photoshop runs perfectly fine for me. No lag or anything. I use the 64bit edition (with CS4) so maybe that's why.

Photoshop is incredibly powerful. There is a reason professional artists use it almost exclusively. However, if you don't know what you're doing, you'll quickly find it hard to even do something as simple as draw a circle. PSP is good for you because you've used it for the last 10 years and you know how to get stuff done. But you're not a kid anymore. You should learn how to use adult software like Photoshop. If you get good at it you could actually make a pretty decent living with it.

There are thousands of tutorials on the internet. My advice is get an academic version of Photoshop and Illustrator (really cheap) or * cough* pirate *cough*, and learn how to use it. It's a good investment of your time. Nobody in the professional world uses PSP. Everyone uses Photoshop.

Oh and forget GIMP. It's just a steaming piece, and a really bad idea. Tried that for literally 3 minutes then uninstalled it immediately.

I don't really have any intention of doing professional graphics work, so something like Photoshop is totally unnecessary for me.

The only thing I've ever used it for was that (enormous) texture pack I made for Oblivion back in 2006 because it has very nice touch-up brushes.

For every day use, like quickly editing a photo, a quick sketch or something like that, it'd be a waste of time for me to learn a program as complicated as Photoshop, and yes it is much slower than PSP. There isn't any loading bar in PSP7. It opens as fast as an explorer window, and all effects apply instantly. I'm guessing its just because its old and doesn't have 12,000 filters and functions that I'm not going to use.

I've just been looking for something that fits my needs for a reasonable price and has little to no learning curve. So far all I've found is expensive professional grade software (Photoshop), bloated crap (GIMP), MSPaint with image filters (Paint.Net) and programs that are only for adjusting images and applying filters... not actually drawing or painting (like Irfanview).

Even the newer Paint Shop Pro versions have changed significantly and moved more toward the professional market... thanks to JASC being acquired by corel.

Anyways... if there aren't any alternatives, how cheaply would I be able to get academic versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, and how could I do this if I'm not in school?

[nekrosoft13]

tried photoshop elements?

[CaptNKILL]

tried photoshop elements?

I used it once or twice back in high school, but I don't remember much about it.

I may have to look into it.

[grey_1]

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelbasedwin/tp/freephotoedw.htm

I'm experimenting with photoscape (kind of underwhelming) and Serif photoplus right now. Serif offers the photoplus SE for free.

Edit: the free Serif has limited functionality, but not bad so far, and requires free registration. Upgrade to the full version is $9.99, which I'm considering. Pretty feature packed bit of software which is easy to use, so far.

[Butter Bandit]

\
Oh and forget GIMP. It's just a steaming piece, and a really bad idea. Tried that for literally 3 minutes then uninstalled it immediately.

+1

The only thing I've ever used gimp for is resizing images...I'd never try to do any serious editing with it.

[LovingSticky]

tried photoshop elements?

+1

Excellent (and cheap) software for non-pros.

[TheANIMAL]

Im just good at using photoshop cs2 which i bought second hand for 10 pounds.

So suck on that.

[Shamrock]

Pixel Image editor is fast. It isn't free, but it's not $600 either.

33 Euros.

http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=12

There is a demo version on the page I sent you

[crainger]

Spam bot!

Just use Paint. It's how masters do it, just like pros do html in notepad... ::bleh::

[LurkerLito]

Pixel Image editor is fast. It isn't free, but it's not $600 either.

33 Euros.

http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=12

There is a demo version on the page I sent you

LOL, be very careful with this one. I have been following it's development for a while and they just recently removed their forums because of all the pissed off users that paid them but got almost no updates from the current beta release. I don't want to say they are a scam but when last I went to the site it had been over a year since the last beta was released even though about 6 months prior the author was saying he was going to release a newer beta in a 2 weeks.

[nemecb]

For example, I just downloaded a desktop picture from a website. It had a nasty looking border on it, so I attempted to black-out the border using GIMP. I found that it takes dozens of clicks and adjustments in 3 different areas just to get my brush to paint a soft black edge. And even then, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the damned thing to actually paint the correct color (BLACK) with a soft edge. Once I'd reached a certain level of "opacity" it simply wouldn't apply any more black unless I adjust the opacity before every click.
I'm confused, it's not difficult at all to paint black with a soft edge in Gimp. The paintbrush tool has a number of brushes for that already.
http://www.nemebean.com/stuff/fuzzyline.png
Or is that not what you wanted to do?
On top of all that, I had to keep moving windows out of the way because the interface doesn't appear to dock anywhere.
Unfortunately Gimp assumes you have a decent window manager and Windows doesn't qualify. I suspect this is the #1 problem people have with the interface (at least people who aren't already married to the Photoshop interface and will never accept anything that is not a direct clone, but I digress).
And the whole program seems incredibly laggy and choppy... as if I'm running without my video drivers installed or something.
Never had that problem, but it would definitely be a dealbreaker for me too.

Hell, I didn't even have to touch the keyboard since the mouse wheel zooms in and out automatically and you can use it to zoom out and back into any part of the image in a fraction of a second.
That's a pet peeve of mine with the Gimp. This should be the default, rather than the worthless "scroll up/down" setting that they have. It's the first thing I change every time I install it.

[Shamrock]

LOL, be very careful with this one. I have been following it's development for a while and they just recently removed their forums because of all the pissed off users that paid them but got almost no updates from the current beta release. I don't want to say they are a scam but when last I went to the site it had been over a year since the last beta was released even though about 6 months prior the author was saying he was going to release a newer beta in a 2 weeks.

Ooo, thanks for that update. I personally don't use it. I didn't like the demo.

[CaptNKILL]

I'm confused, it's not difficult at all to paint black with a soft edge in Gimp. The paintbrush tool has a number of brushes for that already.
http://www.nemebean.com/stuff/fuzzyline.png
Or is that not what you wanted to do?

Make a solid very dark grey (almost black) box on a black background and then attempt to blend out the edges between the almost black and the black using a black paint brush.

Without manually adjusting the opacity every time you can't paint a gradient. Even when you tell it to make the brush build up as you keep drawing it will only apply so much "color" and every time you do it it applies less and less. This means the edge of the box will always be visible no matter how much clicking you do without changing the opacity with every click. PSP doesn't have this problem.

Also, PSP allows me to adjust how soft\sharp I want the edges of my brush with a slider. If I want a solid circle with a soft edge, I can do it in varying degrees.

I guess my main gripe with the programs I've used is that there isn't any simple or fast way to do things that are incredibly basic parts of PSP7.

EDIT: I've attached the image I was trying to edit. I wanted to get rid of the white line and the harsh transition from the full black background to the bluish-black night sky. Between the zooming, the windows getting in the way and having to constantly adjust the opacity it was aggrivating in GIMP.

In PSP it took only a couple minutes to fix the whole image. I've attached the fixed one I made in PSP7.

[nemecb]

Make a solid very dark grey (almost black) box on a black background and then attempt to blend out the edges between the almost black and the black using a black paint brush.
I'm inclined to say that I would never do that. If I wanted to blend a box into a background I would use Gaussian blur and then I wouldn't be stuck with a particular softness level for the blend. Maybe just different ways of thinking based on the program we're used to.

Without manually adjusting the opacity every time you can't paint a gradient. Even when you tell it to make the brush build up as you keep drawing it will only apply so much "color" and every time you do it it applies less and less. This means the edge of the box will always be visible no matter how much clicking you do without changing the opacity with every click. PSP doesn't have this problem.
If I understand correctly, the problem you were having is that you clicked and held once and it wouldn't give you color past the set opacity level? In order to layer translucent drawing like that you need to stop drawing and click again and it will draw over top of what you just drew. I'm having no trouble getting full black with a partially opaque brush doing that. Why did they choose to do it that way? Beats me, although it allows you to fill in an area smoothly with a given level of color without having to worry about overlapping your previous drawing.

Also, PSP allows me to adjust how soft\sharp I want the edges of my brush with a slider. If I want a solid circle with a soft edge, I can do it in varying degrees.
Yeah, I actually googled this wondering if it was possible to do in the Gimp and it seems it isn't. You can create new brushes with different hardness, but that's obviously not ideal for many changes. Although like I said, if I were going to draw a soft circle I would probably just draw it and then Gaussian blur it, but this is still probably a legitimate complaint.

In PSP it took only a couple minutes to fix the whole image. I've attached the fixed one I made in PSP7.
TBH I don't see anything in the fixed image that would take me more than a couple of minutes in the Gimp either. Unfortunately, I suspect things are always going to be easier to do in the program that you know. For the interface difficulties, I would suggest GimpShop (http://www.gimpshop.com/index.shtml) which is a modification of the Gimp to have a more Photoshop-like interface. I'm guessing it will work better on Windows.

[Zelda_fan]

Make a solid very dark grey (almost black) box on a black background and then attempt to blend out the edges between the almost black and the black using a black paint brush.

Without manually adjusting the opacity every time you can't paint a gradient. Even when you tell it to make the brush build up as you keep drawing it will only apply so much "color" and every time you do it it applies less and less. This means the edge of the box will always be visible no matter how much clicking you do without changing the opacity with every click. PSP doesn't have this problem.

Also, PSP allows me to adjust how soft\sharp I want the edges of my brush with a slider. If I want a solid circle with a soft edge, I can do it in varying degrees.

I guess my main gripe with the programs I've used is that there isn't any simple or fast way to do things that are incredibly basic parts of PSP7.


EDIT: I've attached the image I was trying to edit. I wanted to get rid of the white line and the harsh transition from the full black background to the bluish-black night sky. Between the zooming, the windows getting in the way and having to constantly adjust the opacity it was aggrivating in GIMP.

In PSP it took only a couple minutes to fix the whole image. I've attached the fixed one I made in PSP7.

You could do that in photoshop with the edge tool in about two seconds.

[CaptNKILL]

You could do that in photoshop with the edge tool in about two seconds.

Any ideas how I can get Photoshop and Illustrator cheaply without being a student or a pirate? :o

[Toss3]

Any ideas how I can get Photoshop and Illustrator cheaply without being a student or a pirate? :o

I'd just ask a friend who's a student to buy it for me. ;)

[LurkerLito]

The cheapest way IIRC is to buy the elements version then upgrade to the full version. Just double check with adobe to make sure they still allow it. I am kind of ticked off at them cause I still use PS 5.5 but they won't let me upgrade to any of the latest even if I wanted to because the version is too old.

[Shamrock]

Why not just upgrade to the last version of PSP that has Animation Shop included? That would be PSP 9