Photoshop alternative

I am new to FCP. I am importing stills and need to set image scaling preferences, set the grayscale, crop to 1800x1350x72, sharpen, save as Tiff and set my byte order. I realize that some of these can be done in iPhoto but not all. Is there a freeware or a less expensive alternative to Photoshop for these procedures?
Thanks

Has anyone used PhotoShop Elements 6 or any other program to accomplish what I outlined in my opening? Let me further explain that the purpose of the workflow is to include still pictures into a video and have the option of pan, zoom and other motion effects without creating Moire flickering or other artifacts.
Message was edited by: kent11347

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Photoshop alternative for Mac

Hi
I bought Photoshop Elements 4.0 for Mac some time ago, but I never really liked the interface. I recently downloaded the trial for Photoshop Elements 6.0, but, though the interface is better, it's still not what I'm looking for.
So I was wondering if anyone could suggest some alternatives in approximately the same price range?
I know of Apple's Aperture, but as far as I'm aware it's more a program for making your camera images look perfect and not a program for adding effects and filters, making collages of several imgaes, etc., right?
Thanks

Personally I'm with orangekay on the GIMP (and thanks for the morning laugh). The GIMP was built to run in Linux, and it has all the Linux sort of conventions for everything. It does not work remotely like any Mac program you have ever used, nor is it particularly like the Photoshop GUI. If you are used to Mac programs and Photoshop conventions you will have a lot of habits to break.
There is a version that has been tinkered with to be both more Mac-like and more Photoshop-like in its conventions, called GIMPshop. It is donationware. There is also a non-free version of GIMP that runs in the Mac GUI, as opposed to the regular GIMP which runs in X11, called MacGIMP.
http://www.gimpshop.com/
http://www.macgimp.org/
http://www.gimp.org/
Try out the GIMP and see what you think. An interface is very much a matter of familiarity and taste. Perhaps you would like it.
You might also want to take a look the "new kid" which many people like (I didn't, but if you prefer the Elements6 interface to the older Photoshop interface you might). It's called Pixelmator:
http://www.pixelmator.com/
It is in the same price range as Elements.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder
PS--Aperture is not an image editing program in the sense of making composites, applying special effects, and so on. It does basic corrections to color and lighting of digital photos, and is mainly a tool for organizing and batch processing massive numbers of digital photos.
Message was edited by: Francine Schwieder

Adobe photoshop alternatives !

any body know any FREE software, lighter than and alternative to adobe photoshop ?

There is the freeware "The Gimp", but it was a little rough around the edges last time I looked at it. You get what you pay for.
There is Corel Paint Shop Pro, which is less expensive than Photoshop. I don't think I'd call it "light", though, and it is somewhat less functional than Photoshop.
-Noel

Can Adobe Photoshop Elements be considered as an alternative to Creative Cloud?

I am a Photoshop user but i don't like to pay monthly for using Photoshop, when i searched the web for a solution i found articles saying that Adobe Photoshop Elements can be considered as a Photoshop Alternative.
Can anyone tell me if it is ok to buy Adobe Photoshop Elements instead of Adobe Creative Cloud ? I am not a experienced or professional Photoshop user , i just use it for my office purposes like removing background from images, using layers to create new images, creating brochure etc.

It seems like all you need to do is some basic image editing , you don't need adobe photoshop creative cloud to do basic image editing.
Adobe photoshop elements is more than enough for you, you can buy it with confidence. It seems that in the article about photoshop alternatives that you provided , there are free photoshop alternatives that you could use. If you don't trust free image editors or your business don't allow it , your best choice is to buy photoshop elements. Since you are a photoshop user , it will be easy for you to use photoshop elements than any other image editor.

Photoshop free alternative for leopard?

anyone know of any free photoshop alternatives for OS X Leopard?
I've heard people say they are out there along with the free open office so you can avoid Microsoft
any of them actually able to use and maintain .psd files?
while I'm at it, any alternatives to dreamweaver out there? though I doubt that even more
thx!

The regular Gimp will open Photoshop files, recognizes layers, has many features, and is free. It runs in X11, and although there are some issues with X11 in Leopard, it does run. I had the 2.4.0 release candidate, just downloaded the 2.4.3. Both will run. There is something on the downloads page about requiring a patched X11-user, but I didn't do that and it seems to be fine. Of course, I didn't do much with it....The chief reason I don't use it much is that it requires a learning curve, it is rather different than anything you are used to on the Mac, and rather different than Photoshop as well. I've just never spent the time with it necessary to become proficient. My habits are pretty set after using Mac apps and Photoshop for many years. But it is powerful and free. You can get the Mac version here:
http://wilber-loves-apple.org/pages/download.html
You do have to have X11 installed. It is in the Optional installs of Leopard install disk.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Do I have the chance to get Photoshop for free if I'm a student? I mean the full version and not the trial.

Do I have the chance to get Photoshop for free if I'm a student? I mean the full version and not the trial.

No. Just the student rate on a permanent or subscription license. Some places do include Photoshop and other products as part of the tuition, but it is a separate arrangement and most likely temporary.
The Photography Plan is a fine deal at $10 a month. Creative Cloud Photography plan | Adobe Creative Cloud
Otherwise there are free and paid lower cost Photoshop alternatives you can look into.

Migrate CS3 Photoshop to another Mac

What I have: working copy of CS3 on my iMac AND license code
What I don't have: install disk
What I want: Reinstall CS3 (very least photoshop) on either a new Mac I will buy soon in future, or if I wipe my current Mac's HD to start fresh and want to reinstall CS3/Photoshop
Alternative: All I need is Photoshop for designing app icons and characters, use it maybe once a month, but still need it... Can't afford $10 a month for the creative cloud because I simply don't use it enough, would love to buy once for cheap and keep the software.. Also a student. Any help would be great.

Download CS3 products
Download, install, enter your serial number.
No guarantees that CS3 will run smoothly on OS X Yosemite though.

Can you make custom clothing for 3d Models?

Hello, I am new to Photoshop CS5 Extended and mostly bought the program for making textures for 3d clothing since it has a bridge from DAZ to Photoshop which I hope will make my work go faster. I have been using DAZ and Poser for a while now and have been working in photo editing and vector designing for 12 years. I am not new to this, just need to adobe products. I was wondering if it is possible to custom clothing for 3D Daz models using Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended? I can find tutors on painting models but nothing on making the custom clothing itself, not a texture for other clothing but making my own clothing for DAZ Kids4. I have been using Hexagon to work with clothing but was looking for a photoshop alternative method.
Thank you
Kimberly

for the mesh, hexagon is actually better than photoshop. Since it can create the actual mesh. Though, you can import the mesh into photoshop so you can see it while you paint the texture.
The 3d creation portion of photoshop is still a bit limiting. (But my experience stops with CS5. I have not tried CS6 yet, so impovement could have been made)
The issue I have with hexagon is the amount of bugs in it. I prefer a more robust and more expensive alternative. But thats me
A free alternative is Blender. But I find the UI a bit outdated and hard to grasp. But again, thats me.
Generate your UV maps as you normally would then load them into photoshop and get painting. You may like other texture generating apps to go along with photoshop. Genetica is great for making tileable textures.

Buy Aperture at the moment?

Hello
i'm new on OS X and searching for some great photo software. i heard about the actual aperture situation. should i buy it at the moment or should i wait 'till the "new" photos app is presented?
thx for your informations......

Aperture is a waste of money at this point. It is only barely cheaper than many competitors (especially since many are running sales now) for a product that is going nowhere but the grave. And obviously some of us disagree about it's ease of use and integration with other software you may use. Maybe Photos will be better; we don't know when it's gonna show up or what it will be beyond a brief preview, so if you need something and can't wait, try others.
It's a matter of personal preferences, what you need, and how you like your images to look. But even before Apple axed Aperture it had gone a very very long time without anything but minor upgrades. Meanwhile, the competitors have been improving.
Also, you can't try Aperture. But you can try demos of all the competing products. Some favorites besides Lightroom/Photoshop (pretty much the professional standard right now is, and has been, Photoshop) are Capture One Pro (now supporting external editing with software like the Nik/Google products, Photo Mechanic (a favorite for news and sports photographers), DarkTable and Lightzone (open source alternatives), Corel AfterShot Pro, and others. Some like DxO OpticsPro use photo browsers instead of the digital asset management scheme of Aperture and Lightroom, and some prefer that model. DxO excels in RAW processing, as does Capture One, if RAW is important to you. Others are more Photoshop alternatives for image retouching and manipulation, like Pixelmator, Photoshop Elements, Acorn, GIMP, and others. Another worth looking at (again, we don't know your needs) is Graphic Converter, which has a browser, and editor, and great tools for metadata editing.

Issues with unauthorized Adobe products

An issue is preventing me from donwloading the "Free Grab Photoshop CS2 offered from Google/Adobe. Repairs were made to my computer by an independant IT Man, (friend of a friend)
who installed unauthorized software on my computer. I have tryed numerious times to contact him, without success. Comments welcome.
Message was edited by: RWILSONPhotography. RWILSONphotography was added just yesterday with the intention of starting a new photo business.

We have had lots of articles about Photoshop alternatives in our camera club newsletters. (The OP is a club member)
http://www.marlboroughcameraclub.org.nz/index.php/photo-news/photo-news-2013/
They take the best part of a week out of every month to put together, and I am VERY over it, so I shall be either handing over to a new editor next year, or they can do without a newsletter.

Hi!I have an image which is a drawing of black lines and i need to put it over a picture without loosing definition in both of them,like the drawing and the picture are one.How can i do that?can someone help me please?I do work with CS6.Thanks!

Photoshop General Discussion

Why has nobody suggested the "Blend If" solution yet?
- double-click on the layer thumbnail of the dragon line art
- Hold down <Alt> and drag the left half of the "This Layer" slider to the left, and the right slider as well, but not as much for a nicer blending.
Done. The only trouble is that you cannot add (for example) a color overlay effect to recolour the lines directly because this layer is not considered truly transparent by Photoshop (in Photoline this is not an issue luckily). In Photoshop's case you will have to merge it to a new layer, and only then does Photoshop treat the transparent pixels as "real" transparent ones. Some tips to do that can be found here: Create A Composite Layer | Planet Photoshop
Alternatively, convert the layer to a smart object, and you can apply layer effects and the like without issues. I would choose the latter option, since it is non-destructive.
This method, however, does not take the pre-multiplied edge pixels into account (which are multiplied with white), and thus you lose those pixels. This may be an undesired side effect, especially for more delicate art work. A better approach is to use an "unmultiply" effect.
In Photoline a non-destructive adjustment layer will allow us to do exactly this with any background colour, and with additional controls as well. Unfortunately, such a filter is unavailable in Photoshop. Luckily enough an action for Photoshop is available: http://www.ayatoweb.com/download/down04.html
- download the action (zip file) and load up the actions in Photoshop (I have no idea if this action still works in CC and above - I own a license of CS6 only).
- since this will unmultiply BLACK, you must first invert the artwork with <CTRL> <i>.
- run the action "unmultiply English".
- The black background is removed, and you now invert the artwork back to its original black.
Done! Notice how all of the original edge pixels remained unaffected. Those are now truly semi-transparent, and blend nicely with the background layer(s). A bit of a shame this is a destructive workflow, but the result is great.

TIFF superior over PSD

Hi, I came across this link. What interested me was one comment, TIF format is a superior format then PSD. What is the community opinon on this ? I sorta agree !
Wrong...PSD is now a bastardized file format that is NOT a good idea to use. Even the Photoshop engineers will tell you that PSD is no longer the Photoshop "native" file format. It has no advantages and many disadvantages over TIFF.
TIFF is publicly documented, PSD is not. That makes TIFF a preferred file format for the long term conservation of digital files.
TIFF uses ZIP compression for max compression, PSD uses RLE which if you save without the Max compatibility will be a bit smaller, but at the risk of not being able to be used by apps, like Lightroom.
TIFF can save EVERYTHING a PSD can save including layers, paths, channels, transparency, annotations and can go up to 4 GIGS in file size. TIFF can save all the color spaces PSD can. The ONLY thing I can think of that PSD can save that currently TIFF can't save is if you Save out of Camera Raw a cropped PSD, you can uncrop the PSD in Photoshop CS, CS2 or 3. That's one tiny obscure thing that PSD can do that TIFF currently doesn't. How many people even knew that let alone use it?
PSD used to be the preferred file format back before Adobe bastardized it for the Creative Suite. The moment that happened, PSD ceased to be a Photoshop "native" file format. PSB is the new Photoshop "native" file format for images beyond 30,000 pixels. And , at the moment, only Photoshop can open a PSB.
Getting back to the fist point, Adobe can do anything including stopping support for PSD because it's a proprietary file format. TIFF is public, even if it's owned by Adobe (by virtue of the Aldus purchase). Even if Adobe went belly up tomorrow, TIFF would continue.
And, let me be blunt, anybody who thinks PSD is "better" than TIFF is ignorant of the facts. If Adobe would let them, the Photoshop engineers would tell you to quit using PSD. Lightroom for the first beta did NOT support PSD and Hamburg fought tooth and nail to prevent having to accept PSD. He blinked, but you still can't import a PSD without Max compat enabled-which basically makes it a TIFF with a PSD extension.
Look, I'll make it REAL simple...
TIFF = Good
PSD = Bad
Ok?
I hope this helps with your understanding of why ACR/LR has "difficulties" with PSD.

JJMack wrote:
If Photoline is a good photoshop alternative and is flexible the Photoshop CC. Why then is Photoline not the Gold Standard of Image Processors. It more likely you use a small subset of Photoshop feature and Photoline feature cover the subset of Photoshop features you use. However I have seen you over in the scripting forum the last time I looked Photoline could not be scripted it only had action support. Have you given up on scripting Photoshop?
Photoline does not do any video or 3d stuff (well, there is some primitive 3d tool). Also, the brush engine for digital painting is not really comparable: it is more or less on par with the older Photoshop versions, before the updated brush engine. It is, however, compatible with most Photoshop brush libraries.
So in this sense: yes, Photoline covers a subset of Photoshop: image editing. And in this regard it does an extremely good job, with tools that are mostly (95%) on par with Photoshop. Up till 14 months ago I used the full scope of functionality in Photoshop for professional photo work, web work, graphic design and 3d texturing. I have used it since version 3 in my work. In September last year I decided to stop using Adobe Photoshop for my work, as I discovered alternative tools that just work much better and are more efficient.
In terms of workflow Photoline offers a much more streamlined and non-destructive layer stack. I used all of Photoshop's image editing features, and use most of the techniques described by Marguilis for image colour correction and enhancement. And Photoline's approach works BETTER than Photoshop for general and detailed image editing (in my opinion).
For example:
- no need to switch image mode when you wish to work with the curves in Lab mode. This is part of the curves: a neat dropdown allows me to work in RGB, Lab, HIS or HSV colour mode.
- far better control of layer opacity and effect control due to a -200 up to +200 opacity slider. You can easily invert a layer's blend mode effect this way. Or double its effect
- cloned layers update in realtime. And source layers can be moved to their own page. Multiple views can be setup, and changes in the source layers in one page update in realtime on other pages. Very handy to organize your work. Arguably works better than "smart objects".
- layer masks act like regular layers. The amount of freedom this allows you in your workflow is staggering: group layer masks together, apply adjustment layers, layer effects - the sky is the limit. Completely non-destructive, and you can add as many bitmap and vector layer masks per layer as you want. And these can be cloned as well, and reused anywhere in your layer stack or pages!
- and of course, any layer and layer mask can be individually set to 8/16/32bpc and any image mode.
There is also no need to convert layers to smart object for them to work with non-destructive adjustment layers. Just apply them. Edit the contents in place - why force me to open a smart object in a new window that will not update in real time in the original comp? Just silly.
Anyway, Photoline is Photoshop sans 3d and video. With a much improved layer stack workflow.
Granted, the one thing really missing is scriptability, unfortunately. No scripting in Photoline. I have mentioned this lack of control to the Photoline devs, and hopefully they will address this in the future. At the moment I use ImageMagick for more complex batch image processing jobs instead, but I do hop this will be amended in a newer version of Photoline.
For digital painting work I now use Krita - the brush engine in Krita is insane, and blows Photoshop's brush engine out of the water. As it happens, Krita applies the same layer paradigm as Photoline, so they feel like sister applications.
For 3d painting and texturing work I generally use 3dCoat. Photoshop's 3d is pretty horrendous as it is, so I already moved away from that a long time ago.
For web work Photoline is better than Photoshop, since I can work in pages. Optimization I do with freeware tools such as Color Quantizer. Photoshop's web export is rather bad, so additional tools are required to take care of proper optimization.
Besides, the point I am making is this: Photoshop tries to be everything to everyone nowadays. It has lead to fragmented development, and at the same time it can never hope to be as good as specialized tools. More bugs are introduced due to bloat and legacy code that has to support extraneous features that are good, but not great (3d everyone?). At the same time less time is spent on the core functionality that made Photoshop so great in the past as an image editor. And it is starting to show.

The Adobe Marriage is Over

Just want to put this out there. In the ancient days, when a husband and wife were through, the man would publicly say to his wife, "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you.", three times, and the covenant was broken.
I've been faithful to Adobe since pre-Photoshop 6 days. I've bought and installed and used almost every Adobe brand at one point or another for my business, from Audition to Lightroom to Premiere to Illustrator and all the little in-betweens, dealing with glitches and reinstalls and patches and system hangs... I've upgraded all of my computers, spent thousands keeping up with the latest hardware and graphics cards, RAM, you name it, just to stay in a relationship with you.
All these years later, after such a long relationship, I have to say I've been duped one too many times. I'm no longer faithful to you because you are no longer faithful to me. I'm no longer drinking the Cool-Aid. Chalk it up to too the $$$ lost in production, the minutes and hours that just slip through our hands in forums, the one-too-many support tech's telling me, "You know, you just need to uninstall everything and run a clean sweep." I Especially liked the guy last week who told me through his many sighs and his short impatience that I was basically not worth his time.
This morning I've retrofitted my computers back to CS3, after spending almost 60 hours this week, just on you, in the middle of our Christmas rush, sifting through forums, talking on the phone with Adobe support, getting nowhere while my clients wait. There's no more time for counseling.
I won't bite anymore, Adobe... I'll use your product, your older product, because I have to. but my affection for you, my desire to understand your ways, has been leeched away.
I'm tired of being your guinea pig. I don't know who you're catering to these days, but it's not the little guy who hold you up, the guy in the trenches trying to keep his trade afloat and support his family in a spiraling economy.
And it's my fault. I readily admit. I bought it all, hook line and sinker.
I should have used the money I spent for CS4 to give my kids a better Christmas. I know that now, on the other side of a cold and blue, Scrooge-of-a-shoulder. I'll take that responsibility. But...
No more.
No more.
No more.
Like I said, just want to put this out there...publicly.
Today I have to use Photo Mechanic to filter through my images. Then I have to use Bridge CS4 to color, and finally, now, back to Photoshop CS3 to edit and tone my final images. It's a hodge-podge just to get the job done. (p.s...just googled for the first time ever...'best photoshop alternative')
On to Christmas, and enough of the Bah Humbugs. There are brighter, more important things. Eternal things. And Thank you! Really. You've been a perfect example to me that all things are truly just passing away.

I agree wholeheartedly with the OP, but it's not about the pricing issue. It's about the fact that Adobe increasingly rushes products to market without fully testing them. They limit their beta testing to a select group of power users who, because they are advanced users, don't use the mundane tools that everyone else does. So we get things like a trainwreck called Photoshop CS4. Any Flash users out there? Flash CS4 is by far the worst release of Flash ever, in terms of bugs and stability. And, unlike Photoshop, the Flash guys cling to the old Macromedia culture of NEVER issuing patches to their software.
So what did I get for my money in so loyally and eagerly upgrading to CS4? Photoshop which works like molasses on a winter's day. Flash which has numerous new tools geared to animators (like me), along with so many seemingly small but serious bugs that it is LETHAL for any animator to even touch that program, and which any average user would have detected in beta testing. Fireworks has plenty of problems. And, well, I never use Illustrator. But my core apps - Photoshop and Flash - have cost me not only money, but time on these forums, time trying to convince Adobe engineers to work on bugs, and huge time lost in projects that failed because of software bugs and had to be rebuilt from scratch in older versions of the software (I'm talking mainly Flash here; I can't even begin to use Photoshop CS4).
Then I read way too often, on this forum and the Flash forum, posts from Adobe people blaming hardware, blaming third party drivers, blaming the OS. And suggestions like "reformat", dump your anti-virus. On the Flash forum, the Adobe response is mostly, "We deny there is a bug", but open a support case. So I open a support case and all I get in response is awkward workaround solutions, not any acknowledgement that there is a bug. What a piss poor attitude.
I don't blame Adobe engineers. Clearly if they can fix bugs, they will, if they're given the chance, and there are a couple in particular who participate in this forum who are sincere in their efforts. How long until Adobe executives see no financial benefit in paying their engineers to fix problems past a certain point? Someone else above said Adobe can't always bat 1000. Why not? Why shouldn't they? Their products should be perfect. Would auto executives say, "Oh well, can't always be perfect" if "only" 1 percent of their buyers were killed or injured because of a manufacturing defect?
I have been warning every animator and artist I know to steer a wide path away from any of the CS4 apps. I want to spend my time creating art, and using excellent software tools to help me...not doing workarounds and refiguring hardware and reformatting and trying to compensate for Adobe's errors.
My marriage with Adobe is over as well. I'm going back to Photoshop CS3 and Flash 8, the last truly stable versions of those programs.
I read that Adobe is having financial problems because sales of CS4 have been lower than expected. Good. They deserve it. No one should buy their latest products, period.

Any apps similar to ibooks author?

Hello everyone, I own a macbook. I was looking under the "great free apps" in the app store and I noticed iBooks Author, I was super interested in it but then when I tried to download it, it said I didn't have the right software. Do you know of any other free apps like this one? Any help would be great because I really want this app. I don't have money to upgrade to OS X mountain lion either, so that is unfortunately not an option... thanks in advance!

Pixelmator receives great reviews, and is specifically referred to as a Photoshop alternative (though not quite as comprehensive). Version 2 (on the App Store) is apparently not so well received (owing to its use of Lion's versioning and auto-save features), but the highly-rated version 1 is being sold at a discount here:
http://store.smithmicro.com/productDetails.aspx?pid=2404
S.

Where to suggest different album art?

Overall Spotify did a great job at finding the right covers for the albums in their library, but a minority of albums just have awful &/ wrong album art showing up. Is there a platform for that already? Why I'm asking:Deerhunter - Microcastlehttps://open.spotify.com/album/2KtLR3OydzuB6bfJ96GEEf Spotify uses this awful photoshopped alternative cover, I'd love to view this one in my library, this is the official cover you'll see everywhere on the net and fits sooo much better with the cover of their album "Weird Era Cont." which is connected to Microhouse.

This must have been a one time error. I was able to resolve it.

Photoshop alternative

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