Jan 28, 2011
Big discount on Photoshop Elements (today only) and 5 free alternatives
Amazon’s big deal of the day today is Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements for $70.
Or you can go the free route with any of these options…
(via)
Unfortunately, I don’t have an opinion about any of these since I only wish I was good at using them.
That’s where you come in… Feel free to sound off on how crappy Photoshop Elements is or how awesome Gimp is. Or whatever.
And maybe you can recommend other free options we should know about.
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I use pixlr.com – pretty handy.
I have “used” photoshop, photoshop elements, and GIMP. My current favorite is Pixelmator (http://www.pixelmator.com/) which is Mac only. Its $30 in the App Store, so its not free but I think its worth it.
I picked up Pixelmator in about half an hour, especially with the tutorials they have on the website. Couldn’t ask for a better photo editing app.
Pixelmator is definitely the route to go.
GiMP is a great tool for free on any platform — and that is probably it’s best selling point: you can use it on Mac or UNIX or WIN, and you have the same toolboxes and know what to expect. My opinion is that it compares favorable to the old Photoshop 6, but lacks some of the awesome plug-ins that old version of Photoshop had (particularly, Xhatch). It also lacks a friendly batch processing system.
In the mac App shop there is a new tool I just downloaded for Free which has a name that escapes me, but it is the lite version of a paid app. Someone using a Mac at work might could tell you about it — it seemed pretty robust for sketching but not for full-scale editing and composition.
I am not on a Mac either, but is it Sketchbook lite? I had it on the iPad when I had one.
Or is it Image tricks?
I just upload my photos to iPhoto and click “Enhance.”
I use GIMP when I need to edit something and don’t have access to Photoshop, but it’s teeth-gnashing compared to the real thing. I experimented with Paint.NET, but I kept going back to GIMP as a free editor.
Full disclosure- I’m a developer and not a designer. My graphical skills (and thus my opinions) are amateur-grade.
Pixelmator is my fave though I use GIMP quite a bit.
I don’t like Gimp. Paint.NET is great.
Don’t have time nor inclination to try to remember why.
I’ve been using GIMP for a few years now. It has really helped and they have great support.
Of the five you listed, I’ve used both Paint.NET and Gimp, and find both useful. Paint.NET is great for the quick and simple stuff, and Gimp will take care of your more detailed editing, once you get past the learning curve for the interface.
The best suggestion I can offer is to try out the ones that look appealing to you and stick with the ones that work best for you.
Second!
GIMP is great for some stuff while Paint.NET is great for other stuff.
I wish I could help, but I’ve been a Photoshop user for so long now, it’s the only thing I ever want to use. I can’t use Elements, because it doesn’t give me access to the channel structure or Lab color space, both of which I use on a regular basis. However, I’m confident my perspective represents an extremely small minority of high-end retouchers, and not the general public. I tried to use GIMP once, but found it too painful compared to Photoshop. It seemed cippled (pun intended?).
I’ve also heard good things about Pixelmator, but have not tried it yet.
For people who don’t have full Photoshop experience but want to have more control over their image editing then Photoshop Elements is a very good tool that I highly recommend. I used it for a while before upgrading to the full version. It was initially a step down for me b/c I had had access to the full program before buying Elements. That said, once you figured it out it was easy to navigate and was overall a very decent tool for layman post-processing.
I learned editing principles on Gimp, worked more on photoshop, but then received lightroom as a gift and never looked back. I still use photoshop for a few things, but lightroom is awesome. Hopefully one day they will come out with a “lite” version.
I would love to have Photoshop, but the price is a significant barrier, so I have been using Photoshop Elements for a couple years at least and really, really like it. It took awhile to get used to the user interface, which is pretty different than Photoshop, but I think that once you get the hang of it, it is really usable and will help you create pretty good art. It’s what I recommend to friends who want something with more to it than iPhoto and that sort of thing, but can’t afford Photoshop.
I haven’t tried the free ones you list, but I will check them out. I did try something once called Seahorse that was OK, free but had some bugs. I think it was built with GIMP … or however you say that if you know what all that stuff means.
I use Google’s Picasa for all my free photo editing needs. :)
Haha, yes, that’s what I use for VERY basic stuff.
For more detailed work, I’ve been using Paint.NET.
I may have to give GIMP another go after all these recommendations! :)
Paint.COM ( http://www.rw-designer.com/image-editor ) is a free image editor that supports layers with styles, can use Photoshop plug-ins, does sRGB correct color blending and is adware-free.
Picnik is what I use for all my free photo editing needs. It’s an online editor and it’s recently been acquired by Google.