Photoshop

L

left98204

Member
 Bridgend
I am about to buy my first ever Mac having finally had enough of a succession of PCs slowing down and getting virus after virus. My question is having looked at the photoshop package, it seems to vary massively in price, not sure whether this is because of different versions or professional and non-professional and what you intend to use it for.

Obviously my Z4 will benefit from this and I intend to show you all the fruits of my labour.

As a rank amateur with a new Nikon d5000, looking forward to making use of the Mac's abilities (rather than my photographic abilities!) what would be the best photoshop to get and what kind of cost?


Thanks
 
The two main variants are 'Photoshop Elements' and 'Photoshop'.

'Elements' is the basic, home user version with some advanced functions missing, or with limited control over certain functions.

What's made more confusing is that 'Photoshop' itself now comes in a couple of versions, 'Normal' tailored to photo-editing & design or 'Extended' with the addition of 3d & video tools.

The best thing to do is to download a trial of both Elements and the full-fat Photoshop to see which one suits your needs. If Elements does enough of what you want then stick to it and but a cheap licence somewhere.
 
I use a Mac along with Photoshop Elements (I use the Windows version running with Parallels to allow me to run Windows alongside the Mac operating system). Unless you intend to do some quite advanced Photoshopping then Elements should be enough I would think. It will allow you to enhance your photos (sharpen, brighten, darken etc), remove unwanted things in the picture, fix blemishes, add filter effects, blur ...... and so it goes on. I agree with mmm-five about downloading the trial version but I would be surprised if a "rank amateur" (your words not mine before anyone goes on the attack :poke: ) needs anything more than Elements.
 
Not trying to confuse you but there is also a program called Lightroom which has many photo editing tools as well as better sorting/organizing tools than Elements. I know several casual-pro level photographers who highly recommend Lightroom.

http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshoplightroom/?promoid=DTEWE
 
Elements will do the job for most photography based stuff.

Personally if you are not really in to PS yet, the UI and the way it works, give GIMP a try first... think it comes in a Mac flavour!?

Dave
 
left98204 said:
I am about to buy my first ever Mac
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: You wont regret it. You wont want to go back. But I doubt you'll be able to explain exactly why.

I use PhotoShop Elements 8 for Mac which I bought from Amazon for £51 - it's almost always on special. I really like it - there are some functions I want that I don't have, but that's for messing about and certainly not the everyday editing. As with the til-shift stuff, if can be done but does need more work. The link below may give you a taste of what Elements can do (and as you will see from some of the other post where I need to hone my technique!).
http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=19223

If you have a card carrying student in the family the qualify for the student copy at around £150 for the full product - Creative Suite or CS (mmm-five explains that in the link below). As Mr Whippy said, Elements is good enough for most jobs.

Generally, on the Mac front, I use iPhoto to keep everything in order and set PS Elements as my editing tool. So, when I click edit in iPhoto it opens PSE rather than using its own very limited editing tools. You can do this with other editing packages too.

Looking forward to a good supply of pictures of the Zed :wink:
 
Mr Whippy said:
Elements will do the job for most photography based stuff.

Personally if you are not really in to PS yet, the UI and the way it works, give GIMP a try first... think it comes in a Mac flavour!?

Dave
Click to expand...
I have both PS and Gimp on my IMac and a lot of things like borders, textures and much more I find easier to use in Gimp which is free... :thumbsup:
 
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