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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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 Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:04 am Post subject: Whats the best Adobe software for editing digital photos? |
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Whats the best adobe software to use, and where can I buy it in Seoul? Is it acrobat or photoshop? I want to edit my pics to send by email.
Excuse my ignorance- I'm new to the digital game having had an SLR for so long.
I recently invested in a Nikon 8400 digital camera, 8 megapixels- very versatile and with sharp images. Busy learning how to use it properly:- it comes with its own "Picture project" software which allows minimal editing...but ideally I think its meant to be coupled with adobe for good results.
I took a look at adobes catalogue- a dizzying array of products that I have no experience with at all..
Last edited by rapier on Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
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jaebea
Joined: 21 Sep 2003
Location: SYD
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| Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:07 am Post subject: |
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Hey rapier.
Nice camera there.. :)
Photoshop is what you want. Acrobat is a document suite that's tailored for viewing and creating documents that can be easily shared over the web. A defacto standard of sorts (which is actually quite good).
Photoshop all the way.
jae. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:14 am Post subject: |
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| jaebea wrote: |
Hey rapier.
Nice camera there.. 
Photoshop is what you want. Acrobat is a document suite that's tailored for viewing and creating documents that can be easily shared over the web. A defacto standard of sorts (which is actually quite good).
Photoshop all the way.
jae. |
Thanks.. yep, its great so far: I've also ordered an adapter to use it for digiscoping..hoping for some quality images. Just by holding it to my scope manually, I can get a fairly clear close-up of a car numberplate, for example, 150 yards off.
Yep..I've never used photoshop before..I assume 7.0 is better than 1.0, although a whole lot pricier. And I'll have to use it in the PC bang as the work PC is malfunctioning.
Oh, and: Do they stock the english version here, or is it only in Korean? |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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| rapier wrote: |
Yep..I've never used photoshop before..I assume 7.0 is better than 1.0, although a whole lot pricier. And I'll have to use it in the PC bang as the work PC is malfunctioning.
Oh, and: Do they stock the english version here, or is it only in Korean? |
Photoshop is now it the 8.0 CS incarnation and yes, it's very expensive. You may need the latest version to support your camera as well, seeing as it's new.
As for using it in the PC room, how will you save the finished product? Evenl shooting in .JPEG mode, the file sizes for an 8MP camera must be in the 5~6 MB range. After using the editing software, I hope you have a good place to upload them or store them.
I guess you really should be, and probably are, shooting in the Nikon NEF, as shooting in JPEG really does limit what you can do with the photo. This will increase the size of the image incredibly...to the 10~11 MB range per photo.
If you have a large memory card, you can save them back to that.
I think you should invest in a PC, which may cost less than Photoshop.  Doing your work at the PC room will be tough, in my opinion. It's very time consuming, even when you know Photoshop well.....for me, an amateur user, it's just insane. A very high learning curve, but the results do make it worth it.
I have no idea as to the avaliability or the English version...sorry.
Anyways, nice camera. Congrats! |
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the saint
Joined: 09 Dec 2003
Location: not there yet...
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| Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 2:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Demophobe wrote: |
Photoshop is now it the 8.0 CS incarnation and yes, it's very expensive. You may need the latest version to support your camera as well, seeing as it's new.
I think you should invest in a PC, which may cost less than Photoshop. Doing your work at the PC room will be tough, in my opinion. It's very time consuming, even when you know Photoshop well.....for me, an amateur user, it's just insane. A very high learning curve, but the results do make it worth it! |
If you have that much money to spend on either or both that camera and Photoshop, you have way too much money on your hands 
Seriously though, you must have enough money to get yourself a system to store what you take. From your OP, for what you want to do, I don't really see why Photoshop is necessary. In actual fact, Paintshop Pro will do all you want in and more besides for a tenth the price. The functions you want will involve cropping, adding effects and cleaning up photos. You might want to add text over an image and you might want to auto-create web galleries too. Paintshop Pro will do all that save the latter.
For that last function and for some top end abilty to sort, share and categorise your photos, I would recommend Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 which I have and find very easy to use. In fact, apart from overlaying text and such useful effects as "spilled coffee" "incoherence" and "blur beyond recognition" contained in more expensive editors, Photoshop Album will also allow you to crop, remove red eye, sharpen, add limited filters and adjust colour, brightness etc. Again, a fraction of what Photoshop itself would cost you.
There are even other options. Office Picture Manager is part of the Office XP suite and is very very functional for what it is. Freeware such as irfanview can do some of what you want for nothing at all. I'm sure there are other freeware or simple shareware tools out there which, cobbled together, will give you all the functionality you need for the price of a pizza.
So, have a think about what you really want to do with your pics and I think you may well find that Photoshop is simply going to make you a kid with a power tool. |
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Derrek
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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You should download a free program called IRFANVIEW.
It's not really for color correction or anything like that, but you can batch-size and compress photos once you set it up to do so. Does them in a matter of seconds. Make sure you check the "high quality" box, or whatever it's called when you do the sizing/compressions. I compress to 80% and am happy with that. Download the additional add-ons to the program, and it will do a lot more, too.
www.irfanview.com
Nice. |
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Swiss James
Joined: 26 Nov 2003
Location: Shanghai
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| Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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http://www.gimp.org/
Gimp is supposed to be the open source/freeware version of Photoshop- it's very powerful, well supported, stable, and of course free.
Worth trying before you invest in Photoshop I think, I use it all the time to do stuff for my site. |
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Sage Monkey
Joined: 01 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:55 am Post subject: |
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| For Adobe there is also Photoshop Elements which is basically the same as Photoshop CS but they stripped it of a lot of the high-end professional tools which most of us would never use or even need. |
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eamo
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 5:51 am Post subject: |
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Photoshop is really hard to use at first.
Try something more basic. |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 6:37 am Post subject: |
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Someone has offered me an old version of photoshop in English- maybe a 2.0, not sure yet..
Well I returned from Gangwha island today with some fairly good shots of birds by hand-held camera to telescope. I was able to use the basic "picture project" software that came with the camera to substantially improve the images by cropping, sharpening, etc. Then save them on the disc. However when I go to the email function...everything went to Korean and I was lost..so, unable to send any of these fantastic pictures yet but maybe in a couple days with Korean help.
I may not need adobe for my fairly simple purposes- clean up an image and send as email attachment...Hmmm..to be continued..
(Digiscoping is amazing btw: I have detailed images of a buzzard sitting on a post about 150 yards off simply by combining 60X telescope magnification with the digital zoom. Spectacular!) |
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Bunnymonster
Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:30 am Post subject: |
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| My copy of creative suite was free, but it is super powerful. I really want a free month to learn how to use it properly............ |
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Zenpickle
Joined: 06 Jan 2004
Location: Anyang -- Bisan
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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I personally love Photoshop. Yet many people could just as well use another product because they don't use or don't know how to use the special features that Photoshop has.
It wasn't until I worked in a digital print house that I learned all the nuances and how to use curves, why RGB is bad for editing if you're printing your image, and restrictive color control.
Illustrator, though, that's just messed up and unstable. It's the only Adobe product that is hardly cross-compatible with even other Adobe products. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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Again, if one is shooting in .JPEG, then what you actually can do with the photo is so limited, then yes, use paintshop pro, ACDsee or in the higher end, Photoshop elements.
My point was that if you shoot in .NEF, then I'm not sure what software will support it, but really, it's the best solution if you want to do any processing beyond really basic stuff.
For example, your bird shot is probably a great picture to you. Wouldn't it be nice to have say 1000 options to make it better through .NEF than the 10 through .JPEG? .JPEG photos are pretty much done when you snap the shutter.....NEF or .RAW files are just in their 'negative' state.
Anyways, you won't be able to use Nikon's NEF files with Photoshop 2, or probably all other software titles listed in this thread.
As far as the costs, yes, one is rich or a professional. |
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Derrek
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2005 7:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Demophobe wrote: |
Again, if one is shooting in .JPEG, then what you actually can do with the photo is so limited, then yes, use paintshop pro, ACDsee or in the higher end, Photoshop elements.
My point was that if you shoot in .NEF, then I'm not sure what software will support it, but really, it's the best solution if you want to do any processing beyond really basic stuff.
For example, your bird shot is probably a great picture to you. Wouldn't it be nice to have say 1000 options to make it better through .NEF than the 10 through .JPEG? .JPEG photos are pretty much done when you snap the shutter.....NEF or .RAW files are just in their 'negative' state.
Anyways, you won't be able to use Nikon's NEF files with Photoshop 2, or probably all other software titles listed in this thread.
As far as the costs, yes, one is rich or a professional. |
As we've discussed before, about 1 in 100 Nikon users actually needs or has any use for that, Demo. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Derrek wrote: |
As we've discussed before, about 1 in 100 Nikon users actually needs or has any use for that, Demo. |
Derrek, what's your point? As before, you are only saying that you can't or don't work with this format. You are not even a small sampling of Nikon/Canon users, you are just one guy who takes pictures in the least malleable mode, which is probably fine for many people, yes.
We didn't discuss this before, I showed you some facts about .RAW vs. .JPEG, and these also stand true for Nikon's .NEF format as well, and you agreed/backed off before, as you probably should now.
Some people like options Derrek...and again, discussing these seems to scare you or something.
Why spend $1000 dollars on a camera, then scimp on the software or shoot in .JPEG mode all the time? .JPEG mode is fine for "most people", but then "most people" don't spend that kind of money on that kind of camera, do they? That camera (Nikon 8400) is a "prosumer" camera, meaning it's at the low end of the professional line. This means a couple of things; one, that the folks who buy this camera aren't "most people" who point-and-shoot away in the lowest mode, and two, they have (or probably should have) some vested interest in the photo past the shutter click. Even the greatest photographers in the world realize that the live shot is for framing, composition, etc, but the other components of great pictures comes out in darkroom techniques.
Anyone who is buying this camera does/should know how to develop their digital shots, just as any film photographer at this level has a large role in the darkroom procedure, if not doing it themselves. With film however, the drawbacks of a personal darkroom were many and large. Digital photography has removed many of these obstacles, or at least lessened them to a degree.
So, with the kind of camera that rapier bought, he should be willing to and interested in investing some time in the format that will yield the bast results for him. This is unquestionable. .NEF stomps on .JPEG, as does .RAW.
No, it's not for everyone, you being case in point, but then again, you have an S30; hardly a camera that one may consider "pro". Most of your photos I have seen on you site are "auto" shots all the way, save your night shots, which could have been improved had you shot on RAW and done some post-processing. I had an S30 and shot all of my non-candid, a.k.a. "point and click", a.k.a. "hope-for-the-best" on RAW, to hopefully make the photos look better than the camera alone may produce....and it worked. The differences between a post-processed, .RAW photo coverted to .JPEG and a born into .JPEG shot are amazing.
But you should know this, considering you have an S30, Photoshop and countless objections to .RAW formats.
Anyhow, it's good that you chime in to remind us of what you don't do, and to encourage/remind others that they shouldn't either. 
Last edited by Demophobe on Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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