Photshop or Paintshop ????

[green_rizla]

Hi All,

I'm new to digital photography and so far I've only done some basic editing with Picassa ........

I've downloaded trial versions of Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro X3 and to be honest they are both baffling. I am prety good on a computer generally but by all means an expert.

My question ???? Which of the two is going to be easier to get to grips with ???? I realise I'm going to have to put in some effort and I guess once I decide which one to buy I'll get some instructions of some kind. But I don't want to waste money on something I'll not use.

I figure different people with have their own preference but I'd like to hear from anyone with any opinions guidance or whatever.

Thanks
Peter

 

[RobertP]

Moved to editing from computers.

I do all my editing using Lightroom. I'm sure others will chip in with their preferences. take a look at the sticky thread at the top of this section. there is a list with links to many paid for editing programs and also to a lot of free ones.

 

[green_rizla]

Thanks for the pointer Robert.......... I just downloaded GIMP ....... That looks pretty good for a freebie.

So i'll have aa go with that one.

Cheers
Peter

 

[Dr_O]

...My question ???? Which of the two is going to be easier to get to grips with ????

No one can answer this for you. It depends entirely on how you're brain is wired as to which you find more intuitive.

It's why some people prefer the handling of Nikon, some Canon and a few weirdo's Sony

Best thing to do is decide some of the more common things you wish to do to a photo and try to do it in both- you may well have to find some resource to do this but there's no getting round digital post production takes time and effort. I am rubbish at anything fancy but have made a concious effort to try and get better and it's paying off although progress is slow.

Whatever software you find easier to work with will soon become apparent once you start manipulation.

 

[London Headshots]

Better of getting a full version of Photoshop. It's relatively intuitive, providing you have a definitive goal in mind when you start an image, and you'll never outgrow it.

 

[swanseamale47]

Paint shop pro is closer to the full version of photoshop than elements (IMHO) that said it's probably easier to find photoshop tutorials and goodies like actions etc than stuff for PSP.
I'd suggest you try both for a few weeks and see which your most comfortable with.

 

[Scarecrow]

Most editing software doesn't come with a great deal in the way of instructions on how to use it. Books are available, or you can find tutorials on things like Youtube. If you want to become comfortable using editing software, do a search to see what books and tutorials are available for PS Elements and Paintshop Pro, your choice on which to buy may be influenced by what you find.

 

[AJQS]

I've always found PSP a lot easier than the PS family, PS seems to require a huge amount of seperate actions to achieve what PSP does in 2 or 3 clicks for some things.

That said the amount of things you can do on layers is far higher in PS, so for somethings the Undo key is a necessary step in PSP.

Note I use X2 not X3, although I doubt there's been a huge leap forward between versions!