Photoshop cheaper alternative?

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone was aware of a Photoshop alternative, but much cheaper. Kinda like Xara vs. Illustrator, still professional software but at a fraction of the price. Any ideas?
I am not so much looking to improve photos, but rather for the designing capabilities, like brushes, layer styles, filters, effects, and of course several different selection methods ... all to be used in combination with Xara.

I was used to Photoshop Elements 4. Now i am using the free Paint.NET, but this clearly lacks a lot of features. I have not really tried GIMP yet. Also the new Photoshop Elements is version 8, but on the website they only talk about its photo-editing capabilities, and not about the other stuff i am looking for so i am unsure what has become of it since version 4.

Thanks for your help!

PaintShop Photo Pro from Corel (formerly PaintShop Pro by Jasc) is a good alternative to Photoshop.

$69.99 USD according to Corel's site.
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli...1#tabview=tab0

I would also suggest PSP. It's the closes most powerful alternative.
The Gimp is free and quite capable too but is slow and completely not user friendly.

I still use Paintshop Pro 8 for design work, it's a JASC version, before Corel grabbed it and ruined it. You can get loads of tutorials for this version on the web, and you may be able to get a copy of it cheap on Ebay.
Saludos,
Bob.

Thanks i will check the trial!

A Magix product might be worth checking out. According to the PDF I read, it can import PSD with layers, which is quite impressive. I've never used this product so can't say to what extent it does this import. Evidently, it has Xara Xtreme 5 with it, so it's a good raster/vector combo.

I got notification in email today, it was on sale. There is a free download to try.

The advertisment in the email flyer:

MAGIX leads the field in innovative photo editing and graphic design. In Photo Premium 9, MAGIX has combined two of its flagship consumer products, MAGIX Xtreme Photo & Graphic Designer 5 and MAGIX PhotoStory on CD & DVD 9 deluxe, Photo Premium 9 has been born. Explore the possibilities.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with Covoxer about Gimp. I personally find it much more user friendly than PS, I suspect the biggest problem is it doesn't do things in the same way as PS (and some people don't like the proliferation of windows). I also have never noticed any slowness, but this may just be because I've always run it with plenty of memory.

Having said that it's one huge deficiency is that it doesn't support 16bit images (yet). This is a real showstopper when you're working in B\W and mucking around with the exposure and curves. This issue can be worked around to a certain extent by correcting the exposure and applying any curves when importing from RAW.

You can see slowness (relative to PS) applying some heavy effects to the large image. You can also see the interface issue here as filters are less interactive.
While one may argue about the overall interface decisions, the OP question was about PS alternative and he stated following:

Quote:

---

I was used to Photoshop Elements 4.

---

This makes me think that GIMP will not look quite friendly. ;)

One that might be of interest for you could be Photoline.
It is available in 32/64bit Versions, can import your psd/pdf files, has multiprocessor support and can use plugins. Especially if you have large graphics, it might be much quicker than a lot of the other software packages.

http://www.pl32.de/

Juergen

I use Serif Photoplus X3 for editing bitmaps, at £60.00 it's not a bad buy (http://www.serif.com/photoplus/).

www.sumopaint.com has some nice features that work better than photoshop their gradients for example. As long as you dont go very highres its also fast enough.

I'd also recommend Paint Shop Pro. I much prefer it over Photoshop.

you don't say if you have downloaded the trial for photoshop elements 8 - if not I would do this and try it out

as for alternatives - I like gimp - it's interface is different sure, but it is a fine program, especially if you are not into photo-editing in a big way, and free

So, Killerwhale65 - what do you think? Lot's of options and good suggestions from our members - care to comment?

I must say that splines sumopaint suggestion is worthwhile, it appears to be a fully featured 'cloud' application.


Attachment 72883