Photo Editing Software

[Bison]

OK.  I know not a wargame or any type of game for that matter, but where else should the discussion go?  Anyway I was planning on picking up one of the various Photoshop versions to use a photo/video editor in part to use to spruce up my AAR creation options and finally get around to trying my hand at modding.

So there I was looking through a stack of stuff on the bookshelf and I found the copy of Paintshop Pro X4 I'd purchased for Household 6 last Christmas.  She didn't want to learn a new program just to take the red eye out of photos so it sat unused.  Anyway installed it last night and updated and played around with the editing features for about 3 hours.  It seems like it will work for what I want to do nicely.  Still researching plugin options.

Am I missing out by not going with Photoshop or perhaps GIMP?

As an added bonus I got a free copy of WinZip Pro, which is a pretty slick program in its own right.

[bayonetbrant]

you could put it in the Tech Talk forum...  or have us do it for you :)

[Bison]

I figured the tech forum was for objects like optical drives, joy sticks and monitors.

[Nefaro]

For making notations and such in AAR screenshots?  You don't really need much.  I'm sure it'll do just fine.

[Bison]

For making notations and such in AAR screenshots?  You don't really need much.  I'm sure it'll do just fine.

I was actually looking more to modding capabilities.  I've started to mess around with some files just to learn the program.

[Barthheart]

I use Paintshop Photo Pro X3 for modding graphics and making graphics for VASSAL modules. It works well and I don't even know half of the programs capabilities. Got it on sale so it would run on my 64 bit Win 7 system.

Paintshop Pro X4 should do you just fine.

[jomni]

In Photoshop or GIMP, I think you will exert too much effort in just annotating screenshots.  They are more used for design, art and modding projects.

For screenshot annotation with graphics, I use Faststone Caputre. Or you might want a more professional one like Snagit.  But these aren't photo editing tools but screen capture tools.

So if you wan to mod, I'd go for GIMP because it's free.  I've been using it for painting planes in FSX.

[jomni]

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[Bison]

Paint is fine for just doing simple AAR screenshots.  I'm really after the modding capability.  Thanks Barth after I played around with some of the brush options it's clear that the program is more capable than I have talent!

[LongBlade]

I downloaded GIMP and couldn't make heads or tails of it. Tried a simple task like pasting one image into another. I couldn't figure it out and gave up.

I'm sure at some point I'll read something to help, but it wasn't intuitive like I'd expected.

[mirth]

GIMP does work well once you figure it out. I use both GIMP and Photoshop and I actually found GIMP easier to use in the beginning. There's a lot of seemingly simple stuff in Photoshop that can be a real PITA to figure out.

Fortunately there some excellent online tutorial resources for both GIMP and Photoshop. GIMP, of course, has the virtue of being free.

[Gusington]

I use Photoshop every day and love it. It does almost anything you can imagine with almost any image.

[jomni]

I downloaded GIMP and couldn't make heads or tails of it. Tried a simple task like pasting one image into another. I couldn't figure it out and gave up.

I'm sure at some point I'll read something to help, but it wasn't intuitive like I'd expected.

It all needs some reading and practice.  Same goes for Photoshop.

[Bison]

Which version of Photoshop? 

[Gusington]

I've used CS3 and CS4.