FREE photoshop alternative?

Hi,

Does anyone have a free alternative to photoshop which is good and simple to use?

I seem to remember one called GIMP? which got very good reviews..does anyone use it?

cheers Steve.

There's Gimpshop - www.gimpshop.net (EDITED )

But also Photoshop Elements is a good starter. At least if you find you're earning pots of dosh from photography you can quickly migrate up to full Photoshop. Even the old version 2 of PSE is still available from some sources. Not sure about the newer versions...

It also depends on your work flow. If you go for Capture One LE, or Silkypix Developer Studio then you'll probably find you won't need to do too much editing and Elements will do just fine

Matt

I agree with Matt.

Silkypix allows you to do virtually everything which could be regarded as equivalent to developing and printing with film.

I see Silkypix's role as "image optimisation", whilst Photoshop allows "image manipulation".

The former is just getting the best out of the shot you took, whilst the latter is changing it so that what you get is not what you took.

It's not quite as clear-cut as that in practice, but my view is that a film photographer switching to digital would not NEED Photoshop.

I think it really depends on whether you consider that you are producing "photographs" or "images".

G

Matt obviously meant www.gimpshop.net.

I use Elements 4, which was £50 I think, and as George and Matt have said, it suits very well when most work is done in, for me, Capture One LE. I use Elements for sharpening and dust spotting mainly. Also for design and stuff, but if all you're doing is photos, then a more basic program than full photoshop should be fine.

Only major problem with Elements really is lack of colour profile support.

I think LiamD (amongst others) uses GIMP, so he/they should be able to advise on that option. I tried it once, a fair while ago, and found it most odd after using photoshop. Couldn't get my head around having different windows for everything. Might be different now, or it might just have needed setting up properly.

Dan

Elements support sRGB and AdobeRGB. That's usually enough.

For the other times... I've got a one or two command line solutions
Matt

: Do tell...

I'm thinking of when labs supply a profile for their printer. One thing I did try, was using that profile in C1's output colour profile. Not sure if that would work (didn't actually get round to getting one printed), as the screen image went very washed out, compared to AdobeRGB. I'm I going up the wrong track here, or should it work? I'm figuring if the image needs no photoshop work, I should have a profiled file ready for printing.

Dan

Hi,

Thanks to all for the help.

All I want is to optimise photos. I have no interest in manipulation.

Is silkypix easy to use and simple? and free? does it give high quality? as these are my only real needs.

cheers Steve.

Steve,
Silkypix is available in a free version. The paid-for-version is better though (it isn't that much and is available for 30day trial). http://www.isl.co.jp/SILKYPIX/english/


Daniel - ok, if it's for colour space conversion for submitting images to a lab, then that's easy. There are two options I know of:
1) You can load a JPG that's in the target colour space and do a copy and paste (Elements include the Adobe Color Engine, it's just you don't have the options to hand in the GUI).

2) Use the command line tool... I'll have to dig it out, but it was built on top of the Little CMS (I believe). And that allows full conversion... but I'll be right back

Matt

Daniel,
Here's the link:
http://www.littlecms.com/newutils.htm#jpegicc

Source is available, as is a precompled Windows executable

You need to do something like this (I haven't actually tried this for a while, but this is roughly how to do it):

From memory, you need to point to the full patch of the icc or icm file. And I can't remember if the JPG has an embedded profile whether the converter will pick that by default (in which case the -i option isn't needed).

If you work in sRGB, then you can dispense with the "-i" option. It defaults to sRGB.
The "-t0" is the rendering intent, in this case "Perceptual" which is what you'll want most of the time.
The "-b" is black point compression enabled.
The "-c2" is to precalc the transform in hires detail. You're probably ok with -c1 which is the default.
The "-q95" is the output quality of the JPG.

Have fun
Matt

http://photofiltre.free.fr/download_en.htm
Free and effective. I haven't used it myself - I have elements 4, but know plenty of people who do use it and like it.

Thanks Matt,

Only thing is, how will I know if it's worked...? I'll have a look, it's probably obvious.

Cheers,
Dan

Steve,

I suspect that one reason why some people prefer the results they get on film to what they get on digital is that they find digital optimisation to be something of a black art, and they haven't yet mastered it.

Silkypix is very easy to use once you know what you are doing. However, it would be wrong to suggest that it is easy to acquire the necessary knowledge. It takes time, and there's a lot to learn.

Have you done any digital editing at all, with scans for instance?

If you are starting completely from scratch, then I would advise getting a book to take you through the basic theory. Alternatively, there is a lot of stuff on the web.

The free version of Silkypix is as good as the paid version, as far as quality goes (which means it's very good); it simply lacks some facilities. Upgrade when you need to.

The inescapable fact is that to be a competent digital photographer, you are going to have to invest a lot of time learning how to process your images. But once you have spent that time, digi is quick, easy, and capable of superb results.

G

I agree with this 100%.

As for freebe image processing, I use GIMP 2.2 and UFRAW. UFRAW is a free raw processor which comes as both a plugin to GIMP and a standalone app. I like the standalone version since like George I rarely do much to my images after the RAW-JPEG step, and this way I can set up a huge batch of images and then go have lunch while it processes (also possible with Silkypix).

UFRAW contains no noise reduction at all, so images from it are slightly noisier than the likes of silkypix. For this reason I have also purchased NoiseNinja which handles the noise wonderfully even on full auto mode.


Another option is CaptureOne LE, which can be had for the price of a Sandisk Extreme III memory card since it comes bundled with all such cards. I have never used it, but it is supposed to be very good and Picstop have the cards in question for less than £20.

Hi,

George..I am not totally in the dark so to speak..

In 2005 I did a 3 month Pro Photoshop course at the same college where I trained to become a commercial studio photographer. The course was an introductory one and was using the full photoshop software. So I got some idea of what to expect and the 'gist' of digital editing. The scope of photoshop is daunting.

cheers Steve.

I use Elements 2 and it is good and easy and you know that its "native format" can be read by those using the full Photoshop programme.