Life without Photoshop...

Is it possible???
Just asking because I appear to be filling my PC with Programs that are seldom used,
I own Lightroom 3, DXO Optics (Sorry Algi!) and Bibble but always come back to Photoshop for printing, there are too many size limitations in Lightroom viz: Panorama's which I do a fair few of. Digital filters wise pretty much everything I need can be plugged into in Lightroom and I can play with individual frames before I stitch em (In PTGUI)which seems to work (Please tell me if I'm looking down the huge quality drop cravasse here!). It seems a waste to have Photoshop CS3 Which I own but simply cannot afford to upgrade sittng there just for printing!
Is there a good rescaling/Printing app out there as an alternative to Photoshop?

What do you guys use to print big???

I use Corel X4 and if I have to print LARGE I import the picture in to Corel Draw as it lets me print ANY size and if the printer does not support the output size it actually divides the Print over several prints to I can just stitch them back together.
As I do not use Lightroom so far or any of the other programs mentioned I can not say if this would work with any of them.

Maybe the problem is thinking that things need to be upgraded? What is wrong with Photoshop CS3? I use CS2 routinely and have no particular wish at this moment to upgrade it as it does everything I need it to.

CS3 is such a powerful tool I would suggest trying to learn how to exploit it. Using it to print from seems a bit of a waste.

I don't have photoshop, and am not tempted.

From my perspective, I really feel that the money is best left to other packages that get the job done faster, like Nik Software's stuff. I use a combination of LR3, Nik Software's Viveza, Photomatix, and Hugin. Although Photoshop would feel cleaner, in that all my editing would be in one place.

I haven't printed very large, so take my following recommendation with a pinch of salt. But I looked into a piece of software for myself, because I want to print large, and was very intrigued by Genuine Fractals (now renamed Perfect Resize in its latest incarnation link). It's expensive, but gets excellent reviews.

Another alternative is Alien Skin's blow up link, which looks similarly impressive, but it's just that I've seen more people rave about Genuine Fractals, so I was curious.

Have a look at a quick comparison at this dpreview thread link.

There might be other programs too, these are the only the ones I've heard of. I see this as a great area to expand in for an open source project.

Exactly John, I use about ten percent of it, don't particularly have any love for it, I have other tools/Apps for developing that suit me better. It has loads of things I just don't need or want, to learn all about Photoshop I may as well go and spend another year at college (And probably still not get a flippin Job!) I would love a fully featured Printing Application so I could say goodbye to the waste of 1Gb on my Hardisk...
Gilbod I basically use your approach but I have all my filter sets loaded into Lightroom for easy access during a Processing Binge!
I also have NIK as a standalone too...
Genuine Fractels is a Program I tried a few years ago and it seemed to be a winner but I no longer have the cash to stump up for it...
Though if it was really good for what I want I'm sure I'd find a way...

Genuine Fractals is probably no better at resizing (and resizing is not just a simple any-program-can-do-it thing) than using the tools in CS3.

If you upsize then resample as Bicubic Smoother. If you downsize (say for Web) then maintain sharpness by resampling with Bicubic Sharper. This is reputed to be as good as Genuine Fractals and you already have it.

Hmmm...OK I feel another trial coming on...

Excuse the dumb question, can't you print from Lightroom 3?

There is a whole module dedicated to printing in Lightroom. I am curious as to what the limitation is.

K.

+1

I print via LR3 (and it's previous versions). Never found any limitations - you can create you own templates if there isn't quite what you want.

Bought CS3E with my Uni staff discount but rarely use it. If I use any thing else, it's normally Faststone's 2 programmes to bulk rename files to my system or to resize (for uploading to Gallery etc).


Steve

Ha!! the funny thing is I do the exact opposite, my usual workflow is RAW in to LR3 > CS5+Nik > LR3 > LR3 print from the PSD file (or export to jpg for web), as has been mentioned already I've never found a print size limitation in LR3.

44in+ Panorama or am I missing something???
Could never get it to fit that in a template...

qimage had a good number of followers last I was looking into this,

I'm about to start doing some A3 printing and intend to look into again in the next couple of weeks, and I would also like to do a largo pano too, so I'm interested in your non-photoshop solution too (I don't have it and don't intend to use anything more than PSE if I can help it!)

link : http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/

enjoy

Hi Jules

Are we getting a bit confused? Do you have a printer that can print 44" attached to your PC? If you do and if it's possible in your printer preferences you will have to create a custom page size, LR3 print module only sees the max size the attached printer is capable of printing.

Well if it's me thtas wrong I'd be very glad!

I've a Epson R2400 A3+ Printer but I'm trying to print 44"x10" and 40"x8" Banner print Landscapes, now in Phtooshop I just used to put in Roll media for Paper and user defined in the size but I can't get Lightroom to play here.
Any help would be gratefully recieved!
Just putting CS3 back on but I hate it...