OT: great deal on a good graphics program

[LWD]

Well, I'm a great fan of Paint Shop Pro - 9. For whatever reason, I never
quite 'took' to PSP X but perhaps I should look again. Nevertheless, I'd be
interested if any knows of or can offer a detailed comparison of these five
products (newest versions in each case):

Photoshop CS
PSP X
ULead Smart Saver (that's ULead's top graphics program, right?)
Xara Xtreme.
Acrylic Graphic Designer

I say 'newest versions' because it's been my experience in the past that
people were comparing Photoshop CS with older versions of PSP, whereas from
8 and in particular 9 on, I find it extremely powerful - and, what people
often forget, it's also a 'real time' vector graphics program, i.e., it
doesn't convert vector graphics to bitmap and keep the files that way. If
they're vector graphics they stay vector graphics.

Several of the things I truly value in PSP 9 is how easy it is to record
scripts, to assign hot-keys, and view the history of what you've done with
an image - each single step of which you can undo without undoing others.
Will Photoshop, ULead, and Xara Xtreme, or Acrylic do this?

Lucian

[Charles Edmonds]

On 13 Jan 2006 16:42:31 -0700, Allison Moore wrote:

> And not just web stuff, either. :-)

So true!

One thing that I've really grown fond of is the way that Xara does SNAP
(objects, lines, etc.).

Unlike the traditional way of doing it - once you understand what it is and
how it works - it is awesome!

I find it to be very productive and quite intuitive.

One of my favorite tools!

;-)

Charles


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[LWD]

Speaking of graphics programs, has anyone tried Adobe's LightRoom yet? It's
in beta and specifically focused on the needs of photographers, the
publicity says. I just read about it in a newsletter the other day:
http://labs.macromedia.com/technologies/lightroom/

Lucian

[LWD]

I replied to the wrong post above...yes, you're right, the ULead program is
PhotoImpact - and my having to ask what it's called is proof enough of my
ignorance about it - but I believe I once asked in here if it supports
layers, masks, channels, and recordable scripting and received no response,
so I never investigated it further.

Again, it really depends on what you're trying to do. For my purposes as a
photographer, PSP is excellent and I recently converted someone who is a
full-time graphics artist to it - who told me he had been using Photoshop
for years - but I just don't know ULead or Xara yet. Acrylic is in beta,
looks very powerful. Sheila Hoffman originally posted the link in a
discussing we had a while back about panorama photos.

L.

[LWD]

Hi, Allison,

Well, as I just mentioned in my post above, the ability to record
scripts/actions/macros - call them what you will - in PSP is central to the
way I work. I could not consider using a graphics program without them, but
I'm thinking in terms of photography.

As an example, for Katrina Relief photos here in Mississippi, I've been
photographing frequently in warehouses recently - which are dark, have
terrible color temperature lights, etc. - plus the light's often mixed with
daylight and so forth.

So, in processing, I will take a representative photo, correct it in great
detail in PSP (observing the history, undoing steps along the way if I don't
want them, adding others), then save the script as, say, 'Katrina Warehouse
Biloxi 1). I can then batch process 100 photos using that one script in a
matter of minutes. Then, when those photos are processed, I can still
change them, of course.

I can batch process another set with slightly different lighting with a
'Katrina Warehouse Biloxi 2' script. I may subsequently alter all of these
photographs, but a significant part of the initial work has been done
through the script and the batch processing - and I often process 1000
photos per week, depending.

Those two features save me enormous amounts of time.

I could also never work without layers again. I seldom work with vector
images - except for text - so I'm not really a good judge of how well PSP
does that.

L.

[BigGreenFurryThing]

Ulead's main graphics program is PhotoImpact currently on version 11. IMO,
it's an underrated piece of software especially for its filters and auto HDR
function which beats CS's feeble offering. The new SmartCurve and
SmartRemove tools are better than some PS addins too.

--
Mark
www.BigGreenFurryThings.com


"LWD" <NO**SPAM!!***lucdix**@**jamDOTrrDOTcom> wrote in message
news:dq9iid$bmn1@news01.netobjects.com...
> Well, I'm a great fan of Paint Shop Pro - 9. For whatever reason, I never
> quite 'took' to PSP X but perhaps I should look again. Nevertheless, I'd
> be
> interested if any knows of or can offer a detailed comparison of these
> five
> products (newest versions in each case):
>
> Photoshop CS
> PSP X
> ULead Smart Saver (that's ULead's top graphics program, right?)
> Xara Xtreme.
> Acrylic Graphic Designer
>
> I say 'newest versions' because it's been my experience in the past that
> people were comparing Photoshop CS with older versions of PSP, whereas
> from
> 8 and in particular 9 on, I find it extremely powerful - and, what people
> often forget, it's also a 'real time' vector graphics program, i.e., it
> doesn't convert vector graphics to bitmap and keep the files that way. If
> they're vector graphics they stay vector graphics.
>
> Several of the things I truly value in PSP 9 is how easy it is to record
> scripts, to assign hot-keys, and view the history of what you've done with
> an image - each single step of which you can undo without undoing others.
> Will Photoshop, ULead, and Xara Xtreme, or Acrylic do this?
>
> Lucian
>
>

[Allison Moore]

> ULead Smart Saver (that's ULead's top graphics program, right?)
I believe you're thinking about PhotoImpact. AFAIK,
SmartSaver is a bitmap optimizer. I quit using it when I
realized that Xara was doing a much better job optimizing.
In fact, during the current cosmetic update on my company's
website, I used Xara to readjust all the images I'd
previously "optimized" with SmartSaver. Now, they're not
only brighter, you can actually see detail that was just
murk before. AIR, the biggest increase in size was still
under 2k. Mostly, any increases were a lot less than 1k.

> PSP... it's also a 'real time' vector graphics program

I've tried and tried to work with PSP's vector tools. I
truly hate them. By comparison to Xara in particular,
they're seriously klunky and difficult to use.

> Several of the things I truly value in PSP 9 is how easy it is to record
> scripts, to assign hot-keys, and view the history of what you've done with
> an image

In Xara Xtreme, there's no scripting and you can't assign
custom hotkeys. (Scripting may come via the new open-source
plug-in route at some point, but I don't recall anyone
specifically talking about working on it.) OTOH, Xtreme is
so fast and the interface is so easy to use that you may not
miss either one as much as you think. Because Xara is
vector-oriented, you can directly change almost anything at
any time because under most circumstances everything remains
editable. (There are a few exceptions, such as converting
text to curves.)

There is a history within the Live Effects function, and I
think you can independently edit effects within that
history, but I haven't needed to do that. BTW, Live Effects
allows you to apply -- to vectors -- many filters that are
designed for bitmaps. Photoshop filters (older ones; the
more recent formats are still proprietary), KPT-6,
SuperBladePro, among others... In some cases, there's some
conversion to bitmap to achieve the effect, but I believe
it's still editable. Personally, I'm much happier using
BladePro with Xara in the vector environment than I ever was
when using it in PSP.

BTW, although XPE, Xara's photo editor, is not as fully
featured as PSP (nor is it intended to be), I have often
found it to be more useful. (Bear in mind that I'm not
editing on a professional level that's intended for print.)
One amazing aspect of XPE is that the editing isn't
destructive. The original image remains intact, even if you
copy the edited photo into another file. (If you "create a
bitmap copy", it's flattened, but then that's the point of
that function.) And somehow, the file size doesn't swell.

Xtreme comes with a lot of movies that make it easy to
learn. The "boxed" version includes a CD full of tutorials.
(They're available in the XaraXone even if you don't go for
the box. The Xone is a great resource anyway, with
additional workbooks, galleries and shareware Xara
utilities.) There's also an active and supportive newsgroup
(like this one), so there's lots of help available.

One of the best things about Xara is that it's a great joy
to use. (Caution: it is _seriously_ addictive.<g>)

Allison

[LWD]

Hi, Mark,

I'm not saying this is a *definitive* answer to your question, but in my
post below, I specifically ask if people are able to compare the newest
versions of software because the comparisons are then that much more valid.

PSP X is an update to PSP 9 which I use most of the time and when I had CS
on my computer as a trial, I swear I was able to discern little difference
between it and PSP 9.

PSP now supports layers, channels, actions ('scripts' in PSP - written with
Python), any number of things I remember admiring when I first looked at
Photoshop years ago - and it's a vector graphics editor, so, if you don't do
extensive vector graphics editing, it combines the functions of Photoshop
and Illustrator.

It's a *very* different product than it once was. That's why I'm curious to
know if anyone has done - or would like to do - a serious comparison of
present feature sets. Oh, and I, at least, find it pretty fast. I often
write / record scripts for an entire set of photos all taken under similar
light conditions (most recently in a warehouse, for instance) after I've
gotten it right for one picture then batch process - 300 photos at a time,
for instance.

I don't know anything about ULead or Xara Xtreme, have just glanced at
Acrylic, which is why I'm curious. Also, as Charles and I once discussed,
my primary focus is photography, not graphics, so that adds to my bias
towards it, but I'd either go for Karl's offer or download a trial if I were
you. I believe you'll be surprised at how much it's changed.

L.

[BigGreenFurryThing]

Hi Mark,

I used PSP from it's early shareware beginnings along side Photoshop from
about v2. I gave up PSP two versions ago to focus on PS. Whilst PSP had some
great features, PS was *always* faster by quite a margin. Are you saying
that PSPX is now faster than CS or even CS2?

If so, is this is in all operations? I do some fairly hefty image processing
for panoramas plus multi layered montage images any of which can be 300MB in
size. PS6 / 7 & CS cope where PSP 7 & 8 used to grind along.

Also does PSPX now rival CS for it's touch up tools, levels control and
tablet support?

Having lost track of PSP, I'm interested to hear real world experiences
rather than rely on advertising copy.
--
Mark
www.BigGreenFurryThings.com


"Mark Reed" <mreed@fusionmagic.com> wrote in message
news:Xns974A665E7A65Amreedfusionmagiccom@64.69.219 .245...
> Thanks Karl.
>
> Thats a pretty good deal on PSPX. I have both Photoshop and PSPX, and I
> use PSPX 90% of the time. Much easier, much faster, pretty much the same
> power.
>
> Those of you that do not have PSPX, GET IT! its worth it.
>
> --
> Mark M. Reed (mreed@fusionmagic.com)
> FusionMagic - building better designs...pixel by pixel
>
> Sign up for your FREE Fusion newsletter!
> Incredible Fusion template collections at a great price!
>
>
> Visit: http://www.fusionmagic.com

[BigGreenFurryThing]

Many thanks for the quick reply. Like you, digital photography is important
to me. Currently I use BreezeBrowser (www.breezesys.com) for RAW conversion,
sorting, renaming, prrofs, etc. then jump to CS for editing, compositing,
etc.

I've had Acrylic for a over a month now and despite its lack of import
functiohnality, no apparent support for PS plugins and the limited toolset
I'm still impressed. Very fast bitmap painting tools and instant vector
drawing with good tablet support. The interface is simple and clean and
reasonably obvious to use although I suspect that the MS insterface have not
been let loose on this yet. I still haven't quite got to grips with slicing
and the beta help file is sparse. One other annoyance is the preview when
opening doesn't supportTIF's yet but this is still in beta.

Personally I reckon this is the one to watch especially as it will integrate
with Microsoft's forthcoming web and interface building tools though it
might be worth wating for the second or even third version before dumping
your current bitmap editor.
--
Mark
www.BigGreenFurryThings.com


"LWD" <NO**SPAM!!***lucdix**@**jamDOTrrDOTcom> wrote in message
news:dq9niu$bo71@news01.netobjects.com...
> Hi, Mark,
>
> I'm not saying this is a *definitive* answer to your question, but in my
> post below, I specifically ask if people are able to compare the newest
> versions of software because the comparisons are then that much more
> valid.
>
> PSP X is an update to PSP 9 which I use most of the time and when I had CS
> on my computer as a trial, I swear I was able to discern little difference
> between it and PSP 9.
>
> PSP now supports layers, channels, actions ('scripts' in PSP - written
> with
> Python), any number of things I remember admiring when I first looked at
> Photoshop years ago - and it's a vector graphics editor, so, if you don't
> do
> extensive vector graphics editing, it combines the functions of Photoshop
> and Illustrator.
>
> It's a *very* different product than it once was. That's why I'm curious
> to
> know if anyone has done - or would like to do - a serious comparison of
> present feature sets. Oh, and I, at least, find it pretty fast. I often
> write / record scripts for an entire set of photos all taken under similar
> light conditions (most recently in a warehouse, for instance) after I've
> gotten it right for one picture then batch process - 300 photos at a time,
> for instance.
>
> I don't know anything about ULead or Xara Xtreme, have just glanced at
> Acrylic, which is why I'm curious. Also, as Charles and I once discussed,
> my primary focus is photography, not graphics, so that adds to my bias
> towards it, but I'd either go for Karl's offer or download a trial if I
> were
> you. I believe you'll be surprised at how much it's changed.
>
> L.
>
>