Photography aids
I've been asked a few times now about programs for making your digital photographs more attractive, i.e. photo manipulation. Maybe if people were to have a look and download this free program we could see some more pictures up in the Spanish Photograph thread
So have a look at Fast Stone Image Viewer Its not a commercial site. Its free software, and it's easy to use and quite powerful. You can view your albums through it, and make simple changes to light, colours and much more Have a go, and put some shots of your local area up on the Spanish Photo Thread :) |
Re: Photography aids
Originally Posted by Mitzyboy
(Post 10160709)
I've been asked a few times now about programs for making your digital photographs more attractive, i.e. photo manipulation. Maybe if people were to have a look and download this free program we could see some more pictures up in the Spanish Photograph thread
So have a look at Fast Stone Image Viewer Its not a commercial site. Its free software, and it's easy to use and quite powerful. You can view your albums through it, and make simple changes to light, colours and much more Have a go, and put some shots of your local area up on the Spanish Photo Thread :) In what way does it differ from Windows Live Photo Gallery or Microsoft Office Picture Manager? ie what functions would be better/easier/etc? Cos I use these two and am generally quite happy but always happy to learn of better! |
Re: Photography aids
Hi Mitzy, has it got the things I miss from CS3, like re sizer, find edges and good framing options ? ta
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Re: Photography aids
Looks like a good tool. Probably as good as PS Elements :)
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Re: Photography aids
All I can tell you is that photographers I know that used CS5 now use often instead. You can change colours, brightness, clone tool, frame tools, .... sharpen, blur, the following probably wont mean much to you, but it does far more than Windows Photo Manager
And its free, so why not just try it! True Full Screen viewer with image zoom support and unique fly-out menu panels Crystal-clear and customizable one-click image magnifier Powerful image editing tools: Resize/resample, rotate/flip, crop, sharpen/blur, adjust lighting/colors/curves/levels etc. Eleven re-sampling algorithms to choose from when resizing images Image color effects: gray scale, sepia, negative, Red/Green/Blue adjustment Image special effects: annotation, drop shadow, framing, bump map, sketch, oil painting, lens Draw texts, lines, highlights, rectangles, ovals and callout objects on images Clone Stamp and Healing Brush Superior Red-Eye effect removal/reduction with completely natural looking end result Multi-level Undo/Redo capability One-touch best fit/actual size image display support Image management, including tagging capability, with drag-and-drop and Copy To/Move To Folder support Histogram display with color counter feature Compare images side-by-side (up to 4 at a time) to easily cull those forgettable shots Image EXIF metadata support (plus comment editing for JPEGs) Configurable batch processing to convert/rename large or small collections of images Slideshow creation with 150+ transition effects and music support (MP3, WMA, WAV...) Create efficient image attachment(s) for emailing to family and friends Print images with full page-layout control Create fully configurable Contact Sheets Create memorable artistic image montages from your family photos for personalized desktop wallpapers (Wallpaper Anywhere) Acquire images from scanner. Support batch scanning to PDF, TIFF, JPEG and PNG Versatile screen capture capability Powerful Save As interface to compare image quality and control generated file size Run favorite programs with one keystroke from within Image Viewer Offer portable version of the program which can be run from a removable storage device Configurable mouse wheel support Support multiple program skins Support dual-monitor configurations And much more... |
Re: Photography aids
It's a programme I have used for years, but purely as an image viewer. No way is it comparable to CS5, that's why one is free one one costs over £500!!! Anyone that switched from CS5 to FSIV either doesn't know anything about Photoshop and has never used it to it's full potential, or they have a hookey copy and never paid for it. I don't think there is hardly a day goes by when I don't use PS, but I'm still on an ancient PS3 version. FSIV is a nice programme but not in the same league as PS, nor does it claim to be.
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Re: Photography aids
Thanks for reminding me of this viewer Mitzyboy. I say 'viewer' because that's what I have always used it for. The earlier versions weren't so versatile and FSIV was useful for very quickly viewing lots of pictures to find or sort photos. I had it on my old computer and didn't remember to transfer it. I just downloaded 4.6. I see it does have many more options than the earlier versions. I agree with agoreira, I shan't be changing from my photo manager/editor, Lightroom 4, any time soon but will probably look out the installation file for my simpler version 2x as it can be very useful at times. I hope 2x will run on a 64 bit system.
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Re: Photography aids
Originally Posted by agoreira
(Post 10161573)
It's a programme I have used for years, but purely as an image viewer. No way is it comparable to CS5, that's why one is free one one costs over £500!!! Anyone that switched from CS5 to FSIV either doesn't know anything about Photoshop and has never used it to it's full potential, or they have a hookey copy and never paid for it. I don't think there is hardly a day goes by when I don't use PS, but I'm still on an ancient PS3 version. FSIV is a nice programme but not in the same league as PS, nor does it claim to be.
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Re: Photography aids
Originally Posted by rafikiphoto
(Post 10161978)
Unfortunately it seems fashionable these days for some software developers that have written a very useful little programme that does a specific task very well to then try to reinvent the wheel and bloat it to add functions that are freely available elsewhere.
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Re: Photography aids
Originally Posted by agoreira
(Post 10162035)
Faststone will do the job for lots of people, and if that's the case, those people would be wasting their money on PS.
I have a friend who is president of the local camera club and that's definitely his attitude. The sad thing is that he takes lousy photos! I've tried most of the photo programs and find PS so complicated that I doubt if many people use more than 10% of its functions! These days I manage to do 90% of what I want in Picasa which is undoubtedly the easiest program to use and makes a great organiser for people who have no idea how to manage folders. There is a world of difference between just getting the best out of a basic photo, which doesn't require much effort and being really creative which seems to be where the more sophisticated option come into their own. Bearing in mind that probably 90% of all photos are now taken on a mobile phone, some of the apps available there are pretty good. I have used iPhoto on my iPad and that's pretty good. |
Re: Photography aids
Originally Posted by Fred James
(Post 10162099)
I think there is a bit of a myth that to be a "proper" photographer you have to use PS.
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Re: Photography aids
I think this has been taken a bit off the point :D
OK, I start in Camera RAW, I go to Fast Stone for the odd tweeks, then I go to Photoshop CS5 and / or Bibble.pro for finishing touches, or anything FS wont do The point I'm making is that very good amateur photographers I know use FastStone as a starting point. For people who just want a simple program that is quite powerful without having to Span a fortune, it is an excellent choice .... all I was trying to do by posting this thread was to try and help budding photographers take a step up to a helpful aid |
Re: Photography aids
I was going to give you karma Mitzy but the website is all out off sync for me today, lines on top of each other and the karma box is almost all covered by the ad below it.
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Re: Photography aids
Originally Posted by Mitzyboy
(Post 10162284)
I think this has been taken a bit off the point :D
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Re: Photography aids
Not exactly a mainstream Photo program but I came across Portrait Professional which I though was amazing if you are interested in portraiture.
Yes, you can probably do everything that it does in PS but the ease of use is astonishing. You can get good results in just a few clicks. http://www.portraitprofessional.com/ Not free but there is a free trial. |
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