It doesn't take much to set off PC Mag's John C. Dvorak, and his latest
column is no exception. The venerable curmudgeon has
set his sights on
photo-editing software, and bemoans what he considers the lack of
user-friendly non-"rinky-dink" photo software. As Dvorak says, in his
own inimitable style: "My point is, why can't we have simple and
powerful software that can do the 45 things photographers do most in
Photoshop put into a package that is easy to use? And by 'easy to use,'
I mean intuitive and quick. When did easy to use mean 'dumbed down for
Granny?' Dumbed down and stupid is not the same as easy to use. Have I
made this clear yet?" While I agree with Dvorak that Photoshop may be
overkill for many photographers, I have to disagree with his assessment
of Photoshop Elements as "an older version of Photoshop with its name
changed to Elements." The recently released PSE 4 may not have all of
the features of PSCS2, but it comes awfully close to being an
easy-to-use program tailor-made for photogs. It's hardly rinky-dink,
and hardly out-of-date. I'd add a few others, including Paint Shop Pro and even iPhoto (which now has a decent suite of editing tools and supports RAW images) to the non-rinky-dink category. Any thoughts? Do you agree with Dvorak? Have you found a great non-rinky-dink program? Or have
you embraced Photoshop, despite the
learning curve?
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Comments
8
Subscribe to commentsDarrenOct 25th 2005 1:51PM
We will see what apple manage to come up with when they release their photo editor, Aperture.
Eagle117Oct 25th 2005 1:57PM
I personally find Microsoft's Digital Image Suite to be the perfect replacement for Photoshop. $50-$100 for the program and it does all of the major features that is fairly easy to use. My Grandma does stuff with it that I didn't even know it could do.
http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003
Neil T.Oct 25th 2005 2:14PM
I don't always agree with Dvorak but he's got a point this time. Picasa is pretty good for many of the basic and intermediate tweaks but can't do advanced stuff like removing people or objects from photos. And it doesn't work on a Mac :(
(sorry Mac fans, Picasa could kick iPhoto's ass anyday)
DavidOct 25th 2005 2:16PM
I noticed that your picture of Dvorak had been editted so I Photoshopped his donkey ears back on.
And sorry, but I think Picasso is pretty lame.
h0miOct 25th 2005 8:34PM
Picasa... feh.
I want a program that easily resizes photos, and can do so in bulk/en masse.
AFDOct 25th 2005 10:26PM
Think I might give Corel's Paint Shop Pro X a try. My last experience w/Photoshop was v5 and I didn't particularly care for the interface in comparison to v7 of Paint Shop. Haven't tried Elements, but Adobe's Photodeluxe was extremely oversimplified and limited for my needs.
JoshuaOct 26th 2005 10:52AM
I run Photoshop on my G4 at home, and use iPhoto to organize the photos and designs that come up with.
But on my wife's P4, she uses Google's Picasa, and while that is very limited in capability, it is most defintely not rinky-dink.
k3ntOct 29th 2005 5:05AM
I recently downloaded the freeware Paint.net http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.htm
Haven't had time to run through all it's functions, but it seems to fit the bill. -except perhaps bulk file renaming..