Photoshop

Hi BBB

By Photoshop I'm assuming you mean Photoshop Elements. The full Photoshop CS package costs many hundreds of pounds and is really for professionals.

I currently use Photoshop Elements 7 (PSE7). There is version 8 currently but I decided not to upgrade because the changes/improvements didn't seem worthwhile.

PSE7 is really two almost separate applications which are linked.

Firstly, there is the Organiser which catalogues and organises all your images. Here you can do things like viewing your photos, adding captions and tags so you can find them again. In other words general management. You can also do a limited amount of editing of the photos from within the Organizer.

Secondly, there is the Editor. This is where you can adjust individual images. This includes the basics like cropping, changing the resolution, adjusting the lighting (eg lightening the shadows, changing the contrast etc) and sharpening the image. It also has a whole range of tools to do some quite sophisticated things like extracting part of an image to use elsewhere, creating special effects using filters, removing objects that you don't want to appear in your photo. There's also a Create section where do things like creating collages, photobooks, greeting cards and CD covers etc and a Share section for online albums, emailing etc.

Mostly, I use it for enhancing images which I haven't exposed properly and I think it's good for these type of adjustments. Occasionally, I use it for manipulating images and creating special effects. For example, I don't know whether you saw that spoof where I superimposed a photo of a Kiskadee that I photographed in Trinidad on a feeder in one of Sparrow's posts.

I've waffled on a bit and you are probably thoroughly confused. What I will say is that it's a very powerful and sophisticated package. If all you want to do is make simple adjustments to photos it's probably a bit of overkill although it has plenty of quick fixes to automate them. If you've got the time and inclination to get into it more deeply then it can be quite good fun but be warned there is quite a steep learning curve.

I suggest you you look at this link to the Adobe website which has a series of video tutorials to show what can be achieved then you can see if it is for you.

http://www.adobe.com/uk/digitalimag/explore/?explore=photo

Good luck

TJ

O.K perhaps I had better say what I'm hoping to do and will your version do this, I'm looking to remove noise when cropping a photo, make pixels smaller if this helps also when cropping a picture, and Highlight dark areas without making the whole photo look washed out. The versions I've seen on E.bay range from £30 to over a £100. Does anybody have the elements 7 or 8 and are they suitable for what I want or should I be looking at the more expensive ones.

Hi Teejay,

Thanks ever so much, I'll have a look at that, it is mostly noise I'll be looking to remove to improve the picture quality and sharpness of the image, not on all my photos, just those special, or once in a lifetime photos one's which you just wish had turned out better.

Hi Bishy,

You don't need to spend a fortune to achieve what you want. I had a massive problem with noise, and this was pointed out to me on the forum, although I already knew. I have now eliminated it simply by changing the settings on my camera. There is a noise (grain) reduction setting on the Lumix. If you set the camera to a low ISO and set the grain reduction to maximum on the camera, you will not get grain. The higher the ISO the more grain you will get. The downside of a low ISO is camera shake and blur, but the Lumix also has a good jitter stabiliser.

As for increasing the resoution, there is no point in having it any higher than (I think) 72dpi on an ordinary PC because the screen resolutions on ordinary PCs are only about 72dpi and nothing higher will show. It is only if you want to print everything that a higher resolution will show, and that again depends on the resolution of your printer. The Lumix downloads at 180dpi on most settings.

You can change the resolution on almost all editing software, including the freebie I use.

Unknown said:

Hi everyone,

I wonder if you people out there with Photoshop could tell me what version you use, and what you find it good for, I've been looking on e.bay and was surprised at all the different versions that there are, and I'm totally lost.

Hi

I use Photoshop CSV4 which is very advanced and I doubt if you ever use more than 10% of the software.
You can do exactly what you want to do with Photoshop Elements 6 or 7 . I still have photoshop elements 6 on my computer and tend to use that anyway for everday stuff like cropping, and minor adjustments.
There is also a lot of free software online which I have never used but seems to have the results you are looking for.

I should have said that you will never completely eliminate grain!! I made it sound like I had managed this, and of course I haven't. I'm still very much a learner.  Photos taken in low light, such as at dusk, need a higher ISO setting and therefore grain. Most of your photos will be taken in normal light conditions. I take hundreds of shots and delete a good proportion of them, as I'm sure most people do.

Birdwatcher is quite right, many of the freebies do exactly what you are looking for. I would try one before spending a fortune on something you need a degree to use (and I'm not exaggerating). You said before you use the Nero one but don't rate it. My hubby has this on his computer and I don't rate it either.

Hi again BBB

That's very good advice from Sparrow. When I embarked on my epistle I didn't really know what you were looking for.

Personally I think it is always better to shoot in the highest resolution possible ie. large/superfine or the equivalent on your camera. You can always reduce the resolution later but you can't create it afterwards if you haven't got it to start with. It doesn't really matter that it uses up more space on your memory card because they are relatively cheap. The more pixels you start with the less deterioration there is in your picture if and when you crop it.

Have you tried using Google's Picasa it's a freedownload from their website. It's pretty good at cataloging photos and the adjustments although basic may be all you need.

Hi again Bishy,

Following on from what TJ has said, the Lumix has a highest resolution setting of 12megapixels, which is the one I use most of the time, and this downloads to your PC at 180dpi, which is more than you need. TJ is right when he says you can always lower the resolution on software, but you can never increase what isn't there in the first place, no matter which software you use. If you have been having grain problems with your existing camera, either it is on the wrong settings or hasn't got good enough settings.

As you all know, I am a total beginner at all this but have read up on resolutions and grain and ISO's and am still experimenting. I have reached the conclusion that it is the camera and the photographer, not the software, that matters. Unless of course you want to alter the photograph so much that it bears no resemblance to the original subject.

Hi Everyone,

Thank you all for your input, you've all been very helpful, it will mostly be cropping noise and low level lighting noise I will want to remove, I do take a lot of pictures indoors, Christmas and childrens Birthdays, and I hate using flash much prefer natural lighting, I have to wait until the children are relatively still to get a picture quick so they don't end up a blur, so I end up with just a few usable images. I shall give some freebies a go, and if I'm not satisfied I shall go for the Elements 7 at £31 or version 8 at £41 which I thought was a reasonable price considering the amount of use I will probably get from it, plus my son is inheriting our Fuji Finepix so he may find the Photoshop fun to mess about with if we end up with that.

Thanks again everyone, I won't select a best answer as I think they all are.