Graphic software for Macs

Photoshop Elements?

Sometimes Amazon has the latest version on mega offer...or eBay. When I upgraded to Elements 11 I actually sold my version 10 on eBay for more than I paid Amazon for version 11. Guess some people don't shop around.

Amazon recently offered version 12 of Elements for £46. Not in any rush to upgrade this time and besides it will be cheaper still in a few months I reckon.

cheddar-caveman said:

Many thanks RadDave, most helpful. Yes, the three black boxes and these cannot be changed according to the manufacturer. The editing window is quite small as well don't you find? There's so much wasted space on the desk top, Yes one can enlarge the view but then you lose the other two boxes.
Any way, as I said, I've got the trial package for 30 days so I'll play with it.

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Hi again! Yes, I agree about the editing window, especially on my 15" MBPro (much better on my 21.5" iMac) - options to enlarge the window as you suggested, using the zooming tools (see my new attached pic w/ the white arrows - zoomed in on the image), and use the 'full screen' mode on the editing window (right upper corner); but worth 'playing with' for a few days - the online tutorials are short and will give you a quicker feel for the app. Dave
.

You could put the palettes on a second monitor, that's what I do.

Oooo, lucky you! I can only just afford one monitor
Yes, thank RadDave, that looks ok. I've got 30 days to play before buy so experiment time! AS a matter of interest, is that a screen shot or photo? Very good whatever.
I'm also running a MacBook Pro 15" Retina (nice bit of kit!).

Pixelmator a awesome program and is far far better option then PS Elements.. PM also supports FULL 16bit color, while PSE only supports 8bit.. Something to consider. Now, I do hope they offer the option like adobe does to change the application background. The overly black is a tad to dark for many users and is pretty much the only real complaint you here about it from other users. I find it OK, but from a UI point of view its to dark for some of the application tool buttons to be easy to see. Though if it was white I would flip out big time..

GIMP is good, was great at one time. But as much as I love GIMP its falling behind. **** lets be honest, they fell behind 5 years ago.. There has been no real innovation to GIMP since then. But its free.

Last I would like to piggy back on Chas's post about Adobe CC. They are offering until the end of this month (March 31st, 2014) the Photographers Package for $9.99 plus tax. It includes Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop as well as Behance. Both Lr and Ps are installed on your computer. If you do a yearly subscription you will only be billed monthly, so no huge lump some of money at one time. In addition you can go offline and only required to have a inet connection once every 90 days.. So making travel easy. If you dont do the yearly special offer, you will have to choose monthly service which is about $20 USD and will be required to login once every 30 days.. Its really a good deal, it makes Ps and Lr both cheaper then buying them as before and you automatically get the latest updates/upgrades at no additional cost..

Cheers,
Joe

cheddar-caveman said:

Oooo, lucky you! I can only just afford one monitor
Yes, thank RadDave, that looks ok. I've got 30 days to play before buy so experiment time! AS a matter of interest, is that a screen shot or photo? Very good whatever.
I'm also running a MacBook Pro 15" Retina (nice bit of kit!).

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A photo brought into Pixelmator of my den bar; the art work is a limited edition linocut done by an aboriginal artist from the Northern Territory, Australia. Dave

Been using Pixelmator for a week now and getting to like it more and more! I can also use it any (Mac) computer so will now buy and install on both my iMac and MacBook Pro. I've been pestering them with questions and their replies are always very quick and to the point and their tutorials are very good as well. What more could one want for £20!

Very annoying and beware. Pixelmator only works with OS x 10.8.5 and above. Just checked my iMac and it's 10.7.5 so am currently updating to Mavericks!

CPulsar said:

Does anyone know if there are any free graphics programs for Macs besides Gimp? I am used to Photoshop but it won't work on my Mac because it is made for PC. I don't want to install Windows or any software that will allow PC programs to work. I am just looking for something for Macs, thanks.

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Hi CPulsar,
GImp really one of the best and has most of the functionality of Photoshop. A good manual for GImp is available online.
If your copy of Photoshop is registered to you, Adobe will give you the version for your Mac. My first copy was given to me, so I ended up having to purchase the stand alone version of CS6. Had my PC version been registered to me, I would have contacted Adobe, and they are most co-operative in making things work for registered users. I still did OK, because Best Buy where we have spent large amounts of money, discounted CS6 to us at less than half price, and I now have a registered copy with all benefits. I just don't do the Creative Cloud deal, because I refuse to pay for new updates which I would probably never use! The downside is....no updates what so ever! We live with our choices!
Unkei

In addition to wishing I could edit my previous comment (which meant to say that I'm *not* shilling for Adobe), I thought I'd update to say that I decided to go ahead with the $10/month Lightroom/PS/etc deal and so far it's been fine. Haven't gotten into Photoshop much yet, but will when I get my plug-ins updated. Lightroom is nice for working with RAW files but I'm not mad about it.