New guy needs recommendations

Hello all,

I recently switched from a PC to an iMac. I bought a used iMac (1.83 ghz, 512 mb of SDRAM) and upgraded the memory to 2 gb. It's up and running very smoothly, which I'm not used to since I'm coming from the world of PCs. Anyway, I wanted some software recommendations for the following...

Video editing software for a beginner: Do you recommend I use iMovie 09? I've played with it and I like it, but I was wondering your thoughts.

Photo editing software for a beginner: PS Elements 6? I'm not doing anything crazy; pretty much just cropping people's heads off and whatnot.

Easy, but professional looking, web design software: I'm not a coder, so I don't want anything crazy, but I don't want a crappy looking site either. I haven't used iWeb yet. Thoughts?

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Joe

It depends on you're needs. For simple and basic video editing, iMovie should do the trick.

For photo editing, try Seashore. It's free (and OSS) and if you only need to do the basics, it should work fine for you.

For web design, it depends how much control you want over the product and how much you are willing to pay (if anything). I don't design web pages myself but I have heard good things about both Coda and RapidWeaver.

I've heard about Seashore. I'll check it out. Thanks for the tips.

I am fairly new to Mac's. I just got the new iLife 09 an really like it. It has a new version of iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb and Garage Band.

In lieu of PS Elements, I would highly recommend Pixelmator. It's 100% Cocoa-based and takes full advantage of the GPU in your Mac. Very slick and it gives PS Elements a run for its money.

Any review of Pixelmator I have read has said nothing but mostly bad things. To be fair though, I've never used it myself so YMMV.

vansmith said:

Any review of Pixelmator I have read has said nothing but mostly bad things. To be fair though, I've never used it myself so YMMV.

Click to expand...

Really? I've seen mostly glowing reviews - and they keep getting better with each new release.

Pixelmator 1.0.1 | Mac Gems | Macworld
Pixelmator 1.1.4 | Mac|Life
Pixelmator Review - ProCreative - Macworld UK