When not Photoshop then what ... ?

[Daniel Stone]

here's another option:
enroll in a local community college photo program(or another class, say 1x/week you can enjoy), and once you have your student i.d. card, march over to adobe and demand the student discount . Many community colleges here in the USA(at least the ones I've attended locally) carry Adobe products in the "student store". If you're a student w/ an active student id, you can get it for the student-level pricing. Its the only way I could afford CS4 at the time it came out... And its still way more than I need 95% of the time

-Dan

EDIT: you don't have to remain a student from semester to semester, you can do a semester/term, get a class and a copy of your new PS upgrade(for a nice discount), and be on your merry way! "Rinse, dry, repeat" so to speak, every 2-3yrs or how often you want/need to "upgrade".

[Frank Petronio]

Sometimes some lame-sounding class can be a great deal. When I taught a digital imaging class at VSW years ago, they had a brand new (at the time) Espon 7000 and plenty of ink and paper for a modest lab fee. Since most of the students were too lazy to do anything - and the other "profs" didn't have any idea how to turn the scary thing one - the couple who did have it on the ball (and umm, the prof) printed like crazy for peanuts.

[J. Fada]

I have high hopes for Pixelmator in the future. One alternative that I haven't really explored yet is Hasselblad's Phocus software. It will open just about anything as far as I can tell, and it is FREE. You just have to give them your email.

Personally, I have the CS4 suite since I use other programs in it besides Photoshop, in fact I use almost all of them. My main program though is Lightroom. I used Aperture for a while, but settled on Lightroom, although until I bought a new computer a few months ago I still used Aperture with my IPhone pictures since the color was so much better. I am thinking about buying it again just for that. DPP from Canon is another program I use. I really only use Photoshop these days for advanced editing and cleaning up scans.

I agree with Frank. If someone comes out with capable software people will move to it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we were all using other software in a decade. I don't think Adobe's business model is going to last.

[Matus Kalisky]

- r.e. -
You must have misread my posts before - I do plan to upgrade my OS (though not to Lion for technical reasons - I will probably wait for the next updated there) and also the hardware (more RAW and new battery) and I would buy the Photoshop, but the price is out of my range now (maybe it will not be in a year from now).

There was a proposal to enroll some class to be eligible for student discount. Well - as far as I know one must really enroll a University to get that granted in Germany.

I actually hoped to hear a bit more about your experience with software other than Photoshop.

[Brent Long]

What about PaintShop Pro? I thought that did 16/48 bit images, but from their site it appears that I've mis-remembered. Google will have to guide you, and I'd say that 16/48 bit should be your guide, with layers being very important as well. It's going to be a compromise any way you go. Personally, I'd see what I could sell on Ebay, or extra work I could do for some extra cash. The only gripe that most people have with Photoshop is the price, and it's that way for a reason, ya know.

[Brent Long]

http://toyotadesigner.wordpress.com/...he-rest-of-us/

http://www.pl32.com/

And

http://www.dl-c.com/

[Matus Kalisky]

http://toyotadesigner.wordpress.com/...he-rest-of-us/

http://www.pl32.com/

And

http://www.dl-c.com/

Thanks! I will definitely try them out. The PhotoLine looks in particular interesting.

[Brent Long]

PhotoLine looks interesting to me, too. I downloaded it and will play with it when I get some time. Picture Window Pro was being used by Norman Koren, apparently to very good effect. He couldn't seem to recommend it highly enough.

[srbphoto]

if you want to try Elements you can pick it up for $50 this weekend at Staples. I finally tried it and was impressed. I don't know about the file size limitations but it was pretty good.

[Tyler Boley]

can you just migrate onto a new setup? Seems to work. PS3 is great, use it all the time on my older desktop. Unless you need newer camera support for ACR, I actually prefer some of the interface stuff thy changed later...
Tyler