Best PhotoShop Replacement

Thread Starter

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Two weeks ago, my SSD died and locked up. There was no "uninstalling" anything. In fact, I would have paid a nice sum just to recognize it as a drive. Sandisk has replaced it under warranty.

I re-installed all of my software. Every bit of it was legal. Office 2007 went smoothly. Adobe Creative Suite CS3 was not so nice. I now get warnings about activating my install or losing it. The only program which I use much nowadays is Photoshop. Adobe has a Catch 22. It has stopped support of CS3, and so it is impossible to activate. There is no way to contact Adobe by phone or e-mail.

I am considering my options. The least stressful for me will be to purchase a substitute and say adioS to Adobe. What is the best, consumer-priced substitute? My main uses are simply re-sizing photos, and a few times a year I get artistic with sepia tone and get a large print on canvas of the grand-kids made.

John
 

tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
I use GIMP, which supports sepia toning (http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Sepia_Toning/). I've used it to resize family photos and remove blemishes from them, with satisfactory results. If you're using Windows (I assume you likely are, since you mentioned Office) and don't care whether or not the software is cross-platform, you can also use Paint.NET, which also supports sepia toning. When I tried it several years ago (version 3), it didn't have all of the functionality that I wanted, but that may have changed now that version 4 is out. Both programs are listed on the page nsaspook linked to.
 

Thread Starter

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
I saw a similar review. GIMP was favored more than 2:1 over any alternative, but was said to have a poor/clumsy interface. For windows, Paint.net ranked #2.

Adobe has the unique distinction of having its CEO apologize for its poor support a couple of years ago. Not much has changed. I didn't check whether that CEO is still there. :)

John
 

tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
I saw a similar review. GIMP was favored more than 2:1 over any alternative, but was said to have a poor/clumsy interface. For windows, Paint.net ranked #2.
I've also read a lot of reviews saying that GIMP has a poor/clumsy interface, but I don't find it that hard to use since I've gotten accustomed to it. I guess it just takes a bit of getting used to. It does take a long time to start up though unless if you have a fast computer with plenty of resources, and on Windows 8 it seems to frequently lock up on startup.

If you're just looking for a program that will let you edit photos on Windows, I think you'd probably like Paint.NET. The things I remember I didn't like about it was it had no global Preferences dialog, and the contents of textboxes couldn't be edited after initial creation, like in MS Paint (without using a plugin, which had limited capabilities). I think the developers planned to add both features in version 4, but I don't know if they did or not. At the time I tried it, I was still using WinXP, and fonts in textboxes looked pretty blurry, but the developers said that's not a problem on later versions of Windows. Also, it's picky about the version of NET Framework that it needs, so you'll probably have to install it on your PC (the Paint.NET installer will do it for you if it detects you don't have the needed version).
 

Thread Starter

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Thank you. That was very helpful. I happen to like Eagle's interface (I still revert to the classic version, not the Windows' version), and a lot of people hate it. Maybe GIMP will suit me fine.

John
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
There are two that I use in addition to paid software. I like Infranview as well as Gimp. While neither is like Adobe for doing basic stuff they are both fine and free stuff that actually works. Yes, Gimp can be a bit clumsy to use and navigate but it works fine for basic photo shop task.

Ron
 

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
Another vote for GIMP..
Inkscape for vector graphic..

PS... Photoshop CS2 is available for "free" sort of as Adobe had some "oops" a while back with the license server or something like that..
 

Reloadron

Joined Jan 15, 2015
7,501
For what it's worth, IrfanView isn't free for commercial use.

@jpanhalt: If you want to try out GIMP and/or Paint.NET, there are portable versions available for both of them. (If I'm just trying out software, I like to use the portable version to avoid cluttering my registry and hard drive. If I decide I want to use it, then I install the non-portable version.)
Yes, but he isn't using it commercially.

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x, ME, NT, 2000, XP, 2003 , 2008, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.
So it will work for what the original poster wants to do including sepia tones. There is no shortage of free or low cost software out there. I would suggest trying some of the free stuff and see if it works and then worry about the paid stuff.

Ron
 

ScottWang

Joined Aug 23, 2012
7,397
@ScottWang: The OP said he wanted the capability of doing sepia toning, which isn't available in either MS Paint or the free version of ACDSee (as far as I can tell).
Let's see what the TS said : My main uses are simply re-sizing photos
So my suggestion only for this to used the MS Paint, the Paint only can do one by one for each time, but the ACDSee can do some more.
 

Thread Starter

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
Well, this morning when I checked my PhotoShop, the "activate" option was dimmed. Maybe the hour I spent on the phone yesterday had a result, even though I gave up after being on hold for almost 30 minutes at the end. A lot of users have had problems re-activating older versions. Maybe Adobe decided to apply the same solution to CS3 (and others?) as it applied to CS2.

If the problem recurs, I will go with Gimp. That seems a clear choice.

While my main use is resizing and cropping photos to share with family, a few times a year I photoedit the images. While that is infrequent, it is essential to me.

Thanks for all the advice. At least I now have a plan.

Regards,

John

Edit: Just received this from Adobe. No explanation needed. Did you do this Bertus? ;)

Beste John Anhalt,
U hebt onlangs een Adobe-id gemaakt. Uw Adobe-id is anhalt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.net.
Klik op deze koppeling om uw e-mailadres te bevestigen:
https://adobeid.services.adobe.com/verify/nl_NL/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Opmerking:
als er geen pagina wordt geopend nadat u op de koppeling hebt geklikt, kunt u de volledige URL kopiëren en in uw browser plakken.

Het team van Adobe
Copyright 2015 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. 345 Park Avenue, San Jose, CA 95110 USA
 
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tjohnson

Joined Dec 23, 2014
611
You can even have a shell for the gimp for acting like paintshop using gimpshop: http://www.gimpshop.com/
You might not want to use GIMPshop. The original software was legitimate, but the developer hasn't released a stable version of it since 2006. What's now available at gimpshop.com is a fork of the software developed by someone else who basically stole the project from the original developer, and has a bad reputation for having adware and spyware bundled with it. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop#Status for more details.)
 
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