I wanted to try and retouch my images but Photoshop is very expensive!
Any alternative to Photoshop?
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As a general rule, each job requires a set a specific tools, and this is true for photography as well. So, there is no one single advice for all.
If you are overly serious about your photographs and shoot a lot of images in raw format, chances are that you will adopt Lightroom along with the complete Nik software collection. Indeed, Lightroom is expensive: you might try and download the latest Lightroom 3 beta for free (it will be disabled once the stable version is made available) or you can have fun and test the interesting blueMarine project for your workflow.
If, instead, you just want to "try and retouch" you images, I suggest you definitely start with Gimp, available under Linux, Mac and Windows, as it is the best multi-purpose, flexible and easy to approach image editing software around, with scripting capabilities and lots of plug-ins. Also, many tutorials for Photoshop can also be used with Gimp.
Although Gimp is planned to eventually work with high bit-depth and non-destructive editing, if your need is to handle images deeper than 8-bit (which is the case for black and white photographs) then CinePaint is probably a better choice right now.
Posted on 30 October 2009 - 12:12:58 # -
Just to resume the original question: yes, Photoshop is surely quite ahead in front of any competitor but, as kirpi noted, unless you really need it for some reason, other software is more that good enough.
Gimp is quite fine. I agree with Lisa. There is also a USB flash drive Portable Gimp ready for download. No need to install it, and you can have it with you anywhere :-)Posted on 30 October 2009 - 15:03:40 #
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