Just wanted to pass this on. If you are looking for an affordable paint program, then this may be for you.

Paint Shop Pro 8 - Compusa (http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=302215&pfp=srch1)

The only catch is that you have to fill out 2 rebate cards.

I found it in my local Sunday adds. I'm not sure if it's offered anywhere outside the US. The sale is probably only through this week.

There doesn't appear to be any more online, however the local stores seemed to have plenty of them.

Later

The only other catch is just how much it sucks compared to Adobe Photoshop which is worth twice every extra cent it costs.

Cas :)

'Course it sucks. PSP6 forever!

(Yes, I'm really really touchy about having to learn completely new ways to do the same old things in programs so I can be very stubborn about upgrades. I don't care if it crashes all the time, as long as the commands are still WHERE I WANT THEM TO BE.)

Just trying to give people a cheaper alternative, if cash is tight. Not trying to start a religious war. :)

Some sort of offspring of the two programs would be nice. Each one has things it does well ... and things that annoy the hell out of me.

Photoshop is bar-none the greatest tool available for raster graphics.

But with a price difference of about $550 between the two, there is a huge percentage of people who can easily get by with Paintshop Pro. Sure, you won't get all of the high end features (color matching, etc) that people doing print layout couldn't live without, but many people just don't need those features.

I use and hate Paint Shop Pro 7; I am constantly loosing my menus;l the layers are just done poorly. Also, the transparent colors in the application are unpredictable at best.

I have never used Photoshop because:

- I am not an artist;
- and It is expensive.

But a lot of people swear by Gimp "spelling"? I have never used it; but I guess it is better than Paint Shop Pro and Free?

8 is buggy and not perfect but it's actually much better than 7. The built in script language is nice too.

I agree that Photoshop is great, but it's a little bloated and quite expensive. PSP is not a bad alternative and in fact I prefer it for certain tasks.

@Steve,

By scripting language; do you mean it has macros?

Originally posted by Sean Doherty
@Steve,

By scripting language; do you mean it has macros?

Paint Shop Pro 8 has a full-featured scripting engine based on the Python programming language. You can record scripts as macros though.

@Steve,

I was kind of hoping that people were moving away from macros. In my opinion they cause more harm than good because now anyone can write a potential virus for Paint Shop Pro 8?

It think it is possible to write a virus for psp8 now. In practice though companies could allow scripting functionality that's safe if they wanted to.

I prefer Gimp 2.0 to any version of PSP, and I think I've used 'em all since 3. There are some annoyances and it's a far cry from Photoshop (much like all of the other Photoshop alternatives I've used), but it's sure worth a shot for the price (free).

http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/

There's also a macromedia app called firefly or something like that, that a lot of artists like. I tried a demo of it once and it seemed pretty good on the surface.

ArtGem was also a good one, but it's no longer sold. It was a deluxe paint clone with windows features by the same fellow who runs arcadelab now.

I have started using Gimp 2 too. Though interface sometime clanky, and tutotials are lucking it really do it's job.

I tried gimp and although the basic functionality was there, at the end of the day the overall package was just too poor for me to consider using it for day to day work.

Did you try it before version 2? Big difference.

last time I linked to Gimp it was to a page full of source downloads. I thought I'd be a little more helpful and point right to a site that distributes win32 installers.

http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/

In general, free software is only free if you don't value your time.

@EpicBoy,

Normally, I would agree with you; and I have not used the program; but I know a lot a people that claim it is very good.

However, there does seem to be some sort of thought process in the open source world that it should be hard to even find the program and the documentation. They tend to Barry it deep in the site in an .lz .gz (what ever).

The real question is Gimp better than a pirated version of Photo shop? Of course that isn't a fair question because we all know that know has a pirated version of photo shop.

For the record I use Paint Shop Pro 7 and gameSpace; and both could be a lot better. Although, I am not an artist.

Question: Will Gimp import a Photo shop image because I have been thinking about buying Photo Shop?

IMHO psp 8.0 is a big improvement over version 7. I haven't regretted upgrading. I think they really did a good job improving the interface. It's still a long way from the perfection that is photoshop, but it's very useable.

@Steve,

Will verion 8 import Photo Shop Files?

Originally posted by Sean Doherty
Question: Will Gimp import a Photo shop image because I have been thinking about buying Photo Shop?

No. The fact that you're thinking about buying photo shop will not affect the features that Gimp supports.

Originally posted by Sean Doherty
@Steve,

Will verion 8 import Photo Shop Files?

It will but I'm not clear what version of photo shop files it supports. There's definitely an option to load a psd file though.

EpicBoy - what free software bit you on the ass? I recommend giving any of these a try:

WinAmp
AudioGrabber
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird
Filezilla
SharpReader
Exodus (Jabber client)
mysql

I use these apps all the time and I don't use them because they're free, I use them because they're great. In fact, I paid for Winamp and Audiograbber back when they were shareware.

I guess my question was a bit unclear:

It really doesn't matter to much to me whether I use GIMP or Paint Shop Pro; they are both relativly inexpensive or free.

However, many of the graphics people use Photo Shop; so unless these programs have the ability to import Photo Shop images it is hard to make minor changes to the images they send me.

@Diragor,

I don't like your complete list; but I would add:

- DivX

Originally posted by Sean Doherty
I guess my question was a bit unclear:


No I got it.. i just couldn't resist answering like that :-)

@Steve,

A bunch or words come to mind!

At least you made me laugh.:p

Gimp is able to open Photoshop files, but I don't know up to what version and I'm not sure how much will be preserved as it is in Photoshop. I mean, it almost certainly won't preserve things like effects on layers, for one example. I would guess that PSP also has issues importing Photoshop files, but I don't have Photoshop or PSP handy to test any of these theories.

You guys seem to have forgotten about another alternative: Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0. APE2 is the Photoshop "for the rest of us"; it's useless for people doing high-end three-color separation work, but for making graphics for games and web pages it is unspeakably wonderful. I'm not a Photoshop wizard, but I have been using it for nearly ten years now, and APE2 does almost everything I know how to do in Photoshop. (The one thing that's missing: a real quick-mask mode. The "selection paint brush" isn't as good.)

And the best news of all: APE2 is $100 list, and generally $80 or less at discounters. I got mine at CostCo for $50 (including the rebate).

Ferris Bueller might have been talking about Photoshop when he said, if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. But if you don't have the budget, you can do nearly all of it in APE2. And if you ever do upgrade to real Photoshop, your files will load straight in without a hitch.

Thanks for the heads up on that tool. Sounds perfect.

Cas :)