Software for Manipulating Photos

[Hatchet]

Just curious what software people use to manipulate photos to make decals. I’m using a Mac computer at home and trying to figure out how to scale up or down images to make graffiti decals. Personal use only to avoid any copyright issues. Thanks!

[Hedron]

I have a Mac and I go back and forth between Pages (free, app store), Pixelmator($, app store) and Inkscape (free, website). Pages will do basic resizing, and you can lay out several on one page for easy printing. Pixelmator is good for removing backgrounds. Inkscape uses vector files, which is the best way to resize while avoiding pixelation or loss of resolution issues, and to manipulate letter-based logos. I used its smoothing tool to take jaggies out of scan of a low resolution original. The various tools overlap in some aspects, and I seem to get to what I want a little different way each time, but between these three I can eventually get to a good final result. When it comes time to print, I use someone else's color laser, so I export to PDF to prevent surprises in the final print.

If you want all for free, GIMP will do everything Pixelmator can and more, but the interface is not as polished by a long shot.

[peteski]

I use the Corel suite of programs (an older version, purchased inexpensively).

First, for editing bitmaps (photos) which will be used for decal artwork I use Photo Paint.
Decal quality will be the best when the artwork is in vector format, so I then import the edited bitmaps into Corel Draw, and I trace the images to arrive at vector artwork.  I was never happy with auto-tracing capabilities of Corel, so I manually trace the images.  Once in vector format, the objects can be easily manipulated.

[jereising]

I've used Photoshop Elements for many years.  Photoshop Has been considered the Gold Standard, and the Elements version is slightly dumbed down and a lot less expensive.  But I've been hearing about a newer application that from all indications is every bit as good if not maybe better called Affinity Photo.  Through the 20th (IIRC) they've got a half price sale going and you can get it for $25.  I'm gonna give this one a shot.  I'm not all that happy with Adobe anyway - yearly software upgrades that don't do much of anything new (for me anyway) except cost more dough.

[Hatchet]

Thanks, everyone! Gives me a lot to try to see what works the best for me!

Mark

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm old school in this regard.

I still love Photoshop.

[DKS]

I'm old school in this regard.

I still love Photoshop.

"Old school?" Puh... Corel PhotoPaint for me, since Version 1.0, although I also used Photoshop since the early days because export filters were less than useful back then. Far too many moons ago, I did an in-depth comparison of the two applications. For instance, regarding the jpeg export filters, Corel won by a surprisingly wide margin for image quality vs. file size. I made things worse by pointing out that the Adobe user interface violated many standard Windows protocols, whereas Corel's UI did not, and that Corel also offered significantly more UI customization options than Adobe. After I published the results, the Adobe fanboys made it abundantly clear to me that Adobe had their loyalty, regardless of numerous inconvenient facts. Sorta reminded me of Apple vs. PC...

But that's all irrelevant now, so take it for the less-than-two-cents it's worth...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Corel PhotoPaint for me, since Version 1.0, although I also used Photoshop since the early days. Far too many moons ago, I did an in-depth comparison of the two applications. For instance, regarding the jpeg export filters, Corel won by a surprisingly wide margin for image quality vs. file size. I made things worse by pointing out that the Adobe user interface violated many standard Windows protocols, whereas Corel's UI did not, and that Corel also offered significantly more UI customization options than Adobe. After I published the results, the Adobe fanboys made it abundantly clear to me that Adobe had their loyalty, regardless of numerous inconvenient facts. Sorta reminded me of Apple vs. PC...

It's funny to me that anyone gets that attached to software. But if you spend a ton of time working in something I guess it makes sense.

I agree about PS being weird in Windows. I'm guessing that speaks to its large Mac user base.

[DKS]

I agree about PS being weird in Windows. I'm guessing that speaks to its large Mac user base.

I spoke once with an Adobe developer, and he said they had a bitch of a time porting it from Mac to Windows. So none of this is surprising.

[Hedron]

It's funny to me that anyone gets that attached to software. But if you spend a ton of time working in something I guess it makes sense.

I agree about PS being weird in Windows. I'm guessing that speaks to its large Mac user base.

I don't know if it's a case of attachment per se. I think it's really that these are very complex applications, where moving to new software means relearning where the new app put everything. I think for photo editing software this is worse than say, a word processor, where a larger common lexicon seems to have developed.

[randgust]

My son got a student license of Photoshop when he was in college, got good at it, and taught me to use it.

It's not an easy program to master.  When you get something this complicated and manage to learn how to use it, it's as much of a matter of just wanting to solve the problem and move on without having to learn new tools in the process.    So other than 'thats what I learned on' is my only loyalty to it, plus I had a very good instructor who later became a professional Virtual Reality programmer (yay, RIT!).

There's almost nothing you can't do with it, if you can just figure it out, because there's very little to it that's particularly intuitive.  95% of it never gets used, but the 5% that does is really good.

[Hatchet]

My son is also a PhotoShop expert and echoes the sentiment that it is difficult initially to learn but once you get it it, it’s pretty good. Think I’ll opt for something simpler initially and then move up if I feel the need. Thanks, all.

Mark

[peteski]

Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo Paint, Gimp - they are all fairly similar bitmap editors.  But their interfaces are not identical, so even knowing how to work one, you would still have to learn how do things if you were to switch to another one.

[glakedylan]

I use Corel Paint Shop 2018...I began with the Jasc Paint Shop Pro (v5) back in the mid '90s and I knew my way around it fairly well. It seemed like the right choice given timeframe and $ amount. 5 served me well but I really like the additional things I can do with 2018.


I have tried the free and free trial version of many, but they seemed counterintuitive to me. The one good thing about PSP is that many of the PhotoShop plugins work in it.


sincerely
Gary

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Oh wow. JASC PSP. That takes me back!