What is the easy, cheap, lightweight photoshop alternative?
April 10, 2017 1:22 PM Subscribe
I have watercolor paintings that I've scanned in with a typical scanner. I would like to resize, crop, color-correct. I really want to be able to work with multiple layers to combine multiple images. Back in the day, I used Macromedia Fireworks which was easy and amazing. Photoshop makes my head spin and I can't afford it anyway. What PC software should I use?
If you're on Windows, Paint.NET is good and free.
posted by LoveHam at 1:44 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by LoveHam at 1:44 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]
It may be worth noting that Adobe is now renting, rather than selling, its software: you can subscribe to the 'photography' plan, which gets you Photoshop and Lightbox, for ten bucks a month, and turn it on and off whenever you want. That may STILL not be what you want, but affording it shouldn't be an issue.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:52 PM on April 10, 2017
posted by Sing Or Swim at 1:52 PM on April 10, 2017
If the last graphics program you used was Fireworks, maybe you are not aware that Adobe has gone subscription based in the last few years :). So PS is pretty affordable if you just have a one off project like this... $10/mo for the photo package (and then just cancel it when you're done) or $30 for a single month of one app.
You can probably accomplish almost all of what you need to do in Lightroom (which is pretty straightforward), then just arrange in layers in Photoshop if you need to. None of this requires any special PS knowledge. For $10 I would do that.
posted by bradbane at 1:54 PM on April 10, 2017
You can probably accomplish almost all of what you need to do in Lightroom (which is pretty straightforward), then just arrange in layers in Photoshop if you need to. None of this requires any special PS knowledge. For $10 I would do that.
posted by bradbane at 1:54 PM on April 10, 2017
At least try Gimp. Its UX is different from Photoshop, and might make sense to you.
You might want to borrow a screen calibrator and also colour-calibrate your scanner with a cheap scanner calibration target. Otherwise, your delicate washes will come out who-knows-how.
posted by scruss at 1:56 PM on April 10, 2017
You might want to borrow a screen calibrator and also colour-calibrate your scanner with a cheap scanner calibration target. Otherwise, your delicate washes will come out who-knows-how.
posted by scruss at 1:56 PM on April 10, 2017
Affinity Photo is £50 and gives you 99% of Photoshop (including a load of the professional features and plugin support) and doesn't have a UI that will make you want to stab pins in your eyes (like GIMP).
posted by parm at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by parm at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
GIMP is probably the next best thing there is to Photoshop in my experience.
posted by arateaa at 2:00 PM on April 10, 2017
posted by arateaa at 2:00 PM on April 10, 2017
I'm a Mac user with a Photoshop 'subscription' for work - for basic stuff on my Windows machine, I use Paint.NET as others have suggested. It should work for all that you've mentioned - it has layers, allows for crop/resize, and (I think) basic color correction.
posted by destructive cactus at 2:04 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by destructive cactus at 2:04 PM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]
Adobe still sells Photoshop Elements, which does everything you need. It's an easier interface than the full version but still very powerful.
posted by The Deej at 2:29 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by The Deej at 2:29 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
Pixlr is a set of free web-based image-editing tools from Autodesk that you might like.
posted by box at 3:01 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by box at 3:01 PM on April 10, 2017 [3 favorites]
I used GIMP for 3 years while I was trying to live without Windows. I don't recommend it for 2 main reasons.
The first is the quality of online instruction, tutorials and help is poor to very poor. That's because nobody doing that can make enough income to warrant the effort. The second is GIMP runs natively in Linux, so it needs an emulator to run in Windows. There is an unofficial release source of GIMP for Windows that also installs the emulator. Problem is, when something doesn't work in GIMP the way it's supposed to I never know if it's me, GIMP or the emulator. I'm really used to saving often and restarting GIMP at the first sign of weirdness - which almost always fixes the problem.
Yes, I still use GIMP in a limited role. Lightroom doesn't do layers and it's cloning tool is primitive. So, I edit in LR until the only tasks left are cloning and applying luminosity masks, then finish the job in GIMP.
posted by Homer42 at 5:25 AM on April 11, 2017
The first is the quality of online instruction, tutorials and help is poor to very poor. That's because nobody doing that can make enough income to warrant the effort. The second is GIMP runs natively in Linux, so it needs an emulator to run in Windows. There is an unofficial release source of GIMP for Windows that also installs the emulator. Problem is, when something doesn't work in GIMP the way it's supposed to I never know if it's me, GIMP or the emulator. I'm really used to saving often and restarting GIMP at the first sign of weirdness - which almost always fixes the problem.
Yes, I still use GIMP in a limited role. Lightroom doesn't do layers and it's cloning tool is primitive. So, I edit in LR until the only tasks left are cloning and applying luminosity masks, then finish the job in GIMP.
posted by Homer42 at 5:25 AM on April 11, 2017
Another recommendation for Pixlr for light image editing use.
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 7:43 AM on April 11, 2017
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 7:43 AM on April 11, 2017
Seconding Parm's recommendation for Affinity Photo. It does just about everything Photoshop does (and does some things better!) and it's $50. It's amazing software.
posted by cleverevans at 12:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by cleverevans at 12:24 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
The second is GIMP runs natively in Linux, so it needs an emulator to run in Windows. There is an unofficial release source of GIMP for Windows that also installs the emulator. Problem is, when something doesn't work in GIMP the way it's supposed to I never know if it's me, GIMP or the emulato
You're not talking about WinGIMP, are you? That was third party and was never up to date with the latest release. The official channel has had windows binaries for aaaages now.
posted by juv3nal at 1:32 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
You're not talking about WinGIMP, are you? That was third party and was never up to date with the latest release. The official channel has had windows binaries for aaaages now.
posted by juv3nal at 1:32 PM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, that Gimp emulator comment baffled me. It's even had stable native OS X support for some years
posted by scruss at 8:56 AM on April 13, 2017
posted by scruss at 8:56 AM on April 13, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by juv3nal at 1:29 PM on April 10, 2017 [5 favorites]