Photo-Editing-Software

[Brigitte]

PhotoFiltre

Check this site: http://www.photofiltre.com/

PhotoFiltre is a complete image retouching program. It allows you to perform simple or advanced adjustments to an image and apply a vast range of filters on it. It is simple and intuitive to use, and has an easy learning curve. The toolbar, giving you access to the standard filters with just a few clicks, gives PhotoFiltre a robust look.

Its wide range of filters allows novice users to familiarize themselves with the world of graphics. You can find the standard adjustment functions (Brightness, contrast, dyed, saturation, gamma correction) and also artistic filters (watercolor, pastels, Indian ink, pointillism, puzzle effect). There are more than 100 filters to be discovered!

[Steaphany]

Looks interesting and they have some nice plugins. I'm going to keep this on hand to see where I can use it.

[Brigitte]

Looks interesting and they have some nice plugins. I'm going to keep this on hand to see where I can use it.

Yes, it is easy to use and there are a lot of plugins and add-ons..
Worth to try it out.
I also have GIMP on my computer but it takes a long time to load.
PhotoFiltre is much quicker..

[Davey]

Ah I find GIMP is very fast even on very slow machines. I have even run it at acceptable speed on old laptop (running zenwalk because even win xp crawled on it after tweaks, yes machine was that slow!). Problem is the settings out the box are not great and need a little configuring. Might be worth checking the cache/swap space allocation is high enough as with a little tweaking it should be a decent speed on most machines these days. Hope this helps

[David]

Hi Brigette - Re the Gimp being slow to load, I have found this as well for the current version (2.6.6) and I'm not sure why this is. Once running it is as quick and powerful as usual. It may be a problem with quad core processors. The Gimp people have not addressed this issue as yet (perhaps other Gimpers can reply). If you are using a quad core then that's a possibility.

Cheers

David

[Brigitte]

Dear Dave and Davey!

Thanks your comments have been very helpful. I think it depends not on Gimp.
My computer is now about 7 years old.
The processor is a Celeron and in addition to that the Computer has not much storage.
A lot of programs takes a lot of time to load.

[Wirefox]

David

I run GIMP on a 24" AluMac 2,4GHz Intel Core Duo and only 2 GB RAM. GIMP is only noticeably slow when loading RAW file direct from finder. When I say slow I mean about 5 seconds. If I open files from within GIMP things are faster. I agree that it rattles along when processing with the standard tools but I have found some of the scripts a little slow to execute, This could be inefficient code but more likely I need to jack the RAM up to 4 Gig. I thought the lack of RAM would make viewing the .CR RAW files in coverflow problematic, but no....beautiful full screen RAW images can be flicked through like a telephone directory. I suspect I am really seeing a jpeg carried around by the RAW file....can anyone confirm if this is the case.

[d3debian]

Dear Dave and Davey!

The processor is a Celeron and in addition to that the Computer has not much storage.
A lot of programs takes a lot of time to load.

Maybe it is time for cleaning and maintenance.
Remove dust from processor-cooler with rocketblower or vacuumcleaner.

Install Debian Linux or:
Defrag hard disk , clean register, clean spyware, etc.

[Brigitte]

Maybe it is time for cleaning and maintenance.
Remove dust from processor-cooler with rocketblower or vacuumcleaner.

Install Debian Linux or:
Defrag hard disk , clean register, clean spyware, etc.

I´m afraid to do something with technology in the heart of the computer.
A friend inserted recently a second hard drive and cleaned the interior of the computer
with a vacuumcleaner.

To Linux. I think this software only something for specialists.
As far as I am informed Linux is mostly used by programmers .
I am famililar with Windows. Is it a big dfference by using Linux?

[d3debian]

If the interior is cleaned recently that must be oke.

Linux is not for programmers, i (computer-no-know) am the evidence.
Linux has pro's and con's..
In general it is less demanding for hardware so old computers run smooth with it.
It's almost the same as using Windows, just more userfriendly.

If you are really interested you can try for a while.
You can install Linux and keep Windows.
When you start your computer you have to choose Windows or Linux.
If you don't like it then you delete it.

I use both, Windows just for Digital Photo P????? (DPP)
For all other i use Linux. (Debian Linux)

[Davey]

I personally think to get linux running up to speed in many cases you do need to know about computers, on old machines in particular. Faster machines have little issues with running all services out the box giving the impression you don't need the know how but on resource critical rigs where every bit of power counts then compiling your own vanilla kernel and slimming down boot and refining services makes a huge difference (this was my thing for a long time) and if you don't know what you are doing it's a huge can of worms to open.

Also if your hardware isn't supported it can be a pain to find a work around at times. There are distros aimed at new users but they are not the kind you will see a huge speed difference on compared to a properly setup windows xp. Now if you tweak a slackware install and run a light desktop and have everything specifically set for that machine you will see a major speed difference which is where the linux is faster thing originates but most the time it's not significantly faster although lighter installs like zenwalk for older machines help but installing a lot of stuff and running more services than it does after initial install will slow that to a crawl too.

Best bet is try a live cd before installing anything. If you like it then give it a go and try out a dual boot system, if not then all you need to do is take the cd out the drive (less messing than partitioning issues if you don't know what you are doing).

[kevinbythebeach]

are you guys using gimp and photofiltre because you dont have PS? or is it just easier and not as bloated? I have PS3 and hardly use it,,,I find that Canons software is decent and quicker for casual viewing and quick adjustments

[TerryR]

are you guys using gimp and photofiltre because you dont have PS? or is it just easier and not as bloated? I have PS3 and hardly use it,,,I find that Canons software is decent and quicker for casual viewing and quick adjustments

I have PhotoShop CS, Picassa and Aperture on my Mac, but I nearly always use LightZone for my photo editing. PhotoShop is fantastic, but unless you invest a great deal of time learning to use it you will only use the simple basic features.
At a recent meeting of the Photo. Soc. that I am a member of, a poll showed that very few members were using layer masks!

Cheers
Terry

[Davey]

I use pshop mainly because I need it to integrate with illustrator for what I do. Also I'm familiar with pshop and it's bought for me so learning curve and price isn't issue but they can both be steep for photography amateurs and hobbyists (of which I am both). On my main work rig I do run it under linux (under wine) and need some linux only tools for work but have dual boot with vista due to some issues with flash menus and illustrator and publishing issues and workflows that are awkward in linux so I work in windows for most part, also have cs3 running on windows only machine.

Gimp came with my distro but I would have installed it anyway, but I also find it's handy to know bits to help others and for fast tweaks or things that don't need pshop it's great due to fast speed and so on.