randomstupidchaos:

Okay, I’ve had a thought. Big surprise, I know. 

My mom keeps bugging me about what to get for Christmas but I don’t really want anything. Except I’ve been thinking about getting Photoshop or something similar. I dunno what photo editing software is on the market right now and what’s the best deal, what’s the best to start with, etc. 

I currently have a simple point-and-shoot (Nikon S8200) but have been looking out for a D-SLR so hopefully it would be a program that works well with both types. I mean, I don’t imagine it’d be a huge difference for the software so much as my camera, but y’know. Just saying I hope for something versatile for a beginner but also maybe further down the road when I can get a little more experience. 

I’ve never used Photoshop. Before this past August the only photo editing I’ve done was with whatever basic stuff Windows offered (brightness/contrast/cropping). I sometimes use the Pixlr App on Google Chrome and it’s okay but since my mom’s asking I figured I’d put the question out to Tumblr for a more educated answer: What do you suggest?

Any thoughts?

I got CS6 (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign) on a huge student discount (Photoshop by itself was about $180, but I’m not sure if it’s the same for all schools). It can be kind of intimidating for beginners, though.

I guess it depends on what you want to do.

There is also Photoshop Elements, which is basically just the essentials, nothing fancy, but you can still do stuff if you know where to look.

There’s Photoshop Lightroom, which is mainly for photography (I’ve never used it, but I have a photographer friend who does; it also looks like it’s only $150 through Adobe :B), while Photoshop Extended is, like, everything (motion, painting, photography, typography).

You can also download free month-long trials of their software if you want to try it out.

I’ve only used Gimp once or twice, for about three minutes because I couldn’t figure anything out, but supposedly it’s like PS. /shrugs/

They all should work with most file formats, like jpeg, png, psd, tiff, whatever, so the camera shouldn’t matter that much.

I hope that helps/made sense.

I was talking to this dude about tablets (he got one recently) on the bus and he mentioned wanting to get Photoshop (not the creative suite) and he was like “Isn’t it around ninety dollars” and I was like “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA No.”

when told to make a logo for my Multimedia class, instead of going to Google and MS Paint/Word to mash up pictures like everyone else since we haven’t learned Photoshop, I go straight to Adobe Illustrator because apparently/thankfully my school has enough left in their budget for CS3.

I also become very excited when I hear “Photoshop” mentioned.