# Neat! New rival for photoshop!



## eydryan (Sep 20, 2005)

It appears that Microsoft has launched a little program boasting better file management and more filters than photoshop, batch processing and also easier operation (with the possibility of advanced too).

It's called microsoft digital image 2006 and you can get it na:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=90&p=&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=f3ba983b-8c10-44f6-9044-2bb1464937dc&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2f7%2fc%2f1%2f7c156099-eb1e-4046-9c38-b5eef806f0bc%2fDigitalImageStarter06.exe


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## Meysha (Sep 20, 2005)

hmmm i haven't downloaded it yet. Do you think you could post a link to the site with info on it, instead of straight to the exe? so i could read a little bit more about it.

Could be rather exciting, if microsoft do it right and don't make the program too bulky. Adobe's stuff is very bulky and you need a powerful machine to get good results anyway I guess so that doesn't really matter.


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## Dweller (Sep 20, 2005)

here you go. 

http://www.microsoft.com/products/imaging/ProductDetails.aspx?pid=003

it appears this may be a trial, but I could be misreading something.


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## Meysha (Sep 20, 2005)

ok I still haven't downloaded it but I did watch their little flash intro on it. And it just looks like a fancy version of Google's Picasa to me. It's got more editing functions than picasa does. And yes it does look easier to use than Photoshop. But that's one of the good things about Photoshop... you can get really intricate and fiddly if you want to.

This will be a great product for novices to understand the basics of photo editing before they move on to the complex world of PS. But I don't think it's going to be a rival for PS.

I must admit, I hate the Bridge in PS. It's way tooo big and it just is too bulky to run on my machine. So I use picasa for organising my photos and cataloging them.


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## eydryan (Sep 21, 2005)

precisely! oraganisng photos is what i want it for, and quick retouching so that a good photo looks better. And not dramatic turnabouts from bad to extremely good like you can do in photoshop but it takes years 
and if it beats picasa i'm all for it!


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## wil (Oct 22, 2005)

At first glance I would say ACDsee was a better program and alot cheaper....IMHO


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## 'Daniel' (Oct 22, 2005)

Nothing Rivals photoshop  :thumbup: 

It's flawless.


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## Meysha (Oct 22, 2005)

I love constructive posts... don't you. 

Care to embellish a little, daniel?


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## DocFrankenstein (Oct 22, 2005)

Meysha - the guy's claim is ridiculous. More filters than photoshop? pfft

I'm with Daniel


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## Meysha (Oct 22, 2005)

Yes i agree the original claim about this program being better than PS is false... in some respects. PS will always be the 'editing' choice. 

But for file management, I think that Bridge does a shocking job. It's ridiculousy slow.


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## danalec99 (Oct 22, 2005)

check out www.apple.com/aperture
I'm jumping ship!


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## DocFrankenstein (Oct 22, 2005)

What's bridge? I use ACDSee and am a happy camper


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## Meysha (Oct 22, 2005)

Adobe Bridge.

The new name for it's file browser.

Wow... I just checked out that Aperture program. The Lightbox feature is awesome!!
:-( Now I *have* to buy a mac. hehehe thanks... I was looking for an excuse!


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## 'Daniel' (Oct 23, 2005)

> Care to embellish a little, daniel?



I think my post said it all    

Aperture looks interesting, I dare say they'll release it on PC when they realise people aren't going to buy macs just for that.

I think if you have a brand new mac it would be really god but most people won't have a fast enough computer to see the benefits of its speed.


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## Unimaxium (Oct 23, 2005)

Daniel said:
			
		

> I think my post said it all
> 
> Aperture looks interesting, I dare say they'll release it on PC when they realise people aren't going to buy macs just for that.
> 
> I think if you have a brand new mac it would be really god but most people won't have a fast enough computer to see the benefits of its speed.



There's virtually zero chance apple's ever going to release this for PC. The mac is the de-facto industry standard for most types of professional media editing. Many professionals these days rely on macs for Photoshop work, and now they have this to pull even more pros in. Aperture is just another addition to Apple's pro application lineup, along with Final Cut Pro, Logic, Motion, Shake and DVD Studio. All of these are considered by many as the leaders in the video media industry. These are the kinds of programs that professionals buy computer systems for, not the other way around. After all, when your income depends on the kind of results you put out and how efficiently you do it, the system you use should be the best you can get. And that's what the macs offer.

Aperture is a pro program, especially at its $500 price point. This isn't the kind of thing the average guy will pick up  at the local computer store if he has the right of system for it. Many pros already use really high-end macs for Photoshop, and I bet there will be a number switching or upgrading to use Aperture.


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## eydryan (Oct 23, 2005)

too much bla bla too few arguments. simple. and acdsee i doubt is as easy to use and as smart as this stuff. plus, who cares how much it costs? you can download the trial and see how it works


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## wil (Oct 23, 2005)

I'm not that impressed with the Aperture program. I don't think it can do any thing that CS2 can't. Granted its just my opion, but time will tell.


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## 'Daniel' (Oct 24, 2005)

Just looked on the website and the minimum system requiremnets are 1GB f RAM  :lmao:


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## eydryan (Oct 24, 2005)

minimum for which one?


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## 'Daniel' (Oct 24, 2005)

Aperture if that's what you mean.



> *Minimum system requirements*
> Power Mac G5 with 1.8GHz or faster PowerPC G5; 17- or 20-inch iMac G5 with 1.8GHz or faster PowerPC G5; or 15- or 17-inch PowerBook G4 with 1.25GHz or faster PowerPC G4 processor
> 1GB of RAM
> One of the following graphics cards: ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition; ATI Radeon X850 XT; ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro; ATI Radeon 9700 Pro; ATI Radeon 9600 XT, 9600 Pro, or 9650; ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 or 9600; NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL; NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT; NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500
> ...


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## eydryan (Oct 24, 2005)

of course that's what i mean...

well, at least they're being honest


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## Digital Matt (Oct 24, 2005)

I wouldn't use photoshop with less than 1 gig of ram either.  I have 2gigs in my pc at home.


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## 'Daniel' (Oct 24, 2005)

I use it no problem with 512.  Although it's become slow recently because I thin my processor is dying.  The memory is less than a year old corsair so it's not that.  I use photoshop along with opera, itunes and sometimes canon window or zoombrowser all on 512 and its a bit sluggish then.  But if I only use photoshop then 512 is easily fine.


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## Digital Matt (Oct 24, 2005)

All depends on what you are doing.  Using levels and curves isn't going to take any ram.  Running a gaussian blur on a 20x30" 300 DPI tiff with 8 layers is going to be a bit different.


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## 'Daniel' (Oct 24, 2005)

True Ture, I do agree it would be better with more RAM.  When I get my computer for going to University I will be so hapy the one I'm using now is old and the CPU is an Athlon 1500    I could probably buy a better processor for £30.


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## Digital Matt (Oct 24, 2005)

I built my computer from the ground up for $1200.  It has a p4 2.8ghz HT 800mhz FSB with 2 gigs of ram, a 160 gig SATA hd, and a Radeon 9600.


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## Patrick (Oct 24, 2005)

Take a look at the new Paint Shop Pro by Corel.  Version 10.


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## eydryan (Oct 25, 2005)

when i have my money i think i'll go with the new mac. it kicks ass!


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## Vmann (Nov 1, 2005)

Aperturre looks nice but if apple steps to heavy on Adobes flagship program I think will see CS3 or 4 released to crush aperture and adobe will always be able to undersell them as far as pricing goes. Plus apple does have final cut and the likes but as far as being in business Mac users sometimes hate the fact that there programs dont intergrate over on the Window platforms. It limits the industry as far as who you can use for production. Dont get me wrong I love my mac but I hate that all there programs bottle neck at computer intergration.

It is good to have some compition for Adobe though. They hold things back in new releases because they know there the big dog and can't be touched so they don't have to have the wow factor to be competive.


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## danalec99 (Nov 1, 2005)

-Adobe's take on Aperture
-Apple: Aperture not a Photoshop Competitor


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## icondigital (Nov 1, 2005)

Meysha said:
			
		

> hmmm i haven't downloaded it yet. Do you think you could post a link to the site with info on it, instead of straight to the exe? so i could read a little bit more about it.
> 
> Could be rather exciting, if microsoft do it right and don't make the program too bulky. Adobe's stuff is very bulky and you need a powerful machine to get good results anyway I guess so that doesn't really matter.


i agree bridge is useless because of it's lack of speed but if you are looking for a program that's not bulky - microsoft would be about the last place i'd look! :greenpbl:


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## kilifila66 (Nov 1, 2005)

I love CS2!  I think because I have a little more history with PS I would stay with it, that and I like being able to delve deeper into editing if I so desire.  Although I am very good with learning new applications, and I always like trying new ones, sometimes I am lazy and rely on ole faithful.  PS is my ole faithful.  So much power and everything is right where it should be and with virtually unlimited customizabilty.  It just seems to me that no matter how much I know about photoshop, there is always something else to be learned and some new and fun way of using it.  I can hold nothing against Aperture because I haven't used it myself yet but I have heard nothing but good things on it.  A buddy just got a fully loaded Powerbook, I will see what its like when he gets it.

My vote = Photoshop.


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## eydryan (Nov 1, 2005)

well bulky it really isn't. it's lightweight but powerful, unlike photoshop which takes a hell of a lot of my time. it looks more like picasa then photoshop really, but with more features. and for me photoshop is down the bin due to my absolute lack of time...


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## jstuedle (Nov 2, 2005)

> Nothing Rivals photoshop :thumbup:
> 
> It's flawless.


 
To say it's flawless would be to say they never need to come out with another version. It could be faster, smaller, and have more features, so we will always have new versions. And yes, PS CS really needs a gig to run without throttling back and bogging down, 2 gig to run really well, and 2 hard drives, the second as a scratch disk. I have always thought it interesting that a program written for the PC, and then ported to the MAC is the defacto standard. We will always have the debate MAC/PC, Nikon/Canon, Ford/Chevy and so on. Sort of makes life interesting don't it?


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## eydryan (Nov 2, 2005)

umm, yeah... but i still don't think you need all that. if you just pay attention when you take the shot 99% of the editing should be unnecessary


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## jstuedle (Nov 2, 2005)

Getting it right in the camera is a BIG part of it. Most of us use PS for upsampling and resizing 90% of the time. Getting exposure, WB and compo nailed in the camera eliminated a lot of post processing.


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## eydryan (Nov 2, 2005)

yup....


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## duck4321 (Dec 9, 2005)

don't forget about gimp and the plugin gimpshop


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## Wheel Man (Jan 1, 2006)

I for one have always loved the complexity and obsessive compulsive nature of PhotoShop.


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## Alexandra (Jan 1, 2006)

for really fast retouching i use ACDSee too, and it works awesome.
But here I agree that PS is pretty unbeatable for advanced stuff (half of which I still don't understand...)


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## clarinetJWD (Jan 2, 2006)

For workflow, if you don't want to buy a Mac, look at RawShooter Essentials.  Free, and better than Bridge (though that's not saying much)


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## Jeff Canes (Jan 2, 2006)

Daniel said:
			
		

> Nothing Rivals photoshop





			
				Daniel said:
			
		

> It's flawless.




OMG, Photoshop maybe the biggest out there now but in no way is flawless, need to be more window-ish and user friendly


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## Alpha (Jan 3, 2006)

Why buy a Mac when they won't be around for much longer? Has nobody read about Apple's plans to drop their own hardware? They started developing a pc-compatible version of OS X long ago.


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