Which software to use?
 

Hi, after finally making the decision (thanks to all your help) to buy the Epson 2100/2200 printer, my next question (hopefully last - time to get back to painting! ;) ) concerns software.

I don't know much about it all - and prefer not to have to get a computer degree for me to understand it.

I've got Micrografx Picture Publisher 10 (digital camera edition) which does not support CYMK jpeg images. Is this a problem with the Epson 2200? It also has very limited features - I could not even get a grid (to line up things) in my image.

Also got Ulead Photo Express which can do even less.

I want to be able to print cards, brochures and reproductions of my art work, preferably without too much trouble in color matching. Text and image should work together in an image.

Is Photoshop really the best of the best? It is so expensive and my choice for the Epson printer left me a little out of pocket. Do I need it? Are there alternatives?

Help!?

Thanks for any suggestions you can make.

Sophie.

Sophie, I use Photoshop, but then again, I got it free from a friend who used to work at Adobe. I understand they sell some versions of Photoshop that are less feature-rich and that don't require you to be as cash-rich to acquire, either. Might be worth checking out.

I know others use Paint Shop Pro. I don't know much about the printing capabilities or price of it, though. Perhaps someone else who uses it could respond.

Thanks for your reply, Michele.

They do indeed publish Photoshop Elements which is more affordable. I was wondering if it is any good. Anybody out there with experience?
Cnet.com rates Paint Shop Pro higher than Elements but PSP does not support CYMK images either. What is that anyway?

If it supports it, does that mean it can 'write' to the printer more easily? No more color matching and testing?

That sounds too good to be true.

Thanks again,
Sophie

Here's a screen shot of Jasc Software's Paint Shop Pro, and a link to a thread on this site where Cynthia mentions she created this whole website using that program. At the time she started that thread, you could buy PSP through her link to Amazon.com for something like $45 with rebates.

Paint Shop Pro seems to offer all of the features I've ever used in Photoshop, at a substantially lower price. I think on the Jasc homepage, you can even download a trial version to explore its features yourself.

The other option open to you is that Photoshop is available in a teachers/students version (it is the full version, by the way) priced at around $180. And of course we're all students of art, aren't we?

At below $100, Paint Shop Pro is still an absolute bargain. I've used it since the beginning. I have Photoshop 7, and do use it once in a while, but most of what I need is in PSP.

I'm not sure about the CYMK subject. I just checked in PSP and I looked under File and there is a selection "CYMK Conversion Preferences." CYMK, if I understand correctly, is for the printing business. You can print to your inkjet printer with RGB, but you'll need to do tests and adjusments most likely.

Some of the little things that are nice about PSP:

1. You can hover your mouse over an image and the height and width appear in the status bar (Photoshop does not have that). I use this covenient feature all the time.

2. If you want to delete a layer in a multi-layer work space, with the Mover tool, click to select the layer you want deleted and hit the delete key on your keyboard. In Photoshop, it's a bit cumbersome by comparison.

I highly recommened PSP.

Sophie, even with Photoshop's CMYK jpeg compatibility there's still a LOT of color adjusting and testing to be done in order to get a good print.

Sounds like Paint Shop Pro is the way to go.

Sophie, unless you are going to reproduce your art with offset lithography, Cynthia is correct C (cyan) Y (yellow) M (magenta) K (black) is a separation process for the printing industry. Most software provides different "modes" for editing images now so you wouldn't need it.

If your digital camera is taking your photos in CMYK jpegs, you might be able to change that. I didn't know they did that, I always thought digital cameras would support a screen mode of RGB. The newer, expensive cameras have two formats (not jpg - sorry, I can't remember the names), that are better for white balance, level and curve retouching.

It's an easy decision if you are going to have materials commercially printed - Photoshop is the best. If it is just for the web, computer or your personal print needs, Paint Shop Pro sounds like a great deal.

Phew, thank you all, for your great responses. PSP sounds good. I've had a try at it years ago and it seemed fine to me, but that was a long time ago.

Photoshop is really out of my league at the moment.

So, if I understand correctly, I don't really need a program that supports CYMK images? You all seem pretty happy with PSP and that one does not seem to support that (according to Cnet.com at least).

Does anybody understand why I could not print from Micrografx Picture publisher (what I have) to my old Epson 740? (It then says "you have selected a non-postscript printer along with a print style that specifies halftones and black generation settings".) My computer keeps on saying this, if I go to the RGB mode or the CYMK mode. Anybody up for this one?

Thanks all, for your help. I wouldn't know who else to ask. It is really appreciated!

Sophie

Regarding your "old" Epson, don't kick yourself too much -- software and hardware is "old" the second you install it. (The business development folks aren't dumb. Their profit-sharing comes from the sales divisions. No sales, no profit.)

Go to www.epson.com and try to locate a downloadable (usually free) upgrade and/or driver for your current hardware. Epson is very, very good. You should find what you want there.

That will work most often, but changes are occurring so often and so quickly, depending on your computer platform (PC vs Mac, new vs old platforms), that sometimes you can't keep up without spending more money. It's very hard, but the money's usually well spent. No company ever goes back to the old way, so don't wait for it to happen -- especially in computers, where nobody ever even goes back to yesterday.

I'm a big fan of Photoshop, but I used Paint Shop Pro back when I was mostly on my PC and I know it was fine. Now that I've switched to Mac, PSP is kinda out of the question. ;)

I got a real good deal on an older version of Photoshop off of eBay. (It was legal and registerable and all that.) I registered it with Adobe, and then could upgrade it later. It was a fraction of the full retail version's price.

I am sure PSP is fine, but there is SO much support for Photoshop out there (in the way of books, videos, even a conference, for crying out loud!) I like that built-in feeling of community and support. Plus, I find myself learning new things about Photoshop's depth all the time. I am glad I have it. You never know when you might need one of its more "hidden" features!

Though I'm sure there is more extensive support for Photoshop, there is plenty for Paint Shop Pro also.

Here are two newsgroups:
comp.graphics.apps.paint-shop-pro
alt.binaries.paint-shop-pro

Here's an online PSP Users Group:
http://www.pspug.org/

Here's where the Users Group lists their Forums:
http://www.pspug.org/forum/forum.shtml

Here's a link to Amazon's PSP 7.0 Anniversary Editon for $36.99 with rebates: Paint Shop Pro Anniversary Edition

If you do a search in your favorite search engine on Paint Shop Pro Tutorial and Paint Shop Pro Forum, you'll find many online resources.

After you get your program, go to the Jasc web site and download the update patches: http://www.jasc.com/patches.asp

One thing you'll love about PSP is the image browser. Following is a screen shot of it. On the left are your folders and on the right are the images in your folder. If you hold the mouse over an image, the information about it pops up without opening the image (see the gray box on right).

One of the things you'll want to do is customize your standard toolbar. Go to View | Toolbars. Highlight Standard Toolbar and click Customize. In the screen shot below, I've shown the icon for the Browser which is one of the first things you'll want to add. Other things will take time to understand and you can add them to the Standard Toolbar after gaining more familiarity.

I just installed Photoshop 7 myself and this is my first upgrade since Photoshop 4. I've used it a few times and it appears to be much improved. Photoshop has taken time to add in web features that PSP had long ago. For example, all web colors need to be expressed in hexadecimal format. PSP had the ability to convert RGB to hex long before Photoshop. 7.0 does have this ability. But, one of my PSP favorites is still not in Photoshop: mouse over any image and the height and width in pixels shows in the status bar.

Hummm, this is interesting since it is only picture publishing software, but let me take a guess. (I use a Macintosh, so this is based on that.)

The Epson 740 is an ink jet printer (I have one and an 1160 too) and cannot print any postscript documents, as postscript, but you should be able to go into the page settings or printer description in your desktop printmonitor and change it to grey scale and print.

The easiest way to explain this is that ink jet technologies use the "True Fonts" that are supplied with most computers. They are created in a different language which let them appear to be smooth on an Ink Jet.

Postscript is designed to be used only on a laser type printer, or a mapping printer at commerical printers. It uses a font that is like the old days of typesetting. To get your inkjet to accept Postscript you would need to purchase a "postscript ripping" software that translates your files. These can be incredibly expensive.

I did find one called "StyleScript" (see below). I know I have discussed this before. I am not sure they are still producing it but you could find a copy on E-bay. It is only around $100.00 new and makes things very slow but the output is lovely.

Contact Epson or get out that manual for the printer and software. You shouldn't be having this problem. It has nothing to do with CMYK or RGB.

I just had a thought. Make sure you have the right printer loaded in your profile. If you could tell me what type of computer you are working with I can help you through this if it is a Mac. I am sure there is someone who could help you with Windows too. The print setup lets you choose a "Postscript" printer (default on Macs) or a USB printer, so maybe we could tell by your connections!

From two older posts:

Good luck!

Wow, you are all so very helpful. Thanks! :thumbsup:

I will read your ideas a couple of times more. There's so much info there.

By the way, I have no digital camera. I just scan my stuff. I think I will wait and see what Micrografx Picture publisher does with the new printer (2100) and then decide if I should get PSP. It sounds that's the best deal.

My old Epson is broken down, so I won't try and get any Postscript fixes for it. But it is good to know that I "shouldn't have these problems". I'll see what happens with the newby printer.

Thanks again, this is a great forum!

Sophie

Jumping in late to this one, I've used Photoshop Elements and just upgraded to Elements 2 since I also switched to Jaguar on my Mac. Elements is $99 and has most of the features of the more expensive versions of Photoshop, especially if you pick up one of the how-to books with CDs, like Lynch's Hidden Power of Photoshop Elements 2. This has extra plugins to accomplish more esoteric operations.

It sounds from some of the comments here as though Cynthia's favorite program isn't available for the Mac, so it wouldn't be an option for me in any case. Elements is very intuitive and has lots of helper features to walk you through procedures as you're doing them; I think it's more user-friendly than the more expensive versions.

Leslie, if you could only teach me how to get my color right for RGB now in Photoshop! I tried to load the software that Morgan was talking about in the Digital Cameras, and went to the Fred Miranda 's site (which is excellent, by the way. But the software to create the linear images will not load for me. His actions plug-in opens fine, but the converting ones do not.

This is frustrating!

Beth, I just started a thread on color accuracy here http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...5&goto=newpost so I'm not the person to ask. This whole color thing is definitely frustrating. And none of us wants to become a Photoshop expert - we just want to be able to take decent shots of our work or put up accurate scans! My heartfelt sympathies. Let me know if you figure it out and I'll let you know if I do.

Leslie, you definitely want to become a Photoshop expert! :)

I know this is an old topic, but it is new to me as I am reading it for the first time. I use both Photoshop and PSP, but for different reasons. Although Photoshop is by FAR the better program (thus the higher cost), PSP has one feature (that makes it worth the cost of having both) that Photoshop doesn't have and that is the ability to capture. You can capture an image, area, window, object, etc., with much greater clarity and resolution than a typical Window's "Print Screen" function. Of course, you may not need this functionality, but if you do, catch the images you need in PSP and then edit them with Photoshop. I write manuals, online help, etc., for a software company, so I use this feature often. Now that I think about it, I don't use it that often for my art, but it's nice to have when I need it...

There are other things that are wonderful about PSP. If you hover your mouse over the image, the size displays in the bottom status bar. I use that all the time. Photoshop doesn't have it. Also, to select a layer in PSP, all you have to do is click on it. If you want to delete it, just hit the delete key on your keyboard. All very convenient features. Photoshop makes changing from one layer to another more difficult.

Cynthia, I think PSP is a terrific program, but I find Photoshop just as easy - if not easier to use. To delete a layer, all you have to do is have the layer window open, select the layer (shows a thumbnail of each layer) and click the trash can icon. It is also easy to identify and select, add a filter, add a new layer, hide or lock a layer, with just one click. If you do a lot of image resizing, the reduced image is much sharper with Photoshop than PSP.

It's true that it isn't as convenient to check an image size, in Photoshop, I find the shortest way is to select Image Size from the Image menu and the height and width is displayed. This is the dialog you use to change the image size anyway, so you would have to open it up anyway. Both of these are great programs though and I would recommend having both if your budget allows.

Heidi,

I work with so many images that it would drive me nuts and would be nowhere near as time-efficient to have to check image size the way you describe in Photoshop. There are many, many times when I check image size without also needing to resize.

I also love the ease in PSP of zooming in and out...a simple right-click or left-click...the zoom out isn't quite as easy in Photoshop since you have to right-click, then click from the menu.

I guess it's a matter of what you're used to using.

Good deal for Photoshop - for educators
 

Hi -

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