Photoshop Elements / CS5 / GIMP

Crispy

<div class="IPBDescription">Barebones, break the bank or the free & painful option?</div>So I'm trying to put together a website and I've reached the graphical side of things. So far I've been struggling with the GIMP, which has very few tutorials and an interface far inferior to Photoshop's (it's also crashing on me, but I suspect that might be my PC's fault; I'm overdue an upgrade).

I took a look at Elements vs. Photoshop and it wasn't exactly clear if I'd be getting what I'm needing from Elements. It sounded like it was mostly aimed at organising photos and their basic maintenance. What I want to be doing is compositing layers to make slightly fancy button rollovers (highlight, engrave, etc.) and grungey tiling metallic textures. I've used PS CS2 in the past to make some HL2 textures, forum sigs and so on, so I know my way around it and would vastly prefer using its interface to GIMP's.

There's no way I'm realistically paying £600 for CS5, but if there's a cheaper way to use it -other than the trial- I'd love to hear it (no I am not a student or small/medium-sized business). And no, a 'legal backup copy' from 'a friend' is not an option.

Failing that, I'll probably download the trial and see if I can get what I need doing done within 30 days, but since my PC is slowly falling apart I will need to upgrade beforehand, hence why I'm not just downloading the trial and seeing for myself.

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Has anyone used both Photoshop CS and Elements, and knows if I can do what I need to do with Elements?

Also has anyone used Premiere Elements versus Premiere? I might get Premiere Elements in a bundle with PS Elements (£65 on Amazon), so that'd be useful info. I'd be interested in FRAPSing FPS and RTS games for VODs and cutting video clips together; screenwipe-like effects not necessary.

I'd appreciate anyone's insight. :)

Align

Have you looked at if Paint.NET does what you need?
It's less powerful than Photoshop but only a bit harder to learn than MSPaint (which is still much easier than GIMP), so it's a great middle-ground.
EDIT: and it's free, ofc

Crispy

<!--quoteo(post=1821452:date=Jan 4 2011, 05:03 PM:name=Align)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Align @ Jan 4 2011, 05:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1821452"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have you looked at if Paint.NET does what you need?
It's less powerful than Photoshop but only a bit harder to learn than MSPaint (which is still much easier than GIMP), so it's a great middle-ground.
EDIT: and it's free, ofc<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Paint.NET looks like it could probably do what I'm looking for (it has layers and some render/distort effects, for example). It doesn't look too dissimilar to GIMP except the tutorial support looks a bit slim. It looks like I'd have to find a Photoshop tutorial and then try to mimic it in Paint.NET, which might be an option. I'll check it out, thanks!

Kouji_San

This is a good list for alternatives to Photoshop:

<a href="http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10-excellent-open-source-and-free-alternatives-to-photoshop/" target="_blank">http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10...s-to-photoshop/</a>



I also saw a canvas program which works awesome with Wacom tablets in a real paintbrush like canvas. t'was also free, the name escapes me atm...

Crispy

<!--quoteo(post=1821466:date=Jan 4 2011, 06:17 PM:name=Kouji_San)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kouji_San @ Jan 4 2011, 06:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1821466"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is a good list for alternatives to Photoshop:

<a href="http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10-excellent-open-source-and-free-alternatives-to-photoshop/" target="_blank">http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10...s-to-photoshop/</a>



I also saw a canvas program which works awesome with Wacom tablets in a real paintbrush like canvas. t'was also free, the name escapes me atm...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Definitely gonna check out GIMPshop.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->GIMPshop modifies the menu structure to closely match Photoshop's, adjusts the program's terminology to match Adobe's, and, in the Windows version, <b>uses a plugin called 'Deweirdifier' to combine the application's numerous windows in a similar manner to the MDI system used by most Windows graphics packages.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I think that's what I'm looking for.

Chris0132

Full photoshop is the best program going. Hard to use anything else once you figure out how to use it.

Elements is a stripped down and reorganised version of photoshop, it does a lot of important things but the fact that everything is in a different place means I don't like using it.

Scythe

Yeah, I used photoshop at uni and it kinda poisons you. Once you've learned all the keyboard shortcuts they've got you by the balls.

Gimpshop sounds interesting, I might check it out too.

--Scythe--

Chris0132

I don't even know the shortcuts, just stuff like layer blend effects and the clone tool are the best texturing tools available.