Overview image editing software

Seems that a lot of people use Photoshop to prepare digital negatives. For me, the investment in Photoshop is too high to justify to do only that. I was wondering what software alternatives exist that can do the job at a better price.

image processing software

Nerdifant said:

Seems that a lot of people use Photoshop to prepare digital negatives. For me, the investment in Photoshop is too high to justify to do only that. I was wondering what software alternatives exist that can do the job at a better price.

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The Gimp is free image processing software. Corel Draw also has image editing capability.

Nerdifant said:

Seems that a lot of people use Photoshop to prepare digital negatives. For me, the investment in Photoshop is too high to justify to do only that. I was wondering what software alternatives exist that can do the job at a better price.

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Elements 5 is only about $80 with shipping from Amazon.com. Very capable software and much better than Gimp IMO.

Don Bryant

You don't say what computing platform you're on. If Windows, I'd highly recommend Picture Window from Digital Light and Color. It's very intuitive for a photographer, powerful, has great features, and comes in pro and regular versions for about $50 and $90. I was offered a digital editing/retouching job on the spot in 2000 when I dropped off an image I'd edited in Picture Window to be printed. Picture Window is programmed by Jonathan Sachs, who wrote Lotus 1-2-3. I've been using it for at least 8 or 9 years. The new version does RAW file reads and batch processing.

The GIMP is avaialble for free for OS-X, Linux, Unix, and Windows. An offshoot of the GIMP (which is currently maximum 8 bits per RGB channel) named Cinepaint allows 48 bit image editing and is used by major studios for film editing. There's a list of films it's been used in on the home page. I have it running under Linux. It's free like The GIMP.

There is a hybrid version of The GIMP which provides the functions in a more Photoshop like layout, but I haven't bothered with it since I've always used Picture Window or the GIMP, and never felt the need to load any of the forms of Photoshop that came with scanners, etc.

Some good GIMP tutorials showing equivalent techniques to some Photoshop methods are here: http://www.gimpguru.org/

I also use Vuescan under both Windows and Linux and highly recommend it.

See a short tutorial on using The GIMP for digital negatives here: http://www.alternativephotography.com/articles/art026.html

Lee

http://dl-c.com
gimp.org
www.cinepaint.org

I use PWP for digital negatives using Mark Nelson's PDN system.

Curves in PWP are just text files, which makes it easy to transfer the data points from the PDN system.

tchamber said:

I use PWP for digital negatives using Mark Nelson's PDN system.

Curves in PWP are just text files, which makes it easy to transfer the data points from the PDN system.

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I'm very glad you told us about that. That info might renew my interst in PWP.

How do you add the color fill layer with PWP?

Thanks for the update,

Don Bryant

tchamber said:

I use PWP for digital negatives using Mark Nelson's PDN system.

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Just to clarify for those not used to seeing this abbreviation, PWP = Picture Window Pro, which is the $90 version of the program.

I forgot to mention that there is active online support for Picture Window on the company url mentioned in my other post in this thread. It's a users forum frequented by the software author, Jonathan Sachs, and many experienced users.

Lee

Don Bryant said:

I'm very glad you told us about that. That info might renew my interst in PWP.

How do you add the color fill layer with PWP?

Thanks for the update,

Don Bryant

Click to expand...

Don,

Picture Window doesn't use layers. If you want to get a feel for it, you can read through a number of free tutorials on the web site (including sample images), download the manual, or download a 30 day trial version of the program and get a bit more familiar with it. Each time you perform a function a new image results.

If you purchase, the trial version becomes a fully functional version with a code emailed to you, and you also have the option of getting a CD shipped for a small additional fee.

One other thing, it will also calibrate to a MacBeth Color Checker image.

Lee

Lee L said:

Don,

Picture Window doesn't use layers.

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Okay so how do you colorize the negative?

Lee L said:

One other thing, it will also calibrate to a MacBeth Color Checker image.

Lee

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Very interesting, I'll have to take another look at it. Even though I'm pretty commited to using PS I think products like these are really great. Sometimes using PS is a bit like using a sledge hammer to drive thumb tacks.

Don

Don Bryant said:

Okay so how do you colorize the negative?

Don

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Here are a couple of approaches:
http://www.normankoren.com/PWP_hand_color.html

I'm sure you could plug in color numbers from the PDN procedures and numbers. As mentioned elsewhere, the curves in PWP are also stored in text files that you could edit by hand.

I'm sure tchambers will have more info specific to the PDN process than I, since he's actually done it. I've only read up on it a bit, and I haven't run WinXP more than a total of about 3 hours on my home computer in the last 18 months, so I'm kinda rusty on PWP. My photography is all on film and I only scan and edit for web presentation at the moment and very seldom for inkjet output, although I'm interested in trying digital negs at some point.

Lee

Thanks guys for the good advice - I will have a look for GIMP and PWP, $90 is justifiable (sp)

Marc

Sorry I am a bit late coming back to this thread.

It's been a while since I set up my PDN curves, but as I recall I just transferred the three color values from the PDN spreadsheet to the PWP curve text file. In PS, you have to go in and enter the values within the program, and can use only a limited number of values. I found the PWP approach easier to use.

The PDN system is definitely PS-centric so I was a bit concerned I'd have to spring for the cost of PS. However, once I had read through the tutorial, done the tests and entered everything into the spreadsheet there was no problem.

The only issue, as I recall, was that all of the files you print are .psd files, so you need some sort of software that can print those files. I had an old version of Elements that took care of that.