A fish out of water
A couple of decades ago I bought the original versions of Adobe Photoshop and Corel Photo-Paint. My work required them. I preferred Photo-Paint; it was much easier to use.
When I moved to San Diego in 1993, I no longer had a need for either of the two programs so I quit upgrading them. Now, with over 75,000 pictures, I have a need again.
I upgraded Adobe Photoshop 8 to Photoshop CS6. In other words, I had to buy the full version of CS6 since they don’t allow upgrades that are more than two versions old. Customer service would make no exceptions.
I upgraded Corel Photo-Paint 8 to Photo-Paint X6. Corel also doesn’t allow upgrades for more than two versions, but after talking with customer service and taking them through my many version registrations with them — I still had all the serial numbers and purchase dates — Corel allowed me to upgrade, a savings of about $200.
That pretty much tells you why I’m a Corel fan more so than an Adobe fan.
I also bought Adobe Lightroom 4 and Corel PaintShop Pro X4.
I use mostly Lightroom 4 because it works the best with RAW files. Once I have a JPG from the RAW file, I tend to use PaintShop Pro to modify them.
My current focus is learning the ins and outs of Photoshop CS6, where I feel like a fish out of water. One thing that I never liked in Photoshop is its clone tool. I found it cumbersome at best, and horrible at worst. That was until today when I discovered the secret to making the clone tool work properly. It’s all in the hardness of the tool:
Once I started playing around with the hardness, I was able to get the clone tool to do what I always thought it should do. As usual, the devil is in the details………..
Following is my “Fish out of water,” what I thought was going to be a great picture when I took it a couple of days ago on my Mission Beach/Mission Bay Walk:
Unfortunately, there is one solitary succulent blossom sticking up into the fish’s mouth. Aaack!
I could easily resolve that issue in about five minutes using PaintShop Pro. I went to Photoshop instead to see if I could make it a five-minute job there. I did. Here’s the result:
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Posted on July 28, 2012, in Adobe, Corel, Digital photo editing, How I Did It, Photos and tagged adobe lightroom 4, adobe photoshop cs6, corel paintshop pro x4, corel photo-paint x6. Bookmark the permalink. 18 Comments.
Great work removing the unwanted image. This probably says something about my taste in that I liked the “mistake.”
That’s nice to hear about Corel. I can get behind a company protecting their property from illegal use, but I’m glad that they were able to see your issue on an individual basis and help you out. Even from a dollars & sense perspective I think that works to their advantage. How much does the software really cost them? The expense is in R&D. And the goodwill generated (and that’s not even counting the reach of your blog) could have been many more $$$ in future purchases.
Would you have liked the correction if I had never shown you the mistake?
I like the correction either way, but yes.
I think that was a good choice. Better with the correction, I think. The mouth is more prominent without the extra stem.
Hi Russel,
I was a user of both Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro but I’m now using GIMP (www.gimp.org) and Serif software and they work well for me, and save money. GIMP (ver. 2.8) is free and as far as I’m concerned as the same basic capabilities as Photoshop. Have you seen it or tried it out?
I have tried GIMP, as well as Picassa, Picnik, PicMonkey, ACDSee, and several others. I didn’t like any of them, but that well may be because I already have years of experience with the interface for the Adobe and Corel products. You know how it is when you’re trying to teach an old dog new tricks……….lol
Wow! Great demo!
Hi Russel,
I have very old versions here of Corel Draw [8.0] and Adobe Photo Shop [CS 2, educational use edition]. I have barely used the latter as I’ve never taken the trouble to really learn how to. I sometime use Corel Draw and Corel Paint, still. And the old version is good enough for my limited purposes. To edit my pictures as well as to view and catalogue them I use ACDSee Pro 5, a programme which I really like as it’s easy to use and quite well suited to my personal purposes. I’m not going to update either Corel or Adobe, as the price they’d charge me prohibits that. I hope that, should I need a new computer with a more recent OS [I'm still using XP], I will be able to at least transfer Corel.
Take care, and have a good one,
Pit
You’ll be out of luck. I was using XP, too, until the computer died. One of the reasons why I decided to (had to) upgrade was because the two old Photoshop and Photo-Paint programs would not install under Windows 7. The underlying core OS just didn’t suppport such old programs. I think it’s called “planned obsolescence.”
I need some sort of photo shop program. Thanks for the shopping advice.
If you “need” it, try Gimp, Picassa, and PicMonkey. They are either free or almost free, and many people swear by them.
Yeah, nothing worse than a fish with its mouth full!
cute as.
Great job! So awesome to see how you guys (the experts as I call you and the rest) do things this way – just like magic! I’ve not really touch Photoshop, Paintshop Pro – the elite editing tools – as of yet since I feel ‘scared’ just thinking about them. I feel like my brain might not be able to cope with their technicality and the many buttons I need to click. I am a complete newbie when it comes to these tools. The only editing site I’ve really visited, perused and now utilizing is Pixlr – so the way I’ve laid out my header, sidebar and little bits and pieces are all courtesy by Pixlr’s little magic. For now, my brain can settle with that, without it having to explode. LOL. But perhaps one of these day, I might, just might give Photoshop a go.
(Thanks for all the Likes and for camping out at my site
)
While impressed with your technical advice (not my specialty), I LOVE that cat.
Oooo awesome! Great job Russel! I love my lightroom 4
Can’t wait to get photoshop someday!
You can get Photoshop for as little as $19.99 a month with a one-year lease. Then you can renew the lease or buy the program or not buy the program………………
LOL awesome! Thank you for the info