You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
With the idea of saving money I got rid of my creative suite from adobe only the very next day I was asked to do some very basic photoshop work.
What is the cheapest way to get photoshop these days, I think elements would do the job. Or is there an equivalent I can just buy or download?
Thanks for any help
Get Affinity Photo - dirt cheap, really good and free trial available...
https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/
did they not tempt you with a massively reduced price when you tried to cancel? That's what happened to me when I did it last year! Less than half price.With the idea of saving money I got rid of my creative suite from adobe
Gimp
Gimp is ok, it's free, Affinity Photo a little better, but relatively cheap, but tbh neither come anywhere near Adobe stuff imo. But if you don't need all the functionality of an integrated graphics suite, then Gimp is the best bet. Because it's free.
I was going to suggest Gimp also. I didn't get on with it myself but it's well regarded.
Adobe Express is free online. https://www.adobe.com/express/feature/image/editor
If it's a one-off job then you can get a 7-day trial download of Creative Suite I think.
Bill the customer for it?
Thanks for the tips 🙂
I'd switch to Affinity Photo tomorrow if I could but it doesn't open PDFs correctly (font management especially).
I often have to convert them to raster files so they print properly. People send me PDFs created with all sort of programs and they don't always work when thrown at a professional RIP.
Get Affinity Photo – dirt cheap, really good and free trial available…
Another vote for Affinity. It's sufficiently similar to Photoshop that knowing how to do stuff on PS will (mostly) help you do it on AP and it's not-far-off free if you get it in a sale (25 quid last time IIRC)
I often have to convert them to raster files so they print properly. People send me PDFs created with all sort of programs and they don’t always work when thrown at a professional RIP.
Oh boy, that takes me back twenty years or more! That was a perennial problem, clients not supplying the fonts for a job, and the (supposedly) exact same fonts would wrap incorrectly, or the PDF’s would go completely haywire.
Fortunately I worked on mostly Photoshop and Illustrator, I stayed well away from any of the comping stuff.
Now I’m content sticking vinyl graphics on cars. 😁
Gimp is awful if you're used to Photoshop. Totally unintuitive. It'll frustrate you no end.
I’d switch to Affinity Photo tomorrow if I could but it doesn’t open PDFs correctly (font management especially).
That's a bit like using a hammer to secure a wood screw. Using Publisher or Designer for font work would be better surely?
That’s a bit like using a hammer to secure a wood screw. Using Publisher or Designer for font work would be better surely?
It's not artwork created by me - I use the full Adobe package.
It's when the local church sends me artwork for a leaflet they've lovingly created over many weeks and it won't print properly (mainly due to some dodgy transparency feature they've found!). It's far easier to just create a tiff from it in Photoshop. There's no point rejecting it and telling them to supply a print-ready pdf - they've no ruddy clue how to do that! 🙂
And for some reason I've found Canva creates dodgy PDFs. You send to print and random pieces of text just disappear.
It depends what features you need, but Seashore might be worth a look.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/seashore/
GIMP is the way to go :). Import a PDF display each as an images or layers.
I still got a copy of Photo Shop 5.5 and drop back to that for some specific things.
But nearly doing everything photoshop can do in GIMP.
and XARA for vector but moving over to Inkscape.
PSGet the gMic plugins for GIMP. Great stuff in there.
There’s always the last cracked version before it went subscription only. Just sayin…
GIMP is pretty handy as a freebie option. If you have an Apple Silicon chip then bear in mind that it hasn't AFAICT been optimised, therefore some functions are quite slow/clunky. I've had it on my M1 MBA from day one and it's the only app that run less that fluidly.
Affinity is excellent and often on sale.
There's always the free trial.
Or say you're a student and get the entire suit for less than £15 a month.
Also, there are still cracked versions for the current subscription versions. Just depends how honest you are and if you want to take the risk.