Adobe-Photoshop – THE imaging editing software

Photoshop is widely considered the best image-editing software in the world today by a long way, and it is not difficult to see why.Photoshop offers incredibly advanced effects which would previously have taken days or weeks to accomplish, and reduces them to the level of a few settings and a few clicks.

Although it is expensive, today it is considered an essential program for anyone working with graphics, whether it’s in print, on the web, or even in television and movies. This has led to a huge number of cheaper competitors (who have been largely ignored), as well as rampant piracy of Photoshop itself. To counter this, a cheaper, simpler version of Photoshop called Adobe Photoshop Elements is available, which is especially good for beginners and has an easier learning curve.

How did Photoshop get into this dominant position? Well, development started in 1987, with the first release in 1990. Since then, Adobe

has been improving the software continuously, constantly taking advantage of advances in hardware power. Even now, to get the best performance out of Photoshop, you should buy as much RAM as you can afford.

It is not just Adobe’s efforts that have got Photoshop where it is today, however. The program’s plugin architecture has allowed there to be are all sorts of plugins available for more advanced work, including some plugins that actually cost more and do more than the program itself. In this way, Photoshop is often used much like Windows, as a platform – and it would be a huge effort to get these plugins to run on any other software, making competitors effectively useless to anyone who relies on a plugin.

Today, you can get Photoshop for Windows and Mac OS (both OS 9 and OS X). If you want to use it on Linux, however, you will have to use Crossover Office, Codeweavers’ program that allows some Windows software to run on Linux, but it will be quite slow.

Adobe-Photoshop - can you afford the full package?

While Photoshop is far and away the industry standard, it is also very expensive. Adobe has introduced the cheaper Photoshop Elements for people who don’t want to shell out for the full package, but its functionality is limited. While they’re not generally suitable for very high-end work, there are a few Photoshop alternatives that you might be interested in.

The most popular free (open source) program for replacing Photoshop is known as the GIMP – not the most politically-correct of names, but then it was never really intended for the mass market. Originally a Linux application, it has been ported to Windows. While it performs most of Photoshop’s functions effectively, the interface is awkward at best.

To solve this problem, some people set about taking the GIMP and adjusting its interface to make it into a virtual Photoshop clone. The result is called Gimpshop, and works quite well – if you’re looking for a free Photoshop, this is pretty much your best option.

Of course, if you’re just after a simple program for converting file formats, rotating pictures and removing red eye, then all of this is complete overkill – you should be looking at programs like Microsoft’s Digital Image, IfranView and Google’s Picasa. At heart, these are simple photo management programs with only the functions that you’re likely to need for digital photo adjustment, avoiding all the distractions that high-end tools like Photoshop can bring.

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About the Author: John Gibb is the owner of Adobe Photoshop resources, For more information on Adobe Photoshop check out Adobe Photoshop Resources

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