Find Photoshop expensive? Consider leasing.

Currently on my computer I have these digital photo editing programs:

• Adobe Photoshop CS6
• Adobe Lightroom 4.1
• Corel PaintShop Pro X4
• Corel Photo-Paint X6
• CorelDRAW! X6
• Word 2010 (don’t underestimate it!)

I have had Photoshop, Photo-Paint, CorelDRAW!, and Word since their initial releases decades ago.

When I went to upgrade Photoshop, I discovered the steep price. I also discovered Lightroom, so rather than the steep price for a Photoshop upgrade, I opted to continue using my very old version of Photoshop and learn Lightroom.

When I went to upgrade my very old versions of Photo-Paint and DRAW!, I discovered PaintShop Pro. The price was very reasonable, so I bought it.

I use all of those programs for various purposes, but my current goal is to see if I can get Photoshop to do everything. If I can, then ultimately I’ll be migrating my skills in all the other programs over to Photoshop.

I think that Photoshop is the most powerful individual programs, but if I combine DRAW! X6 and either Photo-Paint X6 or Paintshop Pro X4, I can do in them anything that Photoshop can do. The question is, “How easily?” or “How much time is involved?”

For example, I use CorelDRAW! X6 to do the Zoey the Cool Cat approval stamp at the end of each post. It takes me about 15 seconds. To do it is Photoshop would take several layers and lots of time, and I haven’t found that Photoshop Actions can really automate everything for me yet.

I use Word 2010 to create quick frames, like the one I use for my wise old grandmother:

That took about 15 seconds in Word 2010.

I use Lightroom 4.1 to give me quick JPGs from RAW files and to do quick adjustments for exposure, highlights, shadows, contrast, and clarity (sharpness). Five sliders takes about 30 seconds. The same tasks in Photoshop takes several minutes due to having to go through Adobe Camera Raw first and then into Photoshop. Minimum of five layers in Photoshop.

I use Photo-Paint to create GIFs. It’s the easiest program I’ve found for that:

PaintShop Pro X4 is very similar to Photoshop, and I’ve found it much easier to use. However, simply because Photoshop is the defacto standard throughout the world, Photoshop is where I’m dedicating my time. When you have a defacto standard, you have a lot of people doing tutorials and creating plugins and such. So Photoshop it is.

One you have created certain effects that you like in any of the programs, you can either save the file as a template and then just replace the picture as needed (that’s what I do in CorelDRAW! and Word) or you can create actions, scripts, or macros in the other programs to automate tasks. As with anything, it takes time to set it up initially but then the ROI on your time is returned each succeeding time you do the same thing.

If you’re considering Photoshop and find the price too steep, consider leasing it, which is what I do. I have a one-year lease with Adobe that costs me $19.99 a month. Considering that the full program is $699, it would take me 35 months of leasing to pay for the program. That’s three years. During those three years, Adobe will come out with two upgrades, costing you $199 each, another $400. You’ll never be able to stay up to date with the latest and the greatest. With a lease, you can.

Twenty dollars a month is less than any of my other individual bills — gas, phone, cable, mortgage, electricity, etc., and something I can easily afford. Coming up with $699 all at one time, and then $199 every 18 months, can often be difficult for the 99%.

If you’re considering a Photoshop lease, when you go to buy the product, in the dropdown box, select “Subscription” instead of “Upgrade” or “Full.”

Once you have any of these programs, if you have a question about how to do something, ask me. If I don’t know how to do it, I’ll find out. It helps me learn, and real-world examples are always much more fun than reading through a book or watching a tutorial.

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

Creating a work of art with Photoshop plugins

I just discovered plugins for Photoshop CS6. My first plugin creation:

Lily of the Nile

Here is the original picture from which that one was created:

The original picture isn’t anything special, just a picture of Lily of the Nile flowers. Now the Photoshop plugin creation, well, I like it a lot.

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!

It’s not all sun all the time

 

People think that living in San Diego must be great for photography, or at least for photographers and their equipment since it’s rare that we get wet.

Having lots of sunshine, though, presents other problems. Excessive glare comes to mind.

However, even though we have lots of “days” of sunshine, “days” is defined differently than you might think. “Days” for the San Diego PR people simply means that the sun comes out sometime during the day.

During May and June we have May Gray and June Gloom. That’s when the marine cloud layer often doesn’t dissipate until well into the afternoon. While there are lots of great places and things to photograph, the ugly, dreary, oogy, blah! May Gray will give you pictures like this one of the University of San Diego:

 

I always get a kick out of the photography snobs who say they get the best picture they can in the camera and would never think of using something like Photoshop to do anything other than minor contrast work.

Ha! A dull gray sky is still a dull gray sky. Phooey on dull gray skies.

I took that picture to Photoshop CS6, found me a nice blue sky with some clouds and came up with this:

 

I’m getting much better replacing skies, but if I didn’t tell you what I did, would you know? If I gave you the 109 MB TIFF file, you could still see some areas that are a little shoddy, and I’m working on my skills in those areas. For a 57KB Internet picture, though, no one would ever know. Well, maybe San Diego natives would know if I told them I took the picture on a May morning…. 🙂

 

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County? I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor with Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re just looking for a home inspector,
I can highly recommend Russel Ray; that’s me!

The best way to learn anything is to do it, and then practice, practice, practice!

 

My wise old grandmother, she with the first grade public school education but a Ph.D. from the School of Hard Knocks, told me that the best way to learn anything is to do it, and then practice, practice, practice.

Over at YouTube, I found a pretty good video of how to replace skies using Photoshop. Go have a look at it because it’s helped me tremendously. Still frustrating — but down to just one beer per session….

Remembering my wise old grandmother’s WWW (Wise Words of Wisdom), I’ve been exploring all the various functions while replacing that sky using this picture of an unknown bird (Avian101?):

 

I loved the way the bird was perched there but the background, oh that dastardly background.

After playing around in Photoshop, I came up with this:

 

What I did was take the following picture of a cloudy sky,

 

…apply a Gaussian blur to it and then insert it as the background of the picture. I had a hard time finding just the right blur to look realistic and using all the selection tools to let the sky mask out the parts of the bird picture that I didn’t want.

My main problem was finding a cloud picture that was dark enough to be pretty but light enough so that I didn’t get the halo/ghosting effect around the bird. My next goal is to learn how to use the Refine Edge, Feathering, Smoothing, and other controls to prevent that halo/ghosting effect regardless of the pictures I use.

 

Looking for real estate services in San Diego County? I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor with Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572

If you’re just looking for a home inspector,
I can highly recommend Russel Ray; that’s me!