Photoshop

[Nikster]

Hola, for those of you who use photoshop, which version do you use ? For those who actually use 6.0 is there anything like the scripting plugin that 7.x has ? if not, does 6.0 have any automation support at all ?

[Bombinator]

I still use 6.0, what are you trying to accomplish?

[Pyabo]

I use 6.0... It definitely supports automation. Look at the history window to record actions and replay them. There are also batching options in the File menu, but I've never used those.

[svero]

I use cs3... but that's actually my first version of photoshop (not including elements). I switched from paint shop pro because jasc sold it to ... i guess corel? and corel moved it more heavily in the direction of family photos editor.. I didn't really like where that was going.

[Elder]

I switched from paint shop pro because jasc sold it to ... i guess corel? and corel moved it more heavily in the direction of family photos editor.. I didn't really like where that was going.

Yes that's too bad, I like Jasc too. I'm still using Paint Shop Pro 7, very friendly in aspects that Photoshop isn't...

I'm intending to purchase Photoshop CS3 as well. I hope they finally improved the aspects that really annoyed me.

[svero]

Its a difficult move in some respects. I think to get photoshop working the way you want it to you have to use a little scripting. Certain things I miss... like the grid, the customization level of the interface, and various tasks that are trivial in paint shop .. like pasting a selection to a new image.. are painful in photoshop. Still.. most of this can be overcome with scripting and photoshop does have a lot of nice features that paint shop doesn't. In particular text and layer based effects are quite a bit nicer in Photoshop.

[Andy]

Its a difficult move in some respects. I think to get photoshop working the way you want it to you have to use a little scripting. Certain things I miss... like the grid, the customization level of the interface, and various tasks that are trivial in paint shop .. like pasting a selection to a new image.. are painful in photoshop. Still.. most of this can be overcome with scripting and photoshop does have a lot of nice features that paint shop doesn't. In particular text and layer based effects are quite a bit nicer in Photoshop.

Pardon, Steve. I have to start with obvious statement that Photoshop is pretty rich system by its features. :)
I do assume that this requires a time to get into it when you are switching from another editor. But there are amount of hidden ( and not so obvious ) features in Photoshop. So you probably should walk through some good basic tutorials to get into it in full - pretty useful really! I like to dig into different tutorials always when I have small free time. I'm using Photoshop in the latest ( hell knows what a number of ) years and still continue to discover neat features here and there all the time.

[svero]

Pardon, Steve. I have to start with obvious statement that Photoshop is pretty rich system by its features. :)
I do assume that this requires a time to get into it when you are switching from another editor. But there are amount of hidden ( and not so obvious ) features in Photoshop. So you probably should walk through some good basic tutorials to get into it in full - pretty useful really! I like to dig into different tutorials always when I have small free time. I'm using Photoshop in the latest ( hell knows what a number of ) years and still continue to discover neat features here and there all the time.

Oh.. I know Photoshop *VERY* well. I doubt there's much there that I'm unaware of at this point. The very first thing I did when switching was follow a 30 hour in depth tutorial covering all it's features. It was quite a good course and went into all kinds of little detail. That being said, it is still deficient compared to Paint Shop Pro in several respects. Often the workflow in Photoshop is not as simple and streamlined as Paint Shop and I think that's where it's hardest when you switch.

Just as an example... In paint shop if you want to copy and paste something to a new image the workflow is.... Marquee tool, ctrl-c, and ctrl-v -- Done... In Photoshop you need to do marquee tool, ctrl-c, and then ctrl-n, switch windows, ctrl-v. There are lots of examples like that. So I have a script that pastes to new image written now to make photoshop work the same way paint shop did. There are plenty of examples like this. Another thing I hate HATE *HATE* in photoshop is the save file dialogs. What a nightmare it is to output a png. It's like filling in a credit card form.

[Andy]

Yes. I see about your tutorial venture. Good move! :)
I was wondering about that copy-paste problem. Why not just drag from one window to another? Or I get something wrong about the problem?

I write PNG through Image Ready ( there is small button at the bottom of tool menu ) I'm not sure if it still exists in later version.

Anyway I'm sure there are the problems with moving from one system to another if you were working a lot on the previous one. So I can get your feelings in a moment. :)

[Nikster]

I still use 6.0, what are you trying to accomplish?

More or less scripting, I know cs,cs2 and cs3 have this support bundled, and 7 comes as part of an extra download, I was just wondering if there's a way to acheive the same thing in 6 and generally get a head count as to what people use.

And if there is no support whatsoever for this in 6, how many people actually use 6.

[DayDream]

I plain hate Photoshop - not much of an Adobe fan :) (the stuff is way overpriced) - ... I found CorelDraw and Photopaint to work best for me... even allows me to do pixelwork and animations...

[Nikster]

:D

Well, the only reason I'm looking at all this stuff is for automation from my application to ease on saving from my application, loading manually into photoshop doing some bits and bobs, saving out, loading back into my application then exporting in some exotic flavour, which can be very cumbersome when dealing with a fair few images (animation) I'd love to add support for anything other than photoshop but I don't have any other packages or know how they fair at with scripting perhaps in the COM+ space.

I already have all the CS flavours fully functional and working atm, I've yet to test 7 but I imagine it will work, I could always think, screw the 6 guys but I know how sometimes it's a ballache having to do such chores so if I can support it I'd like to.

[Maupin]

I still use Photoshop 6. Haven't seen any need to upgrade. It does everything I need to and more. The only thing lacking for me personally is better png support. (I have no idea if recent Photoshops have better support.) I use pngcrush and other free tools to manipulate pngs after creating them in Photoshop. I think I used batch processing only one time a few years ago to crop and resize a bunch of screenshots, so I can't really comment on it.

In regards to the price, Photoshop is one of the few applications that I believe to be worth its cost. I'm not an artist, but I use it quite a bit for web and games, and it's a joy to use.

[Sysiphus]

dunno. Been using as employee(brought and brings my plate of food during many years) and in personal work adobe since 2.x.

Fits like a glove to me...

I use heavily keys, tho. And actions, well, from time to time.
Being a user during some time of PSP, I can't agree on that. yet though, I like way more the tool that company had for sprite animation, Animation Shop 3.x, than Image Ready. By very far.

I also felt bad for the route of photo retouching for newbies that it took.(psp)

PS 7 introduced that patterns module and Liquify, among quite other things. I did tend to find it more stable than 6. Still I did bazillion of graphics with 6 for a PC retail game.Layer styles were already somewhat powerful.

I do pixel art with Adobe Photoshop, perfectly, and sprite animations, for mobiles. As well as print stuff, web graphics, digital painting(concept art or not), high end textures... Is to me a case clear of a really solid tool in a certain area. But can be just me.