Impressed with Corel PhotoPaint

[Dave Johnson29]

Hi All,

Just thought I would show off what can be done with Photopaint and patience. I only have Corel version 10 but I have to say that the detail that was hidden in the shadows and still retrievable was amazing stuff. Way to go Corel.

About 30 minutes work but well worth the effort, well I think so anyway.

[Martin Boekers]

Dave,

Are you using an inverted contrast mask, just dodging and burning or a special adjustment action?

I haven't dabled much with Photopaint as I know more in Photoshop.

Photoshop does have an amazing tool (under image-adjustments called shadow- highlight correction) it is amazing what it can do in a step or 2.

Corel may have a similiar tool and it would be worth checking on.

I know they have an image adjustment lab, but PS you can control the radius, midtone contrast etc.

Both PS & Photopaint are amazing tools if you take the time to learn them!

Marty

[Dan Hintz]

Dave,

You should have masked the plane... now the sky is blown out.

[Mike Null]

It is hard to convince people how good PP is since many have been spoiled by Photoshop but PP can work wonders given a little time and study.

[Dave Johnson29]

You should have masked the plane... now the sky is blown out.

Dan,

I was going for a more balanced and even contrast over the entire picture. The sky is still actually a little too dominant on the laser test.

[Dave Johnson29]

Hi Marty,

My version of PP does not appear to have a photolab and I really don't recall the exact process steps I used. I just kept at it with the various options I have available and tweaked until it was the way I wanted it.

I found the few "auto" things a little too grainy in what they could do. I guess they were making some broad assumptions.

Here's what I have to work with.

[Martin Boekers]

There are quite a few ways to work on images such as this. The more familiar you become with the process the quicker and more intuitive it will become.

There are many tutorials out there that will help speed up the learning curve. So I recommend exploring them whenever you get the chance.

Mike, PhotoPaint is professional tool just as PhotoShop, both will take you where you need to go, IF you invest the time to learn it.

If someone has Corel Draw, why would they spend another $600 for PS?
PS is really geared towards graphics and printers. In our industry I'm not sure how many people we deal with that have to have say, graphics created and color separations done in a particular format. Most (probably all that we do) is for in house use.

If you want to buy anything, buy a DVD set of tutorials it is money better spent.

Marty

Take it from a PS guy, if you have PhotoPaint, learn it! It has the capacity to do more than you will really use!

[Dave Johnson29]

Hi Marty,

I take your point on tutorials but I never seem to remember them when it comes time to do stuff. I remember little bits of stuff but I find it best to just try anything and everything. The Ctrl-Z combo is my friend. :);)

I was more lauding the functionality of PhotoPaint than my ability to glean the details. I have a bunch of other "paint" programs but none has the abilities and subtleties that PP has, even this creaking old version from about 1998 I think it was when I coughed up the cash.

[Dee Gallo]

Well Dave, I for one applaud your efforts to use Corel to its fullest extent. Most people don't even try to do some things because it might take some time to learn a new trick. Good for you! And the results you got were excellent too.

cheers, dee

[Larry Bratton]

I used to use Photopaint regularly. Then I got into Photoshop. That operation there is about two strokes using Shadow-Highlight adjustment in PS. BUT, if you don't own Photoshop (abt $600 bucks) and you have Photopaint, by all means learn and use it, it runs a mighty close race with PS, especially for the money.

[Dave Johnson29]

Yeah Larry,

If this was a business I could easily spring for PS and even a later version of Corel. Hell even though it isn't a business I could still spring for it but time I have plenty of.

I guess it is just the masochist in me that back when v10 was new and hot, I am sure people were using it an exclaiming it's many virtues.

I posted here a week or so back about getting PS ($430) just so I could use the Gold Method plug-in. I decided that I should learn how to manipulate the pics rather than be so lazy and blame the tools. :D

Glad I did as it was an interesting exercise.

[Dave Johnson29]

And the results you got were excellent too.


Wow, thanks Dee. Even if you only half mean that, coming from you of all people on this group, I am stoked. :D:D

I better go take an anti-arrogant pill, otherwise I will be unbearable for two or three days. ;):) The dog will probably want to leave home.

[Martin Boekers]

Each has their own attributes, then you have free open source software like GIMP.

Back in 1998 Corel Draw 8 came with my $5000.00 Mac Notebook, Yes it cost me $5000.00 back in 1998 and it had an enormous 8 Gig hard drive:D

I believe the last edition of Corel Draw for Mac was 11.

Your learning the best way, which is to figure out why it happpens instead of pushing a button and asking why it didn't happen:p

If you have very capable software why spend more. The one thing would be to consider is upgrading. Corel has new version coming out and you probably can get an upgrade version to X4 for under $150.00 (just a guess)

It is well worth it to get the benefits of the functionality of Draw, Trace & Photopaint.

Marty

[Larry Bratton]

Each has their own attributes, then you have free open source software like GIMP.

Back in 1998 Corel Draw 8 came with my $5000.00 Mac Notebook, Yes it cost me $5000.00 back in 1998 and it had an enormous 8 Gig hard drive:D

I believe the last edition of Corel Draw for Mac was 11.

Your learning the best way, which is to figure out why it happpens instead of pushing a button and asking why it didn't happen:p

If you have very capable software why spend more. The one thing would be to consider is upgrading. Corel has new version coming out and you probably can get an upgrade version to X4 for under $150.00 (just a guess)

It is well worth it to get the benefits of the functionality of Draw, Trace & Photopaint.

Marty
a bit off topic..first computer I ever owned was a $5000.00 IBM PC with a HUGE 10mb (yes, I said megabyte) hard drive. It also used those big ole 5-1/4" floppy disks. The operating system was DOS. When you turned it on, the only thing that appeared was a lone blinking cursor in the top left hand corner of the screen. We upgraded to one with a 20mb hard drive and I couldn't figure out at the time, who in the world would need that much storage space. Am I showing my age yet?

[Dave Johnson29]

first computer I ever owned was a $5000.00 IBM PC with a HUGE 10mb

I don't want to start a competition here but my first I build out of a handful of parts and a soldering iron. MY first hard drive was 5MB and about the size of a typewriter. It hooked to a Tandy Model I Expansion Interface which had 16K of memory. The IBM PC would not be invented for another 4 years! :eek::eek::eek:

[Larry Bratton]

Careful Dave--YOUR GONNA SHOW YOUR AGE NOW!:D

[Doug Griffith]

in 1993 I had a Macintosh Quadra 840av with 256 megs of RAM. That was during the shortage of silicon days and the RAM alone cost somewhere around 20k. I had to use RAM doubling daughter cards just to get it there. Even then, I still had to use software that would open just part of a bitmap at a time. I would first render a low res proxy that took forever (possibly an hour), and then select just a small section of the proxy to open the high res equivalent. At least the proxy could be saved for future use. It's a different world now.

Almost forgot, since RAM was limited, I also had a gigantic 256 meg hard drive as a dedicated Photoshop scratch disk. And RAM doubling software and my system on a RAM disk. I was lucky to have a large computer budget.

[Curt Harms]

My first P-C was an early "clone" of the IBM XT w/ 2 5 1/4" floppies. That, a 1200 baud modem and a CompuServe account were a revelation for retrieving weather info at 2 a.m. Weather radar info was "digital" nos. 1 through 5 on an ASCII map of the U.S. depicting level 1-5 radar returns. Even though it was primitive by modern standards, it was a huge jump from telephone weather briefings.

[Dan Hintz]

Oh yeah?! Well MY first computer memory required me to thread metal wire through ferrite cores! ;) After about two bytes of storage I got bored.

[Martin Boekers]

I'm sorry I started this:(

I just wanted to say how my first Corel experience came with Corel Draw 8.

Although at the shop I do have Corel 3, and believe it or not it still qualifies for an upgrade!

Marty

[Mark Winlund]

My stuff is older than your stuff..... nyah nyah nyah! So there!

Mark

[Dave Johnson29]

Although at the shop I do have Corel 3, and believe it or not it still qualifies for an upgrade!


Well you beat me Marty, but only just. I have Corel v5 running under VirtualPC 2004, DOS 6.22 and windows 3.1. My laser will only run under windows 3.1. :confused:

[Martin Boekers]

Heck you're running it, mine has long since been retired!


Marty

[Dave Johnson29]

Heck you're running it, mine has long since been retired!


Believe me, not out of choice! I had forgotten how frequently stuff used to crash back in those days. Corel fumbles it's Fonts about every two days needing a restart.