Photo shop help

[Albert Nix]

Thinking about buying photo shop. Is PS CS4 extended the same as just plain photo shop. How user friendly is PS?
Thanks Al.

[Scott Shepherd]

Thinking about buying photo shop. Is PS CS4 extended the same as just plain photo shop. How user friendly is PS?
Thanks Al.

No, PS CS4 Extended has more features, but they are very specific features that have a lot to do with 3D and motion, etc.

How user friendly is PS? In my opinion? Not very. I have the entire Adobe Creative Suite and I've been trying to learn parts of it for almost a year now. It's is amazingly complicated. And to make matters worse, many tutorials out there are just junk. I was describing my frustration to a friend of mine and he's a photoshop guy. So he came over, I pulled a tutorial out of my desk I couldn't get through. He read it, said "Oh, that's simple" and then we went step by step.

It didn't work. About step 3 or 4 of 10, it never did what the tutorial said. That's the problem I have found with many tutorials on PS.

It's an incredible piece of software, but unless you do it every day, it's very complicated.

Adobe has a way of making the simple, complex. For example, there's a lot of this type of thing - Shift A does something, Control A does something, Alternate A does something, Shift Control A does something, Shift Alternate A does something, and Control Alternate A does something else. With each key having about 5 functions, it's almost impossible to remember what does what when you need it. I've been struggling through Illustrator and I'm learning it and getting better, but as far as ease of use, CorelDraw is about 100 times easier to use than Illustrator.

What are you planning to do with it?

All that said, that's just my opinion.

[Darryl Hazen]

You already have Corel X4. Why not try using Photo Paint?

[Albert Nix]

I bought a Richo dye sub printer for plagues,shirts and whatever else comes along and the folks that I bought it from said PS handles images much better. But I have enough problem tring to remember want I learn in Draw and photo paint. If I could stay with it all the time I could learn it better. I build signs, heat applied vinyl on shirts, trophies & awards (with lazer), sign frames/mail box post kits and now dye sub. Sounds like a lot to keep up with but the way things are, a little here and theres keeps me buisy. Thank the LORD!
Thanks for the input.

[Darryl Hazen]

If I were you, before I spent that much money for PS, I would talk with others in the business. Sounds to me like the people you purchased the Ricoh from may prefer PS but I don't believe they are correct. PP should be able to the job equally well.

[John McClanahan]

As a Photoshop user in my day job, I would recommend looking into Photoshop Elements. Photoshop is designed for pros preparing images for commercial printing, as in magazines and books. Photoshop Elements is designed for photographers to process digital camera images for printing to color inkjet printers.

Also, compare the prices. Adobe is real proud of Photoshop!

John

[Tom Henry]

As a Photoshop user in my day job, I would recommend looking into Photoshop Elements. Photoshop is designed for pros preparing images for commercial printing, as in magazines and books. Photoshop Elements is designed for photographers to process digital camera images for printing to color inkjet printers.

Also, compare the prices. Adobe is real proud of Photoshop!

John

I second this one...as I too use photoshop on a daily basis and once you get use to using all of its features it is a great program! If you are not too computer savvy it will take some time to get it and you will be frustrated.

[Albert Nix]

Thanks for all of the input guys you all make a lot of good points.