Question concerning 2 programs

I am considering buying either Adobe Photoshop CS2 or Macromedia Studio 8. I am interested in learning how to make gif (picture files) files. Can anyone recommend which product would be a better choice or would both be a good choice to buy? Although that is expensive, but I am just wondering.

Thank you,

Gracie

 

You might PM bigbuck here on the forum and ask him. He is pretty good with graphics and imaging and will most likely have an answer for you.

 

Hi Bigc, okay thanks for the suggestion. I will do that

 

Buck had a link to a free version of photoshop?? or something similar, it's free because it's a slightly older version.

Gimp or Gimpshop, which is the same as Gimp but with a GUI similar to photoshop, are both very good free programs.

 

Yup, free Paint Shop Pro 7 (the poorer cousin! ). It comes with Animation Shop. Can be had from this page along with an upgrade patch;
http://com-puterworks.com/Free_Downloads.htm
Certainly an excellent freebie to get into Graphics with....and not $1000 like Photoshop.
Photofiltre is a nice little freebie too!

Replied to your PM also...
Cheers,
Brad.

 

If you're interested in graphics editing in general,
well,it depends,I mainly use Photoshop,Gimp as my second choice.
Not that Gimp hasn't got the abilities,
it's just that i am more used in Photoshop,because that's what i learned first.

Now,if all that you're interested is Gif animation,
then google for a very nice open-source software called Gifsicle.
There exists a windows binary that can get the job done.
Freshmeat and Sourceforge also host some other gif editing apps,
just use their search facility.

P.S:"Graphics/Video Editing and Compositing" is actually what i do for a living,
but hey,don't take that last comment too seriously! ;-)

P.S.2:If you're in the process of buying something,be careful with your investment,
'cause Adobe bought Macromedia recently(or at least a big part of their code).
Read more about that here:
hxxp://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invrelations/adobeandmacromedia.html

 

Sowhat, why not just put http instead of hxxp in all your replies? It's easier to click on it if you put it that way.

 

Gracie, hi..

In your post you said you were wanting to *buy* either PS CS2 or MMS8.

Do I take it that you really do want to buy as opposed to getting a freebie as posted by others in here?

If so, I would personally opt for PS as it has ImageReady for animation. You certainly are getting the creme la de creme if purchasing PS, but if you do not rely heavily on photo manipulation, then I would opt for some of the ones posted by bigbuck.

You said you were interested in 'making gifs'... *any* image program, even windows itself you can make gifs by changing the extension when saving an image file, however I suspect you really mean making *animated* gifs.

If that's the case well I certainly would take other poster's advice and get some freebie proggy as it would be a waste of huge dollars purchasing PS unless you really want to do PS a lot.

I personally have used PS in my work for over 11-13 years [forget, getting old ] and went thru versions all along the way.

PS is a very intensive program, some people may do a general manipulation by a few levels/curves/filters, but trust me, it takes years to fully appreciate PS in what it is truly capable of, especially when they release new versions along the way and keep adding more and more fantastic options to play with.... so many filters/plug-ins....so little time!

bigbuck has given some good links there, so unless you are really serious about purchasing, then I'd take that route, and I am sure sowhat would agree with PS. Just my opinion.

Cheers, TAS

edit: PS is not only an image manipulation program though, you can make wonderful things from nothing and I do mean nothing, like a painter with a blank canvas.

see attached pic of a project I was working on a year or so back for a program with a fun 'old time' interface, which I called Industry_Tech... old industry [pistons/steam/rods] meets new technology.

Each part you see here was totally *made*, no art, pics, etc, made up totally in PS, the 'cylinders', 'metal', 'rivets', ;rods' etc.

 

I wasn't trying to 'railroad' Gracie there Tas . I actually did talk about PS in my PM to her, albeit the little that I did know......that it would be very expensive and difficult to learn from 'scratch'. I actually do have the Macromedia Suite (MX...an earlier version?), which I also find particularly difficult to use. It would take me years to learn just 'Flash'...

 

Oh no Brad, not at all, never considered that for a second, I know you gave her good links which I did say in reply. I only picked up Gracie's 'buy' bit if she was seriously considering getting that.

I also wanted to point out that buying PS as opposed to getting a freebie [like suggested] or something a lot cheaper just for mainly animated gifs would be a huge waste of money, considering the type of program PS is mate.

Of course Gracie, if you do get say PS, then you will be sorry because once you start, you won't be able to stop yourself from playing with it all the time. Sometimes I spend up to 4-6 [longer, lol] hours in one session playing working with it and that's on top of what I do at work.

Whatever you decide to get Gracie, then Brad, others, myself will certainly be able to help you get started though if you need any help on a particular item, but I admit that I am not into the animation side of it much at all, very little in fact.

I could point out a certain ADMIN who shall remain nameless is a brilliant graphics person

TAS

 

Reply to sunsurfer:
I use hxxp instead of http,for two reasons:
a)I'm just used to it ;-)
b)I really didn't knew if the Wilders Security Admins would like to have their site,
as referrer in a every link I suggest...so I thought I should respect that,
if there 's no problem with posting regular 'http" links,
that 's of course completely fine with me.

Tassie_Devils,that's hell of a great job there by using Photoshop only.
13 years?Wow...i'm in this only 2 1/2,maybe 3 years,he-he,if you didn't tell so,
i would definetely say it's either drawn by an expert in Illustrator,
or a cartoon-like rendering in 3ds max...

Edit:I really had to edit this post once again.Man,it's really great!
I would really love to see a tutorial on this if you ever got the time...
I mainly work in After Effects/Combustion,
my best friend knows very well Photoshop/Illustrator.
Who knows,maybe someday we will open a small office...