Is photoshop necessary for PDN?

[mark]

It looks like I am heading in this route to get what I need but there is no way I want to pay a whole lot of money for a program I will only use a very small portion of. Honestly it would be like using an 11x14 to shoot roll film.

Is there a program out there that will work with PDN that is not so damned huge and expensive. I thought about photoshop elements but they do not have a MAC version anymore. I have an old version. Will that work?

[donbga]

It looks like I am heading in this route to get what I need but there is no way I want to pay a whole lot of money for a program I will only use a very small portion of. Honestly it would be like using an 11x14 to shoot roll film.

Is there a program out there that will work with PDN that is not so damned huge and expensive. I thought about photoshop elements but they do not have a MAC version anymore. I have an old version. Will that work?

It will work if that version supports layers which is essential for use with PDN. I don' t recall that Elements does support layers except for perhaps the latest version. I think this probably precludes products such as GIMP and Picture Window Pro. Corel Paint Shop Pro X may work but I've not tried it myself. You can download a trial copy.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli...me=Corel3/Home

My advice is to save your money and get CS2.

Perhaps someone else has some different advice.

Don Bryant

[Jeremy]

Mark, don't forget that as a teacher you qualify for the education discount which does bring the price down considerably.

[donbga]

Pro. Corel Paint Shop Pro X may work but I've not tried it myself. You can download a trial copy.

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satelli...me=Corel3/Home

Don Bryant

Whoops! Looks like PSPX is for WINTEL only.

Don Bryant

[Derek Lofgreen]

I don't know what PDN is but you can get GIMP for free and it is very capable. http://www.gimp.org/

D.

[donbga]

I don't know what PDN is but you can get GIMP for free and it is very capable. http://www.gimp.org/

D.

Does it have layers like PS?

Don

[donbga]

It looks like I am heading in this route to get what I need but there is no way I want to pay a whole lot of money for a program I will only use a very small portion of. Honestly it would be like using an 11x14 to shoot roll film.

Is there a program out there that will work with PDN that is not so damned huge and expensive. I thought about photoshop elements but they do not have a MAC version anymore. I have an old version. Will that work?

Hi Mark,

I've just downloaded "The Gimp" (God I hate that name), and it does look like you can use it for making digital negatives with Mark Nelson PDN software.

I was able to open a Tonal Palette and do a color fill, however I am bothered a bit about how to precisely enter individual values for curves, but I did do a Google search and there seems to be tons of online help sources for Gimp.

Gimp would not open a PhotoShop Curve file but I did find a Perl script that would convert PS ACV files to the Gimp file format. I will most likely download this script just to glean some info about PS curve file formating and structure.

So again, I would cautiosly say yes Gimp could be used.

Don Bryant

P.S. If you do decide to use Gimp you may also want to download CinePaint for the Mac when it is released. CinePaint is an image manipulation package that will allow you to work on image data in 16 bits as Gimp is an 8 bit only package.

[ann]

don,
since i have cs2 is there any advantage to taking a closer look at teh Gimp program?

regards,
ann

[donbga]

don,
since i have cs2 is there any advantage to taking a closer look at teh Gimp program?

regards,
ann

Absolutely not! GIMP is simply second rate when compared to PS CS2 though it is a really good app especially considering the cost.

Don

[Stephanie Brim]

http://www.newegg.com/product/Produc...ts+3.0+For+Mac

Not exactly sure what you mean by there not being a Mac version of Elements anymore...