PhotoPlus – A Great Photoshop Alternative
I love Photoshop. I’ve used it since version 2, own a copy of CS2 and work in it every day for both personal projects and my occupation. Now that I’ve said that, I have to admit that while it’s great for professionals, it’s not an ideal choice for many people out there. First off, it costs $650 – well beyond the range of most photo editing hobbyists – which means that the bulk of people who use it today are pirating it. Interesting fact: it’s the most pirated piece of software in history.
Another problem with Photoshop is that the sheer number of features makes it a bear to learn. Visit your local bookstore and see how many variations on the “Photoshop For Dummies” theme there are, and you’ll get the picture. Add to that some serious system requirements (CS2 takes about a minute to load on my 2 year old laptop), it’s easy to see that while Photoshop is the defacto tool for image editing, it’s not the perfect choice for many.
But what alternatives are out there? Keep reading for more…
You might ask, “But what else can I use?” If you visit your local Best Buy and head down the software aisles you’ll find probably 20 different photo editing packages that all claim to be the last piece of software you’ll ever need. Priced from around $39.99 to $99, they all have about the same features and options. The question, of course, is, “Which one would I use? What if I don’t like it? Isn’t there a free alternative?” The asnwers to those questions are, “None of them. You’re stuck. You bet there is!” Enter stage left, PhotoPlus 6…
Serif Software is one of those cool companies that don’t just make decent software, they also understand that sometimes you need more than just a pretty box on a shelf in Best Buy to get people to use your software. To show off their PhotoPlus editing software, they released a previous version (currently version 6) for free and a slightly newer version for $4 (version 8). They even built a website to support their free / super cheap software.
As far as tools go, it’s got what you’d expect of a decent photo editing package. PhotoPlus supports layers, text effects (including a really good looking drop-shadow), paint and airbrush tools, and of course basic shapes. The one tool that caught my attention was the Clone Tool. Analogous to Photoshop’s Rubber Stamp tool, I found that I could pull off all of Amy’s cool photo finishing techniques using the Clone tool and a little patience.
Some cool PhotoPlus features that you might not expect from free software are support for most Photoshop plugins, support for lots of file formats, including Photoshop files, and actual customer support from Serif. Personally, I found the lightening quick load times wonderful, and the support for pressure sensitivity on my drawing tablet neat surprises.
As wonderful as PhotoPlus is, it’s not perfect. The UI feels a little bit like a Windows 98 application, but it works. The text tool doesn’t allow you to type directly into your picture. The biggest drawback, though, is that it’s not Photoshop… meaning that most photo editing tutorials expect that you’re using Photoshop, requiring some translation when using PhotoPlus. You aren’t going to find a lot of books about PhotoPlus, so you’re sort of on your own. Also, because it’s not as well known, you can’t rely on having someone you know being able to provide tips and tricks.
PhotoPlus works as a great alternative to Photoshop for people looking to get into more complex photo editing without having to lay down a chunk of money on software that may or may not be what you need. The fact that Serif provides support, even for the free version, makes using PhotoPlus an easy choice.
Responses and Conversations
That looks like a good altrenative to Photoshop, another great one is GIMP. It takes up much less window space, has pretty much everything you need and is great overall. (And it’s free!)
Their aren’t as many GIMP-tailored tutorials either, most of them nowdays are for Photoshop. If you mess around a bit, you can interpet them (as most of the tools are the same), but you won’t be able to use any of the photos as much. I spent an hour or two the other day making an OOB off of a Photoshop tutorial. It cant work, just takes a bit more work, tons less money though.
It’s the best editing program I’ve found so far.
Comment by Mike on October 16th, 2006 at 5:27 am
This one looks great – I’ll have to try it out. Another is Paint.NET. It’s easier to learn than GIMP though isn’t as powerfull.
Comment by DK on October 16th, 2006 at 5:56 am
Another good one, for both Mac & PC users is Photoshop Elements. While (at around $80) it offers most of the functionality of Photoshop, it’s not free like this one!
Comment by JimmyD on October 16th, 2006 at 7:21 am
In my original outline for this story I had points on why both Paint.NET and GIMP weren’t good alternatives for home users, and the general gist of my argument was that they were pretty much toys for tech hobbyists. That doesn’t mean they aren’t powerful – they’re just not designed for the average home user in terms of simplicity and “obviousness.” Like that word?
GIMP has the major downfall of being based on GTK+ whose XP ports tend to be wonky at best. The fact that GTK+ still has issues using the system clipboard correctly is sort of telling. GIMPShop is a better alternative to the original GIMP, and I’m beginning to try it out as an alternative to Photoshop, but it also suffers from all of the problems of GTK+.
Paint.NET ALMOST came out ahead of PhotoPlus in my testing, but the home user features in PhotoPlus really pushed it ahead for this situation. But just barely. Apparently Paint.NET was supposed to replace the Paint program in the standard install of Windows. How great would that be?
Elements is great and blows away everything here, but it suffers from a price-tag that doesn’t match the level of use most home users will give it. It does have the advantage of being well supported in design communities and so tutorials abound. It’s perfect for amateur photographers who have purchased some decent gear and are looking to push their post-processing a lot further.
I’d love to hear more about people’s experiences with other packages!
Comment by Christopher Frazier on October 16th, 2006 at 9:43 am
I really like PaintShop Pro. I tried the free beta before paying $99 for version 8. I can’t imagine not having it.
Donna
Comment by Donna on October 17th, 2006 at 12:31 pm
[...] A few posts back, I talked about a great, free program called PhotoPlus from Serif Software. It’s a photo editing package with much of the power and features of Photoshop (including access to Photoshop plugins) without the cost. When putting together this post, I tried out pretty much every free image editing program out there, including what was my runner-up, Paint.NET. Created by a team of college students as a replacement for the Paint program in Windows, Paint.NET is a fantastic example of clever programming and good ideas at work. [...]
Comment by Shooting the Kids - » What’s Up With Paint.NET? on November 3rd, 2006 at 4:08 pm
For more free (and open source) alternatives, you should check-out osalt.com for Photoshop alternatives. They list high quality open source alternatives to many well-known commercial products.
Comment by Thomas Pedersen on August 30th, 2007 at 3:21 am
If you are looking free Photoshop alternative then try GimPhoto.
Actually GimPhoto is GIMP modification with new PS menu layout, packed with many great plugins, such as: separation, save for web, batch process, noise removal and photography filters, and also improved with new brushset, new gradientset, every aspect is tweaked to fill the GIMP gap with PS and also to improve user usability.
http://www.gimphoto.com
Comment by Ek kian on August 14th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
@Ek Kian – I’ll have to check out GimPhoto. Sadly, I keep having to come back to Photoshop for one reason: Layer Styles. For most people, though, they’re not super useful and end up making photos look silly, so I imagine your combination of Gimp’s toolset with a more familiar UI is a welcome addition. Once I get a chance to get it running I’ll do a review here.
Comment by Christopher Frazier on August 15th, 2008 at 6:15 am