what is the latest version for XP, and if there are several versions of photoshop whats the diff/which one should I get?
Photoshop CS3.
Paint shop pro is better imHO. .
Stay away from Vista its ruuuubbbbissshhh
there’s a CS3 and CS3 extended?
(this isn’t for me by the way, never really used the software myself)
mate, i wouldn’t bother with the latest and greatest, unless you are a pro and will be using it every day then you wont use 1/10th of the stuff on it!
Elements 6
CS3 is a package of graphic programs of which PS is part of, you can get a CS3 Pro but the PS is the same.
There is a home user version of PS called Photoshop Elements which is very good.
It all depends what you are going to using it for.
Don’t know what the diff is with the Extended version although it is what I use.
(Edited - just Google’d it’s ass and here are two links
Summary : http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshopextended/
In depth: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/03/whats_unique_to.html )
I agree with the comments re Elements - it has most of the useful options that you’ll need and is a snip at the retail price on Amazon etc - it was my first (sniff) software (v3) and I used it happily for a year or so. To be honest I’d probably use it if I had to start again since I use LightRoom to process batches of race shots (CS has a batch processing option that was never present on Elements). It also has alot of more user friendly interfaces and being brutal, unless you are really into your photography then Elements must be the way to go. CS simply assumes you know what you are doing whereas Elements doesn’t.
I used to use PaintShop ages ago and while very competent I always felt that it didn’t specialise in digital photo manipulation as much as CS, but it was marketed as a general graphics program so fair enough. And I don’t think it ties in with other stuff quite as well. For instance, does it come with a RAW convertor?
Buy Elements, and see how you get on.
mj_jonesy (10/12/2007)
mate, i wouldn’t bother with the latest and greatest, unless you are a pro and will be using it every day then you wont use 1/10th of the stuff on it!
i’m a pro:D stil dont use alot of the bit n bobs on it!
We use CS3 for all LB work.
If its just for general photo cropping etc try www.gimp.org their program is very easy to use, and free without resorting to torrents
I use CS3 for all my web design work too.
… and who said Vista is crap ?.. its better than XP!