Just be sure your free source is legitimate. Deals like this are a common way to distribute malware.
I’m still using CS - I have the full suite that I bought when it was current, but it doesn’t want to run on my W7 (soon to be 10) partition - complains that it’s not licensed.
Thanks for the warning.
It should be safe, as is comes directly from the Adobe site.
https://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3447
Search found this site that discusses it, and some other free stuff, eg App.
I have been running Photoshop elements for years now. Even though I got a warning that it will not run on my windows seven machine, it runs just fine. I haven’t used the whole Photoshop, Photoshop elements does all that I need it to do. I could not be happier with it.
Don, As a working pro, using photoshop CC, and having taught PS at the Jr. College level, I think that the full V2 is much less powerful then the current elements version. Unless you are really into a lot of the photo manipulation and or image creation, elements is the way to go. If you run out of elements abilities for your manipulation needs then PS CC paid by the month (< $10 month, includes Lightroom also) is the way to go. There is so many new thing in all the versions since V2 that elements has and V2 hasn’t got that I think that you would be giving up a lot of adjustment power.
I think for most people here on the forum, CS2 is way more than they will ever need.
I use dodge, burn, heal and that’s good enough for 99% of what I need, but I’m not cutting and pasting pieces here and there. I normally just clean up, adjust levels (dark couplers or sideframes against a light background) and sharpen a bit.
Free is good.
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
I think for most people here on the forum, CS2 is way more than they will ever need.
I use dodge, burn, heal and that’s good enough for 99% of what I need, but I’m not cutting and pasting pieces here and there. I normally just clean up, adjust levels (dark couplers or sideframes against a light background) and sharpen a bit.
Free is good.
Greg
I’ve been using Photoshop Elements since they introduced it. It has one feature I use all the time: “lighten shadows and darken highlights”, which in one step makes a dark photo viewable (see the photo of Dave’s in the Heavyweight thread.)
However, it is a lot more clumsy than my old MGI Photosuite, which came free with a scanner many years ago. It has a neat ‘move’ - you highlight the area and drag it. Great for covering poles growing out of the top of an object, or making all the grass green. Photoshop takes more steps and isn’t as intuitive.
I dl’d the Free version of; FastStone Image Viewer which has all the tools I need for my amateur efforts. I trust Cnet/download daught com for my free ware.
It has a nice editor with more features than I use.
John
Pete Thornton said:
Greg Elmassian said:
I think for most people here on the forum, CS2 is way more than they will ever need.
I use dodge, burn, heal and that’s good enough for 99% of what I need, but I’m not cutting and pasting pieces here and there. I normally just clean up, adjust levels (dark couplers or sideframes against a light background) and sharpen a bit.
Free is good.
Greg
I’ve been using Photoshop Elements since they introduced it. It has one feature I use all the time: “lighten shadows and darken highlights”, which in one step makes a dark photo viewable (see the photo of Dave’s in the Heavyweight thread.)
However, it is a lot more clumsy than my old MGI Photosuite, which came free with a scanner many years ago. It has a neat ‘move’ - you highlight the area and drag it. Great for covering poles growing out of the top of an object, or making all the grass green. Photoshop takes more steps and isn’t as intuitive.
Usually the first thing I do is run auto smart fix, in Photoshop elements. That usually cleans up the colours and the lighting. Then I adjust the shadows and highlights and/or do the colour correction if needed.
i use 3 different programs.
Microsoft Office Picture Manager, been around a while, has an autocorrect that sets color, levels, cotrast. 9 times out of 10 this is all the corrections I need. Fast, easy to use.
Irfanview - I use this mostly for scaling and fine rotation, and converting file types. Free, fast, easy to use, can edit pdf files, i.e. increase contrast, do sharpness, cropping.
Adobe CS2, use the full blown Photoshop, mostly for dodging and burning, repairing and healing. I just use a few things here.
So I have 3 tools, and 2 of them are very fast and easy to use and do most of what I want.
Greg
Greg: How do I get Picture Manager from my old machine to my new one? I have a shortcut, but when I click on "Properties, it just keeps listing the shortcut.
Greg Elmassian said:
i use 3 different programs.
Microsoft Office Picture Manager, been around a while, has an autocorrect that sets color, levels, cotrast. 9 times out of 10 this is all the corrections I need. Fast, easy to use.
Irfanview - I use this mostly for scaling and fine rotation, and converting file types. Free, fast, easy to use, can edit pdf files, i.e. increase contrast, do sharpness, cropping.
Adobe CS2, use the full blown Photoshop, mostly for dodging and burning, repairing and healing. I just use a few things here.
So I have 3 tools, and 2 of them are very fast and easy to use and do most of what I want.
Greg
It’s amazing how different programs have different strengths.
I also use Microsoft Office Picture Manager, as it has decent editing, as Greg says, but will do it on multiple photos in a batch. I can select which photos and tell it to resize them all to 800x600, for example.
I haven’t played with irfanview. I rotate quite cheerfully with Photoshop Elements - it allows decimals in the custom rotate (e.g. 1.5 deg.) I did want to rotate a video once, and found that my Canon camera software had that - and then I found the feature in my video editing software (Avid.)
Thanks for all the responses(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
I do have a version of Picture Manager from an Office 2003 install. Used only a VERY little a long time ago.
It is version 12…0.66…
About pull down menu does not have an update choice to click on.
I found a way to get a more updated version while doing a search: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-install-and-get-microsoft-office-picture-manager-back-in-office-2013/
I would make sure to only do downloads from an official Microsoft site and NOT the links above.
DON’T UPDATE IT!
Microsoft will give you a different program with less functionality, no auto correct, no lightening and darkening, etc.
You have the latest version, and last version.
Greg
Thanks Greg!
I’ll learn to use some of my current version’s capabilities.
The auto correct, the color (where you pick a place that should be white and it corrects colors), and the lighten and darken (look for the MORE on these) along with the scale and crop should do about 90% of what you want.
Just play and experiment a bit.
Regards, Greg
GIMP is what I’ve been using, learned of it years ago on the Gn15 forum, several folks there use it. I’ve maybe only used 3% of what it can do. Program is free but a couple years ago I bought a $50 book by one of the developers, Beginning Gimp, by Akkana Peck, not sure if that says anything about my logic processes 
By the way, you can get the Windows Picture Editor without uninstalling the Microsoft Office Picture Manager (this is the good one).
The “update” or “upgrade” often deletes and removes the Microsoft Office Picture Manager, and it’s hard to put back, because of 2 reasons: Most of the sites offering to install MOPM really install WPE… and you don’t realize this at first. The second reason is that MOPM is NOT in Office 2013, I believe the last version was 2007.
Greg
I have Microsoft Office 2010 and it has Microsoft Office Picture Manager.
Tom
I needed something to create a composite photo quick. I am a Photoshop CS user, but my copy has been registered too many times and it won’t run on my Windows 10 machine so I downloaded GIMP. It runs great on W10 and was pretty simple to figure out the commands I needed to do what I needed.
According to what I read, technically that “free” download is only for people who purchased the software, but can’t re-load it. Nothing to stop unlicensed users from running it, but they are not giving it away.
Thanks for everyone’s replies and usage comments.
Daktah’s comment on CS needs more work on my part.
