[meadorg]

As a recent switcher after nearly 2 decades of Windows, I have yet to find one app I need: an equivalent to Paint Shop Pro.

That is, a ~$150 Photoshop-compatible image editor. I didn't realize it before, but I guess Adobe has discontinued their Photoshop Elements for Mac after v.3 (not that I liked P.E. all that much anyway).

I need more hands-on editing than iPhoto or Lightroom/Aperture, and Photoshop compatibility for third-party plugins, but have a budget way under Photoshop CS2. I know the Gimp is available for OS X, but I'd rather stay away from X11 apps unless I have no other choice.

Any recommendations?

[Spliff]

Originally Posted by meadorg

That is, a ~$150 Photoshop-compatible image editor. I didn't realize it before, but I guess Adobe has discontinued their Photoshop Elements for Mac after v.3 (not that I liked P.E. all that much anyway).

Uh, no they haven't.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/02...ents/index.php

[meadorg]

Ah ... been looking for weeks and that article was posted at 12:01am today. Thanks for the heads up.

[Tsilou B.]

It's worth mentioning that Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac is not the same application as Photoshop Elements 4 for Windows. Of course they are comparable, but they have different feature sets - unlike Photoshop CS 2, which is exactly the same application on Mac and Windows.

[Tsilou B.]

You could also download a trial of PhotoLine32, it's supposed to work with most Photoshop plugins, too:

http://www.pl32.com/

[meadorg]

Originally Posted by Tsilou B.

It's worth mentioning that Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac is not the same application as Photoshop Elements 4 for Windows. Of course they are comparable, but they have different feature sets ...

Thanks for the heads up. Was this the case with v3 on Win/Mac? Do you have any information comparing Elements on the two platforms? I haven't been able to find any info comparing v4 Win/Mac directly, short of going through the vague feature charts on Adobe.com ... since it's not out yet.

[JKT]

Couldn't you get Photoshop 7 or CS second hand for around the same amount of money (or even less)? They would still probably be far more feature complete than Elements.

[hotani]

well, there's always GIMP - can't beat the price.

I used photoline for a while, and it did the trick -- but it's no PSP.

[Theodour]

Doesn't GraphicConverter come with recent macs?

I don't use it enough to know, but it seems pretty exhaustive.

I've used the aforementioned Photoline in the past (while waiting for PS to go native) and thought it was great ... it was like a clone of PS 3.

[Dr.Michael]

Originally Posted by Theodour

Doesn't GraphicConverter come with recent macs?

I don't use it enough to know, but it seems pretty exhaustive.

I've used the aforementioned Photoline in the past (while waiting for PS to go native) and thought it was great ... it was like a clone of PS 3.

Yes it does. Graphic Converter is a really powerful software. Even if you had to spend 30$ its definitely worth the price.

[hotani]

and it's $30 for life - that is a really good deal. PhotoLine will charge you to upgrade every major release.