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Nergol · May 6, 2008, 04:22 AM

Dang that Windows - you just can't get any software for it!

A friend out in the Windows world was describing what they were looking for in a software package - a kind of "Photoshop lite" that could do photo manipulation and basic graphics stuff but without the need for all of Photoshop's advanced features, easy to use, free or cheap, and will run on machines that are not the latest or greatest. It dawned on me that I knew a program that fit exactly with what she was talking about. It was GraphicConverter.

Just one small problem - GC is Mac-only. So, other than telling her to buy a better computer next time, is there any other program that you know of that I can steer her towards that is "just like GraphicConverter, but for Windows"?

I'm sorry if this is kind of off-topic, but I figured that people in Mac forums would be the ones most likely to know what I'm talking about with GC, and to know graphics applications.

JKT · May 6, 2008, 04:40 AM

I don't know of a GC equivalent, but the GIMP will do the job in a photoshop manner (OSS freeware).

Nergol · May 6, 2008, 05:53 AM

GIMP - you mean like the print thing? Or is that a different GIMP?

naphtali · May 6, 2008, 09:52 AM

Could look at Paint.Net
Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing

Gimp is an open-source attempt at Photoshop
It's not particularly user-friendly, and last I tried, the window management was really wonky - e.g. each palette appeared as a separate tab-able window
GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

moep · May 6, 2008, 12:46 PM

"Photoshop lite" has a name: Photoshop Elements 6.0 - $99
A free trial is available for download, give it a shot (if the price isn't too high)!

JKT · May 6, 2008, 12:59 PM

Originally Posted by Nergol

GIMP - you mean like the print thing? Or is that a different GIMP?

GIMP = GNU image manipulation programme. You are thinking of gimpprint (which is actually now known as Gütenprint, fwiw) which is not related. Ignore the comment about its user-friendliness - it is just as user-friendly as Photoshop... that is, not particularly, but no worse either. If you can use Photoshop, you can use the GIMP.

CharlesS · 01:56 PM

Neither Photoshop nor the GIMP are really a replacement for GraphicConverter - neither of them is nearly as easy to use for simple tasks. For example, let's say you're making a piece of documentation for someone, and you want to take a screenshot and add a nice big red oval around a certain button or menu item to let the user know where he/she is supposed to click. With GraphicConverter, you just do the following:

1. Command-Control-Shift-3 (or 4) to put the screenshot on the clipboard

2. Open GraphicConverter and choose New from Clipboard from the File menu

3. Set the line width and the color you want

4. Take the Circle tool (not the Filled Circle tool) and draw your circle.

With Photoshop, it seems like it's going to work this way, but the circle tool always draws a filled circle. I might just be a moron, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to make Photoshop's circle tool transparent! A piece of software that powerful has to be able to do such a simple thing, but I can't figure out how. GIMP, moreover, doesn't seem to have a circle tool at all, and it has an extra annoyance on top of that - it's not compatible with the OS X pasteboard. You can't copy an image in another OS X app and paste it into GIMP, or vice versa, which makes the GIMP almost unusable to me (on OS X, at least - I'll grant that I don't know if the situation is better on the Windows side).

moep · May 6, 2008, 03:50 PM

CharlesS · May 6, 2008, 04:08 PM

Thanks, I'll have to give that a look next time I am on a machine that has Photoshop on it. I knew there had to be a way to do it, but my point remains that Photoshop has a much larger learning curve than GraphicConverter if all you need is very simple things.

JKT · May 7, 2008, 03:23 AM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Neither Photoshop nor the GIMP are really a replacement for GraphicConverter - neither of them is nearly as easy to use for simple tasks.

No argument from me there - I was just clarifying what the GIMP was like cf. Photoshop.

GIMP, moreover, doesn't seem to have a circle tool at all, and it has an extra annoyance on top of that - it's not compatible with the OS X pasteboard. You can't copy an image in another OS X app and paste it into GIMP, or vice versa, which makes the GIMP almost unusable to me (on OS X, at least - I'll grant that I don't know if the situation is better on the Windows side).

It's an X11 app on OS X whereas it runs natively on Windows, so equivalent annoyances are less. It still isn't the world's best app in terms of ease-of-use, but if you know your way around Photoshop, it doesn't take much to learn how to make your way around GIMP.

CharlesS · May 7, 2008, 04:07 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

It's an X11 app on OS X whereas it runs natively on Windows, so equivalent annoyances are less. It still isn't the world's best app in terms of ease-of-use, but if you know your way around Photoshop, it doesn't take much to learn how to make your way around GIMP.

True, which is why I put that disclaimer in there. However, there is an experimental version of GIMP that you can download that is supposedly native in OS X, without requiring X11... and copy and paste still doesn't work.

naphtali · May 7, 2008, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by JKT

GIMP = GNU image manipulation programme. You are thinking of gimpprint (which is actually now known as Gütenprint, fwiw) which is not related. Ignore the comment about its user-friendliness - it is just as user-friendly as Photoshop... that is, not particularly, but no worse either. If you can use Photoshop, you can use the GIMP.

Haha I'd still take Photoshop over GIMP any day. With GIMP you seem to be fighting the interface, fumbling with the multiple windows, finding out where things are etc.

Somehow Photoshop feels less suffocating and more logical. A closer look at the options would let you draw an unfilled oval

That said, if you're new to all this and have the pre-conception that Photoshop is needlessly powerful, then I suppose might seem intimidating as well.

By the way, the interface issue I mentioned - where GIMP puts each palette on a separate window - was on Windows. I sure hope it's fixed, because that was really annoying.

Anyhow, the OP was looking for Windows apps, so Paint.Net, Gimp and maybe Picassa should make him happy enough

@CharlesS - I'm sure you know this already, but you don't even need GraphicConverter to do that sort of thing anymore. Preview has some basic annotating tools with shapes and notes. It may be grayed out in the menu bar for certain images, but I've found that if you add the annotate button to the toolbar, the feature works.

CharlesS · May 7, 2008, 12:29 PM

Actually, I didn't know that you could do that if you added the button to the toolbar. For me, the menu item has always been greyed out for everything except PDFs, so I just figured that Preview only supported that feature on PDFs. Thanks for that tip!

However, that's not the only thing I use GraphicConverter for, and with GC I can make wider, brighter colored ovals that stand out a little more, thus serving the purpose of pointing out elements for documentation purposes a bit better, so I'll continue using GC for this. The circle thing wasn't the only thing I do with it anyway, it was just an example of a case where GC is perfectly well equipped to handle a simple task, and can actually do it better than the pro-level apps.

Chinasaur · May 9, 2008, 09:33 PM

I've used this app for years..very good. Might be what you're looking for.

XnView

Cadaver · May 11, 2008, 08:32 PM

IrfanView