Photoshop and its alternatives?

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I’m in the process of putting together a portfolio of mock advertising campaigns (career change, etc.) As far as computers go, I’m relatively limited; this is to say I can create a pretty impressive Word document, but it pretty much ends there. I’m willing and eager to learn about the technology, but I’m a little intimidated. One thing that is most intimidating about Photoshop, to be honest, is its price. Are there alternative programs out there that are less expensive, even if less comprehensive, that would suffice for producing nice quality printouts that contain both images and text? As a writer, I’m not as concerned with dazzling any potential employers with my graphic design abilities as I am with producing good copy and combining that copy high-quality photos and artwork. Juts looking for a less-pricey way of dipping my toes into this endeavor.

I guess another question I have about Photoshop (or any similar program) regards printing such documents. Does one need a special printer to produce Photoshop documents? Or can you go to a printing outfit like Kinko’s and produce them there?

Thanks

Yes, PS is very impressive in ALL respects, price being one. However, for the combination of images (raster and vector), and words (type), the better choice would be a program, such as Adobe InDesign (older vers of PageMaker, which seems to have been completely replaced by InDesign), and Adobe Illustrator. Photoshop is designed for the "manipulation" of raster images, primarily photographs. Though it does handle vector images and type, neither is its strength. There are other, usually less expensive, page-layout programs. One might well be better for you at this point. As I use Adobe products, I do not have any specific recommendations.

If I were starting out in advertising, I would spring for the full Adobe CS2 Suite (AI, PS, INDD, Acrobat, GoLive), as they are the "standard" in many ad shops.

For printing, you can output to many service bureaus, Kinkos included. I’d get a spec sheet from any that you might consider, to make sure that they can handle your files, and these will also give you their capabilities. Set up your file for THEIR abilities, and change this setup for any other service bureaus. Most files will print on better desktop printers, but PostScrip capabilites will benefit you in many designs.

Hunt

"Daniel Anderson" wrote in message

I’m in the process of putting together a portfolio of mock advertising campaigns (career change, etc.) As far as computers go, I’m relatively limited; this is to say I can create a pretty impressive Word document, but it pretty much ends there. I’m willing and eager to learn about the technology, but I’m a little intimidated. One thing that is most intimidating about Photoshop, to be honest, is its price. Are there alternative programs out there that are less expensive, even if less comprehensive, that would suffice for producing nice quality printouts that contain both images and text? As a writer, I’m not as concerned with dazzling any potential employers with my graphic design abilities as I am with producing good copy and combining that copy high-quality photos and artwork. Juts looking for a less-pricey way of dipping my toes into this endeavor.

I guess another question I have about Photoshop (or any similar program) regards printing such documents. Does one need a special printer to produce Photoshop documents? Or can you go to a printing outfit like Kinko’s and produce them there?

You can drag the images into Word, and do a certain amount of cropping, brightness and contrast there. Kinko’s can print Word docs directly.

www.Irfanview.com offers a very powerful image editor that is free. Picasa is a free download from Google that does an amazing amount of stuff, though it is a bit awkward for your purposes, you can enhance and crop images very easily. Elements is a less expensive alternative to Photoshop that still has a tremendous number of features. Save even more by buying Elements 3 instead 4.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com

Mike Russell wrote:

"Daniel Anderson" wrote in message

I’m in the process of putting together a portfolio of mock advertising campaigns (career change, etc.) As far as computers go, I’m relatively limited; this is to say I can create a pretty impressive Word document, but it pretty much ends there. I’m willing and eager to learn about the technology, but I’m a little intimidated. One thing that is most intimidating about Photoshop, to be honest, is its price. Are there alternative programs out there that are less expensive, even if less comprehensive, that would suffice for producing nice quality printouts that contain both images and text? As a writer, I’m not as concerned with dazzling any potential employers with my graphic design abilities as I am with producing good copy and combining that copy high-quality photos and artwork. Juts looking for a less-pricey way of dipping my toes into this endeavor.

I guess another question I have about Photoshop (or any similar program) regards printing such documents. Does one need a special printer to produce Photoshop documents? Or can you go to a printing outfit like Kinko’s and produce them there?

You can drag the images into Word, and do a certain amount of cropping, brightness and contrast there. Kinko’s can print Word docs directly.
www.Irfanview.com offers a very powerful image editor that is free. Picasa is a free download from Google that does an amazing amount of stuff, though it is a bit awkward for your purposes, you can enhance and crop images very easily. Elements is a less expensive alternative to Photoshop that still has a tremendous number of features. Save even more by buying Elements 3 instead 4.

how about the open source & therefor free Gimp?
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

"Daniel Anderson" wrote in message

I’m in the process of putting together a portfolio of mock advertising campaigns (career change, etc.) As far as computers go, I’m relatively limited; this is to say I can create a pretty impressive Word document, but it pretty much ends there. I’m willing and eager to learn about the technology, but I’m a little intimidated. One thing that is most intimidating about Photoshop, to be honest, is its price. Are there alternative programs out there that are less expensive, even if less comprehensive, that would suffice for producing nice quality printouts that contain both images and text? As a writer, I’m not as concerned with dazzling any potential employers with my graphic design abilities as I am with producing good copy and combining that copy high-quality photos and artwork. Juts looking for a less-pricey way of dipping my toes into this endeavor.

I guess another question I have about Photoshop (or any similar program) regards printing such documents. Does one need a special printer to produce Photoshop documents? Or can you go to a printing outfit like Kinko’s and produce them there?

Thanks.

If the quality of the graphics* is not your concern, and you use Word a very simple layout program with Windows-user friendly tools, is MS Publisher. in Publisher there are a few basic commands for images like lighter darker rotate scale etc but it is not subtle and you can’t work with selected areas

The Adobe layout programs have a steeper learning curve.

If you get Acrobat you can change any file including a Publisher doc into a PDF or postscript friendly file, even Kinko’s can handle that, and they also have ready made templates you can download from their site. In past I have had them print from TIFF, MS Publisher, and PDF’s. I rarely send PSD format to the printers anyway.(use Save as..some other format)

*if you don’t need to correct your images before using.

If you do:try
Gimp -free
you may have Roxio CD maker on your comp it has a very decent picture wizard to improve images
PS Elements- an amateur version of Photoshop with many similar features