Solitary chicken - need advice

[Cinnamon]

I had to do a recovery on my computer last week,& I have everything up & running again except for the really good photo editor I used to use.

I can't remember what it was called,but thought it was a microsoft product which came with the machine.

Needless to say,I can't find it anywhere

It was great for resizing as you just pressed a button to make a photo smaller & it did it really quickly.

 

So,can anyone recommend a good photo editor for my XP 'puter please?

[Guest]

it depends what you want sarah...

 

(that's probably not a great answer is it!)

 

if you just want to do a bit of resizing and saving in other formats (it will do other basic editing stuff like brightness and contrast etc..)

 

then I always recommend Irfanview - it is free! - and it does thumbnails for you of all the graphics files in any file - and slideshows for your own entertainment... and the newer versions do loads of other cool stuff too!

 

you can download it here - it really is a great program - it's how all software should be!

 

http://www.irfanview.com/

 

Phil

[Guest]

You could try picasa from Google.

 

http://picasa.google.co.uk/

[chocchick]

There's a graphics editor GIMP (GNU image manipulation program) I sometimes use. It is free to download.

http://www.gimp.org/

 

I'm NOT a computer boffin, I just know lots of them

[Cinnamon]

Thanks all

I will look into them & try to set aside a couple of hours for the long dial-up download

[Guest]

GIMP is great - open-source programming

 

it's a lot more full-featured than Irfanview or picasa.. it is supposed to be a rival (only free- opensource) to photoshop... so it's probably a bit bloated for what you're after - sledgehammer to crack a nut...

 

if you just want to do a bit of resizing and the odd bit of touching - then Irfanview or picasa are just the job

 

picasa is also a photo-organiser - it sets off to find all your graphics files - wherever you have put them - and organises them for you how you want them..

 

I wish I could get a program lke that for my shed...

 

Phil

[Cinnamon]

Phil,your Irfanview seems to do the job wonderfully - thanks for the tip.

 

It only took a few minutes to download too....brilliant!

[Guest]

you're welcome - Irfanvue is the biz!

 

I've just had a thought - the Microsoft program that you used to have could well have been Microsoft Photo Editor - which comes bundled with Microsoft Office..

 

but it's not a patch on Irfanview...

 

Phil

[Cinnamon]

Hmmmmmm - I will look into that.

I never use office (I prefer works & word),but I may have the disc somewhere that I didn't bother adding back onto the computer.

Thanks for that.

[Guest]

Hi

 

If you're using windows XP and you just want to resize jpeg images then you can download and install this handy thing from microsoft

 

http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/2/WXP/EN-US/ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe

 

once it's installed just right-click on the jpg file and select resize, and then you can choose the size you want. if you select muiltiple files it'll resize them all to the same size.

 

brilliant

[Cinnamon]

Great,thats really easy to use,thanks.

 

Strange thing with Photo editor - it isn't on my WORD disc,its not available on there.

I think it might have been something I downloaded seperatly,so I will have a look on Microsoft later.

Thanks for your help everyone.

[chocchick]

I think photoshop is something you have to buy separately thus making more money for Microsoft

[Guest]

Photoshop is made by Adobe - the same people who make Acrobat - not by Miccrosoft (AKA Evil Empire)...

 

Photoshop (like it's competitor "Corel" and several others) is a major-league graphics editing package - which is far too big for most people's needs...

 

unless you are intending to do some serious work on photo editing or graphics design - then they should be classed as bloat-ware.. (still, it doesn't matter so much nowadays as people have monster-gigabytage on their hard-drives...)

 

There are lite versions (the photoshop slimmed down package is called "Elements") - but it's still quite bloaty compared to the other options.. and it's still quite expensive if you have to buy it...

 

The Microsoft Photo Editor (that comes with Office) can be downloaded from the web - (I can supply a download link if you still need it...)

 

in more recent versions of office I believe it has been replaced by the (less good) Microsoft Picture Manager...

 

 

on a slightly related theme... Microsoft Photo Story is quite nice (it's free) - you can create story-slide-shows and suchlike from your photos with captions (and if you have a microphone - add commentary) and add music etc. - and then burn them to CD and send them to grandma! (I know lots of other programs can do this - but the MS one is very easy to use...)

 

 

Phil

[Popcorn]

Phil is quite right about Photoshop.

 

I teach university Fashion Students how to design and display their collections using it, and it's a huge program that will take up stacks of RAM (unless you have lots going spare) and you'll only end up using a small part of it.

 

That said, it is a fantastic program to have and to learn (with a bit of patience of course!) and the Elements is a good place to start.

[Cinnamon]

The Microsoft Photo Editor (that comes with Office) can be downloaded from the web - (I can supply a download link if you still need it...)Phil

 

I found a download link myself this morning Phil,& it is now happily installed on the 'puter,thanks

 

I like your Irfanview too,but I am just used to using MS photo editor - you know how it is