Camera Labs

I'm new to photography and have just bought a Nikon D80 which is a fantastic camera. I'm having a great time figuring out all of its functions and am hugely impressed by the images it produces.

Now I'm looking to get some processing software and figured this is the best place to come for advice.

I was just wondering if Photoshop CS2 has everything a beginner needs or should I go for the considerably more expensive CS3?

I've also read Corel Paintshop Pro X2 is pretty good, any thoughts on this?

Looking forward to your replies

Yo will be fine with CS2.. It has everything a beginner needs and more. You probably wouldn't even notice a difference between the two until you started to get much more into it.

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Nikon D40 + 18-135
My Flickr.

I would go with Photoshop because of the huge following and the number of tutorials and books written for it.

Photoshop CS2 will have everything a beginner will need, it will actually have more things than you will ever use unless you really start digging around.

There are also a lot of plugins (free and at a cost) and actions available for Photoshop, I believe Corel Paintshop Pro X2 can also use some of the Photoshop plugins.

Also, I think I read somewhere that Corel Paintshop Pro X2 has very limited Raw support.

Good Luck!

Mitch

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS3 (Lumix DMC-TZ7)

photoshop! photoshop! photoshop!

i know too many people who have problems with Corel Paintshop Pro X2..

plus photoshop is basicly what most of the pro's use anyway..

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Canon EOS 400D / Rebel XTi

Thanks for the help guys.

I'll take the advice and go with Photoshop

Photoshop has a really large user base so help and support or just general discussion would be easier. Photoshop has a really wide variety of plugins as well.

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Graham
Flickr

Out of interest, what sort of processing are you looking to carry out? I've been very happy with Lightroom for processing my D80 RAW images. It's a different type of product than Photoshop though, more of a photo developing package rather than a photo editing one.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

Photoshop CS2/3 has everything that a pro needs. It will be more than sufficient for getting started in photography. Have you thought about something like Photoshop Elements 6 or Lightroom? Both of those programs also offer plenty of tools for editing at a much lower price. Lightroom is half the price of CS3 and I find the work flow much better in Lightroom. I think all of these programs have a 30 day trial available. That's probably the best way to get a feel for each one.

Like some of the others have said if it's a choice between Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop go with Photoshop for the HUGE amount of resources and plugins offered all over the internet.

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Leica M9, Nikon D300s, Leica X1, Canon S95, Zero Image 6x9