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For those of you that are using digital cameras...whats the best(that is to say)"most user friendly" program for off loading your pic's to the puter then being able to super-impose graphics and sign panels over the picture you have taken.I have the Kodak version and am not impressed.
------------------ Monte Jumper SIGNLanguage/Norman.Okla.
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Monte...Does the Kodak camera use a "smart media" card for storing the images? If so one of the card readers or floppy disk adapters is by far the easiest way to get pictures into your computer. I just take the smart media card out of the camera, slide it into the adapter and shove the adapter into the 3.5" floppy drive. From there you can copy/paste or import the pictures into whatever graphics program you use. I usually just copy/paste all of them to a specific directory on my HD and then delete them off the smart media card while it is in the floppy drive.
------------------ Dave Grundy shop#340 AKA "applicator" on mIRC "stickin' sticky stuff to valuable vessels and vehicles!" in Granton, Ontario, Canada 1-519-225-2634 dave.grundy@quadro.net www.quadro.net/~shirley "A PROUD $ supporter of the website"
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Monte, usually the camera provides a way to upload on to the computer. I use acdc to view and resave pics in a different format if I need. I also use it to read kodak picture cd's that I get made from my regular film, skipping all the kodak fluff. I use ulead photo impact software that came with my scanner to straighten and crop photos and of course I import them into sign lab or corel and pull up to actual size for my sign work. Bill
------------------ Bill & Barbara Biggs Art's Sign Service, Inc. Clute, Texas, USA Home of The Great Texas Mosquito Festival Proud second year Supporter of the Letterheads Website MailTo:twobeesusa@netscape.net
Posts: 1020 | From: Lake Jackson,Tx | Registered: Nov 1998
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Gday Monte, In the past I've used a few different packages and found Photoshop to still be the best. You'll still need to have the camera software loaded in order to have the twain drivers available but Photoshop is still the industry standard for pretty much any digital image editing. Photo editing software is definitely waaay different from vector programs like corel and sign programs in general so if you haven't had much experience with it, get ready for a steep learning curve. Good luck, David
------------------ D.A. & P.M. Fisher Signwriting Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com
Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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I just re-read my post and I guess I wasn't very clear...I have no problem off loading the pics... what I'm really concerned about is manipulating them and the Kodak program is clumsy(at least to me)now... who has the best program for manipulation and editing?
------------------ Monte Jumper SIGNLanguage/Norman.Okla.
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Most people probably use one of these:Corel Photopaint, Adobe Photoshop, U-lead's Photo Impact. Adobe is the most expensive and unless your into serious editing not worth the price. Seems for general photo manipulation such as brightness, contrast, color mixing, cropping etc., most will due just fine. I like Corel Photopaint.
------------------ Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Since 1978 http://www.wrightsigns.bigstep.com
Posts: 2785 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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If you want a full featured photo editing program at a bargain price, check out JASC's PaintShop Pro.
I have used earlier versions of this before they started selling it (they used to offer free licenses for downloads to spread their name around) and it was great back then.
Check it out.. I think their site is www.jasc.com and you can also pick up this program at Office Max.
It really is a great program.. maybe not quite as feature rich as Photoshop (which I use exclusively now) but is definitely adequate for most photo editing tasks.
Other than that, I think there is also a Limited Edition of Photoshop that's cheaper, and Adobe also has a program called PhotoDeluxe that's easy to use, but that's the very same reason I hate it. =)
I'm very partial to PhotoShop.. running ver 5.5 now and I might upgrade to 6.0 soon.
------------------ Mike Pipes Digital Illusion Custom Graphics Lake Havasu City, AZ http://www.stickerpimp.com
Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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What ever you get used to is the easiest, for me its Corel PhotoPaint (ver.9). I do a lot of photo compositing for catalogs that require removing backgrounds and replacing them with various scenes or textures, blending images and changing colors and a whole lot more. PhotoPaint has been a high-end contender for the past 4 years, until then PhotoShop ruled but now there are several lower priced editing programs that will do for most work. If I'm needing to place a 'virtual sign' on a pic of a building or vehicle, I will use PhotoPaint to crop, resize and color-correct, then the image will be brought into Corel Draw where my sign layout can be placed. The vector layout can then skewed, enveloped and manipulated to fit the perspective of the buiding or vehicle. The Corel suite of programs work well with each other and can do anything your imagination can conceive. To each his own, just remember a program is only as good as the operator and the operator is only as good as his experience,,, learn to use whatever program you decide on.
------------------ Larry
Elliott Design McLemoresville, Tn.
If you can't find the time to do it right, where gonna find the time to do it over?
Posts: 486 | From: McLemoresville, TN. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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