Hi George ... Great info ... no need to apologize about the length of the message. I was disappointed it ended when it did <L>
The downloaded file was for PWPro 3.1 ... it has the chromatic aberration feature, which is rather nice. Will have to try it on my editing machine with some other photos, but it seemed to work pretty smoothly on this machine. I'll have to look more into PWP curves ... perhaps read some documentation. It didn't seem to be as fully featured as the PS 7 curves. Why do you like it better .... how do you see it as better? >From what I could tell on a quick peek, the PWP sharpening isn't as good as that in PS ... seems that you've got to sharpen the pic directly rather than the luminance layer .... and the lack of layers seems to be a disadvantage. Of course, that's a first glance ... time to RTFM <LOL> Still, from what I can see, I agree that they are complimentary. Looks like i may have stumbled onto a Good Thing. Thanks, George, shel George Sinos wrote: > Earlier Shel Belinkoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked for comments on > Picture Window Pro vs. Photoshop 7.0 > > Shel - I've been using Photoshop and Picture Window Pro for a while > now. Both have their pros and cons, but I'm going to make my comments from > the viewpoint of a Photoshop user wondering about Picture Window Pro. This > is a little different perspective than the usual question of "I don't have > either which should I buy." > > I think the two nicely complement each other. For the person that already > has Photoshop, Picture Window Pro is a lot less expensive and way more > powerful than many of the plug-ins I've seen. > > First of all, I believe the evaluation version is the Standard Picture > Window, not the pro version. Full color management is only in the pro > version. > > The following are only in the pro version > > Picture Window Pro supports 16 bit images throughout the entire > product. This is an area where Photoshop CS is just beginning to catch up. > > Picture Window Pro has an Advanced Sharpen transformation that is unlike > anything I've seen in other products. Go to the the Digital Light & Color > web site > <http:www.dl-c.com> and check out the white paper. I think you will find > it very interesting. > > The Color Correction transformation is different than that in Photoshop. > Digital Light & Color sells a slightly modified version of this as the > Color Mechanic plug-in for Photoshop. It sells for $49. For a few bucks > more you can get Picture Window Pro. The white paper "color balancing > techniques" describes this and other color correction tools very well. > > Chromatic Aberration and Moire reduction are only available in the pro version. > > Multipoint alignment is only available in the pro version. This is pretty > powerful for registering multiple images. There is a similar function in > Photoshop, but I'm more comfortable with Picture Window. > > Some more general comments: > > Picture Window Pro's method of transformations and image management will be > foreign to the experienced Photoshop user. You'll really miss layers until > you get a feel for the model on which Picture Window Pro is built. I think > the trick to Picture Window Pro is understanding the masking function and > how quickly it allows you to generate selective corrections. > > There are a few places where you can get a lot of information. > > The first is Digital Light and Color's own web site. Click on the > "articles" link. There are many articles and white papers. Even if you > don't use the program you'll probably find these very informative. > > Also on DL-C's website is the message board. User's questions are quickly > answered. Sach's participates almost daily. It's a small company, and you > communicate directly with the key people. > > The second web site is Norman Koren's excellent > <http://www.normankoren.com/> There are a number of tutorials that should > give you a feel for Picture Window Pro. The tutorial on Contrast Masking > compares the same process done in Photoshop and PWpro. > > I agree with your comment. Photoshop has some great tools for > retouching. On the other hand, I think the curves feature in Picture > Window Pro is better than that in Photoshop. Take a look at the tutorials > on Norman Koren's web site. > > Just a couple of other comments: > > Most people will spend more money on two or three Photoshop books than they > will spend on the Picture Window Pro program. There is more usable > information on the two web sites I mentioned above, than in most of the > Photoshop books in the stores today. (Don't get me wrong. There are some > good Photoshop books. It's just that most of them are mediocre attempts to > cash in on the "how to use Photoshop market".) > > Photoshop is a semi-trailer truck, Picture Window Pro is a sports car. I > ran the previous version of PWPro on a 200 MHz pc with only 128 Mbytes of > memory and could do anything I wanted with only minimal waiting time. I > could barely get Photoshop Elements to work on that machine. I didn't even > try to load Photoshop. For someone on a machine with limited resources > Picture Window Pro is the way to go. > > If you're working with large numbers of files and doing things in batches, > Photoshop wins. There just aren't any batch features in Picture Window Pro. > > Sorry about the length of this message. Let's hope there's something you > find useful within. > > See you later, gs > www.georgesphotos.net
