I have been growing more and more frustrated with my current image editor, Photoshop Elements. Not least because of it’s incessant update demands – and I have yet to notice a single benefit, despite the exclamation marks on every announcement.
I built my first web site with Serif WebPlus, and was interested when I heard they were going to try and take on the full fat Photoshop, and no nasty support rental charges.
Well, it was on offer, and I have a Christmas break coming up, (with a chance to spend time learning it), so the timing seemed good. Incidentally, apart from taking them up on the £10 off deal, open to everyone, no money changed hands for this review.
I’m also aware that other members of the International Association of Astronomical Artists are more than a bit resentul of the rental approach too…
So, where to start learning?
The training material is impressive. There’s a very large number of videos avilable on the Vimeo channel, and they are in handy bite sized chunks, making it easy to learn one feature at a time.
16 images input, and a few were a bit soft in focus. Worked perfectly!
Now this one is very nasty – but it’s almost done it – the rigging near the bow does not quite line up, but it’s done better than PT Gui. I suspect the wind may have caused a problem…
This one had a broad range of sky brightnmess, but it came out very well.
In summary, I’d say the strengths of the panorama processing include:
- Works fully automatically
- No nasty banding in sky blends
- Fast
- Works even better with RAW format input
- Handles tricky stitches better than most.
- Does an excellent job on the colour and brightness in the stitch.
Personally I find I am more likely to learn complkex software if I find one thing where it excels really fast, as it rapidly becomes a tool of choice for at least something, and I get to learn more as I use it for that.
Is there a downside?
Well, there’s a huge amount of functionality in here, so the investment in time to learn will completely swamp the investment cost.
But if you are looking for something with a very clear edge ofver the low end software, at a great price, you will very probably be happy with it.
Replacement for the full Photoshop?
I can’t really say, not being a user of the full version. But definitely powerful, and relatively easy to use. Take a look at some of the training videos, and choose for yourself.