Camera's with MACRO are covered but what about......

cacheman

...photo editing software? I just bought a Nikon CoolPix 995 but the photo editing software that came with it is funky at best. I don't need full blown image editing capabilties such as Adobe Photoshop but it would be nice to have the ability to batch rename, define rotation parameters, use a circle mask template, etc., to deal with the photos I want to take of coins....

I realize that this has been discussed before but it would be helpful to me, and other camera newbies on the forum, to know what other digital image savvy members use. Additionally, is anyone aware of any good digital imagery "how to" books or ebooks out there? Thanks!

shylock

The software that came with my Dell (Image Expert) fills all the basic needs, and even has an eliptical tool for cropping circles. Not sure if this can be downloaded for commercial use but I'm sure there's comparable, inexpensive software out there.

An Ebook I found helpful for Nikons was this one. It doesn't get very in depth with macro but the gentleman who wrote it knows the Coolpix series inside and out.

Russ

About the only thing I ever do is crop and resize, so for that I use Thumbs Plus from Cerius Software. It has quite a few other features also, I just don't use them.

I also have this program called PhotoImpression that came with my HP scanner. It does the circle thing and a bunch of other stuff. One of these days I'm going to set aside some time and learn how to use it.

Russ, NCNE

nwcs

You can get the Photoshop LE which is a reduced set of Photoshop

hughesm1

I just use the Photo Editor that comes with Office, it does cropping as well and the pictures come out OK.
Here's an example of what I did in this thread:
http://forums.collectors.com/messageview.cfm?catid=26&threadid=137861
though here I used a bit too much compression.

Loki

Paintshop Pro!! For < $50 street, it is one heck of a graphics package. I like the ability to load, convert, and save pics in lots of different formats. It has all the major editing features you see in higher-priced graphics packages such as RBG, Brightness/Contrast/Hue controls, sharp/soften filters, etc. etc. Another neat feature is the ability to merge background pics along with the coin, ala some of Anaconda's auction pics. I don't think he does it that way but if you have some neat stock background pics you can easily merge them with the coin pic without losing any resolution.

onlylincolns

PaintShop Pro is a great program for editing graphics.

Another package named ACDSee is one of my favorites. Their website is: http://www.acdsystems.com/English/index.htm

You can modify graphics similar to PaintShop Pro but this application has added features for file storage, database indexing of graphics, photo albums, etc.

mdwoods

I highly recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0, less than a hundred bucks, great features and it is easy to save files for the web (ebay or whatever) in different sizes to compensate for download times. It has many, many features, more than you will ever use. I don't know what the full blown version of PhotoShop has over PhotoShop Elements, but unless you are an artist I doubt you will need them. I have tried 3 or 4 others also, but Elements is the one I like. mdwoods