One of the things I find so difficult to deal with on my computer is changes! Yeah, I know, "life is change". The last time I played with the 'collage' feature on Picasa I could pivot the images after I moved them to the collage page - now I cannot. If that feature is still there it is buried.
"Camera Tossing #5" 04-15-10
"Camera Tossing #4" 04-15-10
I was trying to work with these four almost identical squares, but since I can't flip and pivot this is the best I can currently do. I may have to break down and learn Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Some advise to just try Elements first, but other say if I am going to do it just go whole hog and learn Photoshop to begin with. Any ideas?
I always read a lot and when I am doing the "rest in bed, drink plenty of fluids, etc." business, I read more than a lot. Fortunately my friends Carol and Dick Bednar are willing to trade books, so I usually have at least two or three new ones waiting on my nightstand. Last month the Book Group read "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford, but I was busy traveling. I just read it this week and I think it is a great read. It is about a small group of people living in Seattle at the beginning of the USA involvement in WWII. The story is told by a twelve year old Chinese American boy and deals with the internment of his Japanese friend. It is sad and shameful and heart wrenching and happy. There are many reader reviews at:
And I agree about the anachronisms and about the level of maturity in the voices of Henry as child and Henry as adult. However, things were very different in 1942 - even just the cultural differences may be partially to blame. ("Life is change"!) But the story itself is gripping and I enjoyed the book very much.
5 comments:
I have been using Photoshop for many years working as a graphic designer. It has features designed for preparing work for commercial printing that Elements does not have, plus a few more additions. It is a very complex program and as long as I have been using it (about 15 years) I still don't use all of its features.
Honestly, for most users who are not preparing files for printers I think Elements is a great program and all you would ever need. I would save the money and go with Elements if I were you.
Hi Del: I agree completely with Terry: Elements is plenty for most. I use the full version only because I got used to that back before there was an Elements and I've stuck with it because of the Premium Standard package (InDesign, Illustrator and Bridge are all things I use a lot too) Once the initial "ouch" is over paying for the big guys, upgrades are not bad and not necessary for my needs all that often. Ex: I am using CS4 thanks to my wonderful son's gift a while back and I don't see any need to upgrade to the recently released CS5, but I keep an eye on new functions in the new releases.
PS: my older iPod has been wearing Gelaskins forever it seems; way before the new artist's creations have been picked up by the company--mine is the spaghetti monster. Still looks brand new btw, but I bought a hard plastic protector case for my iTouch thinking it might need more protection plus I wanted to be able to see my name engraved on the back .
Hi Del, ditto, ditto, ditto:-)
I have an old Photoshop program that I use because I'm familiar with it, but got a new Elements for the laptop because I wasn't home to transfer the old PS. The newer Elements isn't a lot different from the big Photoshop, which I think has far more features than I'll ever use -- as Terry said, it's meant for professional printing purposes, but once I got used to the slightly different menus, I haven't found anything in PS that isn't also in Elements. Elements has more than I'll ever use, too, and the new version has a couple of features that the old PS doesn't and so I sometimes switch to it.
I can't remember learning to use PS, except I think that it took me a while to get some concepts into my wee brain -- "layers" was one of them, and it turns out that layers are essential. It's just that they are hard to figure out the logic of the menus for their use. But I love the brightness/contrast feature and levels, both of which in the old PS are found as subheads under something like "Images."
Get Elements and a Dummies book and learn as you go -- when you are disappointed in a washed out photo, try making the contrast more dramatic. And so forth. It's a pain to learn a new program, but if you've reached the end of what you can do with your current set-up, then maybe bite the bullet (and your tongue) and buy Elements. After a year, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.
And if you can stand yet another similar comment (grin), go with the cheaper Elements. I recently downloaded a trial version (you can do that, too, to experiment first to see if you like it) because I refuse to pay Adobe's enormous price for Photoshop, and soon I'll be in need of a new version. Elements surprised me in that it offered all of the same features I use on a daily basis in Photoshop.
I loved that book! Stayed up reading it till I finished it one night.
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