1. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    MSDigital Image replacement suggestions please

    Discussion in 'Writing Software and Hardware' started by cutecat22, Jun 16, 2018.

    Hi, all.

    Alas, my copy of MSDigital Image (2006) is not longer usable and MS don't make it anymore (and haven't updated or supported it for years). But, I loved it, it was soooooooooo easy to use and quite "oldskool" which suited me as, I'm old. (OK, I'm 45, not exactly ancient but, old.

    So, I need a replacement that works much the same, mainly for putting together adverts for my social media pages so that's laying pics on top of other pics, resizing stuff, adding text and maybe adding filters. I can't quite do all of that in the photo-editor that's already installed as part of Windows 10. (unless I'm doing something wrong, which is a possibility).

    And the first person to say 'photoshop' will be blanked. I hate photoshop, it's for professionals, and I am not a pro when it comes to photo editing and the such like.

    Any ideas? (I've just downloaded Gimp but I'm worried about the steep learning curve that everyone keeps mentioning ...)

    Thanks in advance xxx
     
  2. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    Forget Gimp - it might as well be a free copy of Photoshop with all its black background, small writing, and mention of layers! Ugh!! All I want is a basic drag and drop, cut and paste, add text box, insert and resize a picture, send to back, bring to front, pick up an object and move it, save as editable .png file, or save as a flattened complete jpg file and off we go program. Is that really too much to ask?

    *head, desk, ouch*
     
  3. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    Oh, I've just found Photoscape ... So far, so good!
     
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  4. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    :cheerleader:Another happy ending. :cheerleader:
     
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  5. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    I would also recommend Canva - it's super simple and has a lot of templates that are pre-sized for different social media platforms.
     
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  6. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    ooo I'll have a look at that too - thanks x
     
  7. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Canva is more of a DTP platform, like indesign than a photo editor.

    Irfanview is another simple option for photoediting
     
  8. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Right, but OP said she wanted to:

    I think Canva does all of that (maybe not the filters though)? You are correct that if she wants to manipulate images it doesn't really do that, and I agree that Irfanview is pretty good freeware. I only use about 10% of it's features and it does the trick for me.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2018
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  9. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    as far as I can tell canva doesn't do cutting out figures worth a toss, so you really need a photo editor for layering images.

    Incidentally Stuart Bache is offering DIY facebook adds now, but that's really limited to those who do use photoshop
     
  10. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Ah, I had the wrong impression of how she was using the term "layer". I though she literally meant dropping one picture on top of another, a la Powerpoint. I wasn't thinking about layers in the Photoshop=y sense. :)
     
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  11. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    I did DTP at college 16 years ago - using Aldus Pagemaker on Apple Macs.
     
  12. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    You are absolutely correct! I don't want to layer, I want to lay images on top/over eachother without separating into layers.

    I've been playing with PhotoScape for a few days and so far, I'm liking it. I've managed to pull three separate images together to create an advert for a fictionl night club, once that's saved, I can them pull it into another part of PhotoScape to add an "opening soon" banner across it, and it looks brilliant!

    One of the other things I like to do, is take a picture (or find one from a free use site) of something from my book, add a snippet of text from the book and some links, and use those as adds. So far, it's letting me do exactly that.

    I can still use the photo editor that came as part of windows 10 for the simple things with my own digital photography, like resizing, cropping, straightening and maybe changing the colours or adding a filter, but yeah, I'm loving PhotoScape at the moment.
     
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  13. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    fair enough - I was misled because she seemed to be saying that people would suggest photoshop - the Adobe package for this sort of thing is Indesign
     
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  14. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    When I've spoken to people in the past (not on here) the majority has gone straight in with the suggestion of Photoshop. The trouble is, Photoshop is fab if you know how to use it, and you are a professional artist/photographer/graphics person/IT person/Designer/etc etc. And I'm not. I'm not even that techie minded and I have no desire (or time) to learn how to use it. This is why MSDI was perfect for me. It was soooooo simple to use and I could use it to manipulate pictures, make mock-ups of book covers, polish my own photographs, make memes, make cards/calendars/picture collages, all that stuff simply by dragging/dropping/cutting/pasting/importing stuff.

    So I thought people here might suggest photoshop too, which is why I said 'not photoshop' LOL
     
  15. ThunderAngel

    ThunderAngel Contributor Contributor

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    I don't really know of a stripped down photo-editor you can download; I'm thinking Fotor - an online editor - might be simple enough to use, but it still has quite a few options.

    Another option would be to import your images into a word-processor where you can add text to them - Libreoffice Writer will allow you to do this.

    If you like just basic photo-editing, it wouldn't be too difficult to use only the basic functions of a dedicated photo-editor like Gimp or Krita; they're pretty simple to navigate, despite their myriad options. :)
     
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  16. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    I tried Gimp before I found PhotoScape, but I thought Gimp was too much like Photoshop, where the screen was just too busy with options and functions, half of which I don't even know what they mean! LOL.

    I'm currently playing with PhotoScape and so far, I'm really liking it.
    x
     
  17. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    To be honest photoshop's not difficult to learn (I find it easier than gimp), you just ignore the bits you don't need... however photoshop and gimp are both photo editors... for the work at hand you need a DTP platform for which the Adobe version indesign and the freeware is scribus ...
     
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  18. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    Glad you found something you like (PhotoScape). :)

    Still, I want to mention MS PowerPoint and MS Publisher (or equivalent in free packages such as LibreOffice). They're built for this kind of drag-and-drop creation of anything from presentations (not applicable here) to posters, ads and flyers. They can export as images, and apply basic image filters.
    A downside worth mentioning is that the background of a "document" cannot be made transparent, so only rectangular ads/whatever can be created.
     
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  19. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    My original MSDigital Imaging was absolutely perfect, I will never understand why Microsoft dropped it. I guess I knew this day was coming as their latest MSDigital Image was dated 2006 and they stopped the updates not many years later.
     
  20. Komposten

    Komposten Insanitary pile of rotten fruit Contributor

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    I honestly don't think I've ever heard of MS Digital Imaging before reading this thread...
     
  21. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Yeah it's been paint or publisher for as long as I can remember
     
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  22. cutecat22

    cutecat22 The Strange One Contributor

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    really? Oh, I loved it. You could use it as a photo album for digital pics as well as editing them and generally doing all the stuff I needed to do to make mock ups of book covers, and adverts etc. And it was sooooo simple to use.
     
  23. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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  24. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    according to wiki it was then wrapped into ms photo album and then into ms essentials before being completely discontinued in 2012.
     
  25. noobienieuw

    noobienieuw Banned

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    Dont recall MS digital image. Was that a newer version of paint? or one of their other image aps?

    You do not need to be a pro to use the basic features of that photo program you don't like.
    I still use PS version 7 and it does all that I need to do even if pros like lightroom or later iterations of PS.

    Many amateurs use GIMP as a replacement now that adobe wants to rent you their software.

    Here are others to replace the microslop offering:
    https://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-photo-editor -- actually lists several
     
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