Microsoft Digital Image

[raybrizzi]

I volunteer at computer classes at a nearby community center. There's a digital

photography class there that has been using Microsoft Digital Image 10 as a

photo editing tool. It's very powerful and aimed at people who don't want to

learn too much about photography or overly detailed concepts. It does many of

the things you can do with Photoshop or Elements, but with a very simple

interface over the featuress. I've looked for other products like it and none of

them come close. Unfortunately, Microsoft in its wisdom has discontinued it and

supposedly put it into Vista, which I and the class folks don't have.

 

I also used it to get rid of negative scratches on black and white scans, and it

blows away every product I've tried. I'm talking about a white line across the

entire picture that this picture made disappear, with no visible artifacts and

no blurring, just VERY intelligent pixel by pixel hearing.

 

So my question is whether anyone has found another (hopefully free) product that

is very full featured but aimed at pure amateurs.

 

Thanks, Ray

[ronald_moravec1]

Bill wants you to upgrade to Vista. If upgraded to Apple.

 

Have you looked at gimp and the one from Google. I`ll remember the name as soon as I hit enter

[ronald_moravec1]

Told Ya. Picassa

[winddancing__]

"Seniors" love it. Can you elaborate about it being swallowed by Vista please. Some of it, all of it is in Vista? Sure, I could download a Demo of Vista, but that's a job for you young whipper-snappers. I am afraid that it would get mixed in with XP and a I'd have to eat digital stew until my last breath.

[Karim Ghantous]

PaintShop Pro sounds like the type of app that might do this. You'd have to try a demo though. But it has a cool timeline feature which gives you different colour 'looks' depending on the year you set (e.g. '50s, '30s etc.).

[raybrizzi]

I say seniors because most of the people in these classes are 70 or more.

 

Picasa is nothing like this. It's not primarily an organizer, just an editor. To see if I'm exaggerating about the product, try it yourself. It's a 60 day trial but then you can't buy it... Truly, it blew me away with its original design and easy to use features.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=f3ba983b-8c10-44f6-9044-2bb1464937dc&DisplayLang=en

 

http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/a/b/eabffb07-599d-4df3-9aad-7cb5f432e813/DIS_Manual.pdf

 

I agree re:Vista upgrade. Unless I have some major device that I HAVE to have with no XP drivers, I'm more than happy. The "replacement" product Photo Gallery is another overarching product with video, very basic editing only like Picasa, and mostly for organizing.

 

I'll try PSP to see how it looks. Thanks

[winddancing__]

We "seniors" get on the paratransit and go to eBay to buy discontinued SW. It might be possible to obtain a multiple users version

[gerund]

MS Digital Image was my favorite for many years. Very simple and effective to use. However, it did not have layers capabilities. As I recall it also did not

have the ability to open raw photos either. I gradually had to move beyond it

for more creative work.