Albums and archiving It costs you nothing to scan a photo, but the downside of this freedom is that images tend to accumulate and take up a lot of space on your hard drive. If you’re a “collector,” take a good look at an image-editing software’s options for organizing and archiving photos. Website creation and optimization Many image-editing programs have wizards, templates, and other features that allow you to create your own website easily, even if you have no prior experience in doing so. More sophisticated programs have tools for optimizing the images you post on your website. Photo-sharing on the Web If you’re not interesting in creating your own website, programs such as PhotoSuite and PhotoDeluxe allow you to share photos on their websites for access by your friends and family with a special password. Animation capabilities You don’t have to be a professional graphics artist to create animated effects from your photos. For example, PhotoSuite, a program for hobbyists, allows you to create animated GIF files that work sort of like those books that give the effect of animation as you quickly flip past a series of images. More sophisticated programs, such as Photoshop, have the capability to create professional-looking animated effects. Read the Reviews The Internet is a veritable convenience store for all different types of image-editing programs. You can read reviews and get product-specific information. Figure 9-1 shows an Amazon.com screen providing such information about PhotoSuite. You’ll also find excellent software reviews at ZDNet.com and About.com, shown in Figure 9-2. Survey the Software Market There are literally dozens of image-editing programs on the market, some of which are used for special purposes or have an industry niche. This section explores the capabilities of the most popular programs available today that are intended primarily for home use. Most of the programs discussed in this chapter are available bundled with scanners, although the bundled version isn’t always the most current version of the product. 144 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. FIGURE 9-1 Read about different image-editing programs on Amazon.com. If you’re considering Adobe products, be sure to pay attention to the widely varying system requirements. For example, Photoshop requires about 128MB of RAM to run its full range of features, while PhotoSuite and PhotoDeluxe will run on a lean 32MB. CHAPTER 9: Selecting the Right Image-Editing Program 145 9 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. FIGURE 9-2 About.com contains links to reviews of popular image-editing programs. Adobe: Targeting Three Different Types of Users Adobe has, for many years, enjoyed a reputation as the premier manufacturer of image-editing software. The company’s current marketing strategy is to target three different levels of consumers: experts, serious hobbyists, and entry-level users. 146 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. Photoshop is the high-end program aimed at professionals and serious hobbyists. It comes bundled with a few high-end scanners, and has a current retail price of about $600. Photoshop Elements is a pared-down version of Photoshop, aimed at the relatively sophisticated digital-camera and scanner user. As of the writing of this book, it costs around $100 and is not bundled with too many scanners, although it might appear as a bundled product in the future. PhotoDeluxe is a simplified, relatively limited image- editing program aimed at the entry-level user. PhotoDeluxe currently comes bundled with a number of scanners and is a great starter program for the beginner. Photoshop: Powerful but Complex Photoshop is considered the program of choice among graphics professionals. It’s a high-end program, currently retailing at $609 as a download from the Adobe website. It has a wide range of capabilities and is considered one of the most powerful image- editing programs available—but its learning curve can be daunting. The sheer number of features can be overwhelming, and probably more than you’ll ever need. Even many professionals opt to use a simpler program, such as PhotoSuite, to accomplish routine touchup tasks quickly, since they find the program less cumbersome to work with. They break out Photoshop only when they need to delve into its more extensive editing features for a particular project. Photoshop Features If you’re fortunate enough to purchase a scanner that has Photoshop bundled with it, don’t be intimidated from giving the program a try. Free tutorials to help you use this program are available on the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/products/tips. The Web page shown in Figure 9-3 has links to tutorials ranging from how to perform basic correction and editing tasks to how to make sophisticated animated effects for use on the Web. Some of the features that you get with Photoshop that you don’t with most other programs include: Highly sensitive correction tools The image-correction tools in Photoshop are more extensive and sensitive than those found in other image-editing programs. Extensive color-adjustment capabilities Photoshop contains many sophisticated color adjustments, such as Levels and Curves, that can help you correct and fine-tune the balance of shadows, midtones, and highlights in your image. Other commands, such as Color Balance and Hue/Saturation, let you precisely adjust the color of an image. CHAPTER 9: Selecting the Right Image-Editing Program 147 9 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. FIGURE 9-3 Adobe provides free online tutorials for Photoshop. Histograms These sophisticated graphs represent the mathematical values of light and dark areas in a photo, and allow you to make adjustments using the graph. Sophisticated animation tools Although PhotoSuite allows you to create animated GIF files, Photoshop offers you much greater control over the timing of your animation. 148 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. . Free tutorials to help you use this program are available on the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/products/tips. The Web page shown in Figure 9-3 has links to tutorials ranging from how to perform. such as PhotoSuite and PhotoDeluxe allow you to share photos on their websites for access by your friends and family with a special password. Animation capabilities You don’t have to be a professional. much greater control over the timing of your animation. 148 How to Do Everything with Your Scanner Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark.