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Commercial Image Editing Software
Photoshop || Photo-Paint || Paint Shop Pro
There are a number of popular image editing software programs. Most of these programs were initially developed for the use of the desktop publishing or web design community. The programs have many powerful features that are often completely unrelated to the needs of scientific users. Since most of these programs can do all the tasks that are appropriate for scientists, choosing the correct program often comes down to weighing the factors of:
- Previous experience with the software (the "learning curve" can be significant)
- Cost (look into the possibilities of educational pricing for academic users or volume pricing if several computers will use the program)
- Other programs or features bundled with the program
- The program's hardware requirements (imaging is a resource intensive task for computers)
The following list of commercial image editing programs is not meant to be exhaustive. Visit the vendor's web page for more information about the program. Be sure to review the hardware requirements and availability for your computer platform. (NOTE: the links that follow each program are to "tips" sites. Many of the tips will be for desktop publishing users and/or web developers. Scientists should be cautious in the use of some of these tips for re s.)
Photoshop (Adobe Systems, Inc.) Windows, Macintosh
- The Basics:
- Adobe Photoshop Basics Online Course (About.com)
- Quick Photoshop for Research (Jerry Sedgewick, author of a book by the same title)
- Tutorials (Teamphotoshop.com)
- Photoshop 5 tips and tutorials (Expresso Graphics)
- Photoshop tips (GFX^TM)
- Memory Management (Photoshop Tutorial Source)
- Sharpening - unsharp mask (Jay Arraich)
- Photoshop Tutorials and archives of the Photoshop Q&A section of Adobe Magazine (Adobe Systems)
- Planet Photoshop (MacWorld Magazine)
- Photoshop 5.5 Tips & Tricks (Jeff Park and Wedgeworks Media)
- Photoshop Professional Tips & Tricks (Art Lebedev)
- Photoshop Tips & Tricks (The Design & Publishing Center)
- Photoshop Tutorials (thinkdan.com)
Photo-Paint (Corel Corporation) Windows, Linux
- The Basics:
- Tutorials and Tips for Photopaint 11 and 12 (Corel Designer)
- PhotoPaint Basics, Tools and Features (About.com)
- More Advanced Resources:
- Tips & Tricks (Corel Designer.com)
- Tutorials in PDF
(SquareOne Graphics) (Note: this site is currently under re-construction) - Tutorial-a-day (About.com)
Paint Shop Pro (JASC Software) Windows
- The Basics:
- Paint Shop Pro 7 Tutorial Index (Linda Nieuwenstein)
- Version 5, 6, 7 tutorials (Robin M. Wood )
- Tutorials List (Paint Shop Pro users group)
- Paint Shop Pro Tutorials (Joe Cilinceon)
- More Advanced Resources:
- Paint Shop Pro Tutorials (PSP Interactive Zone)
- Paint Shop Pro tips and tutorials (Pinoy7)
- The PaintShop Pro Foundry (Digital Foundry.com)
- Paint Shop Pro Power Newsletter
Free Scientific Imaging Software
NIH Image || Scion Image || Image J || ImageTool
Free software has an obvious appeal and some of these tools may have all the features an end-user will need. Most of these programs are intended more for the analysis of digital images, rather than the editing of images.
NIH Image (National Institutes of Health, USA) Macintosh
NIH Image is a very mature image analysis program. It hasn't changed much in the last several years, as the author has focused his development efforts on ImageJ. Dr. Harvey J. Karten has written an article entitled "NIH Image : Use In Fluorescence and Confocal Microscopy" that may be of interest.
Scion Image (Scion Corp) Windows
This Windows port of NIH Image has become more stable recently. Users must register/login at the Scion website to obtain the software & manual. Note: they do not offer technical support unless you own one of their frame grabber boards.
Image/J (NIH) "Requires a Java 1.1 compliant browser such as Netscape 4.5 or later (PC) or IE 4.0 or later (PC or Mac)."
A JAVA-based imaging program being developed by Wayne Rasband of the NIH. The program is inspired by NIH Image and is regularly updated. Read the information about the program carefully, since some browser/operating system/JAVA version combinations don't work as well as others.
Imagetool (Univ. of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio) Windows
It appears as if the on-going development of this program has stalled. Release 1.27 is fairly stable, but the 2.0 alpha version has been the same since 1997.
