What solutions work for you outside Photoshop for editing in Layers?

One of the nice things about using layers in photoshop is that one can see and edit the mask. I've looked at "Perfect Layers" and it does seem to be useful, but they have designed a "bug with feet and antennae, (to me an iteration of Nik Software plugin's adjustment tool, (a fancy De Gaulle Cross), and a cropping tool so that we see the changes of using masking tools, but not the mask itself. At least not as straightforwardly as in PS.

Anyone here use Aperture with "Perfect Layers", GIMP or other solutions that can report on how useful they are compared to PS layers?

Asher

Hi, Asher,

This is not really germane (since there is no layer paradigm at work), but just for completeness, here is how one can see and edit a mask in Picture Publisher 10.

Here we see the image with -- oh, I forgot, I can't paste screen shot images (or any other kind) into posts here.

Never mind.

I'll send you an e-mail.

Best regards,

Doug

Asher Kelman said:

One of the nice things about using layers in photoshop is that one can see and edit the mask.

Click to expand...

Topaz Labs' photoFXlab, which is a kind of command center for the various Topaz Labs plugins, uses a similar approach to blending layers and masks as Photoshop does. It allows to use an adjustable Edge Aware brush to either paint (Burn/Dodge, Saturation, or Smooth/Detail) on the image layers, or with opacity/transparency on the masks of each layer.

The layers themselves can be images from files, or duplicates of other layers. Layers can be moved or merged, and each layer can be filtered with one or more of the Topaz Labs filters that one has purchased.

The layers can be individually resized, rotated, or moved. There are undo and redo

It's almost a mini-Photoshop in its own right, and respects the source image's bit depth.

Cheers,
Bart

Asher,

I am not quite sure if you saw what I put together here. You did not mention your primary application of layers, so I had to take an approach that covers the general stuff.

Whatever path you might pursue - there will always be a learning curve ahead.

Best regards,
Michael

At least on the PC side I'm not sure there is any cause to bother looking, at least for the next 5 years or so. CS6 which most have runs perfectly with Windows 7 and like XP before it, I have a feeling that Win 7 will reside on many a computer for a decade to come. I'm on XP 64 and CS6 works fine with it, I'm really not worried about obsolescence due to operating systems and neither am I worried that CS6 will cease to fulfil my processing and layers needs for many many years from now. There really haven't been all that many changes since CS4 or even earlier to be honest. The big changes have been in Bridge and ACR but, well, we will be using other raw converters than Adobe's in the future given that they have lost all trust in the photographic community. LR will be CC soon enough and I can't see a single pro allowing their library to be held ransom.

Ben Rubinstein said:

At least on the PC side I'm not sure there is any cause to bother looking, at least for the next 5 years or so. CS6 which most have runs perfectly with Windows 7 and like XP before it, I have a feeling that Win 7 will reside on many a computer for a decade to come. I'm on XP 64 and CS6 works fine with it, I'm really not worried about obsolescence due to operating systems and neither am I worried that CS6 will cease to fulfil my processing and layers needs for many many years from now. There really haven't been all that many changes since CS4 or even earlier to be honest. The big changes have been in Bridge and ACR but, well, we will be using other raw converters than Adobe's in the future given that they have lost all trust in the photographic community. LR will be CC soon enough and I can't see a single pro allowing their library to be held ransom.

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Hi Ben,

While I agree, I also dread the moment I need to reactivate my CS6 copy on a new computer. Who's to say that Adobe will be still as helpful in a few years, when the procedure doesn't work as intended.

I think as a contingency plan it is wise to think about alternatives before we actually need them. And, as in the case of e.g. Capture One, as a bonus one might even improve the image quality.

I was recently consulted by mail by a photographer about some image artifacts in landscape photographs from ACR and Lightroom Raw conversions, that were not present in Capture One, and in the free open source RawTherapee (which by the way also offers very good conversion quality).

That RawTherapee is becoming better all the time, although its huge feature set makes it a bit daunting at first glance, but it offers things like Richardson Lucy deconvolution sharpening that knocks the socks off of Photoshop ACR et all. But that's something for a different thread.

Cheers,
Bart

I really have to give C1 7 a try out. We're still using 6.3 in our studio, when we went to 6.4 it killed our tethering and as such we're not playing games until we have some downtime to do proper testing. Work is such that the downtime hasn't materialised at all and as such we're sticking with tried and tested.

C1 is a powerful program once you buy into their way of doing things. Sessions is heaven sent for tethering work for example even if it doesn't work very well for event shooting. I find C1 works very powerfully for studio or set up type work where you apply one set of changes to an entire shoot. ACR is a lot easier if you're going to work on pictures one by one, at least in my experience. I prefer the colour from Adobe and find it easier to play with, not that C1 isn't more powerful for colour, it certainly is, it's just nowhere near as easy to do, more geared for serious colour professionals than tinkerers. I also found that the highlight and shadow recovery in C1 6 was a joke compared to Adobe's version, I've heard that has changed in C1 7. Lens profiles, now that is very useful in ACR or LR. Ditto the aesthetic tools like vignetting control. Adding local adjustments is also quicker and easier in Adobe from my experience, single key press then paint. C1's version is more powerful as it uses layers but a lot more labour intensive unless you have a really big screen.

Pixelmator.

PS Elements.

Push comes to shove....Nik/Google sw.

There are many ways to skin a cat...not necessarily something arcane.

And Snapspeed, Pixelgene can do a quick and dirty job.

Examples ( maybe not artistic ) but 95% of images of Laos were done on an iPad and snapspeed or
Pixelgene. Prints are my proof. I do not do wall posters or gallery prints...at least not on my iPad.

YMMV.

You have interested me in RawTherapee Bart, I'm going to see if I can find a build which works on my XP64. I do have another hard disk with a fully set up and licensed Windows 7 setup for my machine but for various reasons I've not transferred over to it as yet.

Ben Rubinstein said:

You have interested me in RawTherapee Bart, I'm going to see if I can find a build which works on my XP64.

Click to expand...

Hi Ben,

Here is a developer (former core developer of RawTherapee) who is often faster at compiling a 64bit installer binary than the official RawTherapee site:
http://www.visualbakery.com/RawTherapee/Downloads.aspx
It can apparently also be installed to a memory stick, with the instructions that come with the ZIP file, although I haven't tried that myself.

There are also Mac and Linux (Ubuntu) installers available on the official RawTherapee website.

When you get it running, make sure to select the "Amaze" demosaicing method, it is, well, amazing. It's capable of extracting very high resolution with a minimum of artifacts from my Raw files.

Cheers,
Bart