Edit program choices
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
I prefer a download. I just keep the email confirming my purchase and the original .exe file I download together on my hard drive. I have a folder with several such downloads. I'm to the point now that physical media is becoming a PITA.
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The free version doesn't have anywhere near the level of presets (and/or sliders) and doesn't include any of the rest of the suite, but yes it's still free.
As for the OP's question, I don't mind a downloaded version, just keep a copy of your product key where you can find it in need.
Pretty much anything you buy on a physical disk will have an update coming at you sooner or later and you will end up downloading it anyway. In some cases, that update might come to you minutes after you install the disk version, so you sit through two installs. That said, I'm old too and I like a product box. In the past with Adobe products, I download the trial, then order the box and just enter the serial number when the box comes.
Don Kuykendall_RIP
RIP :(
Downloaded. And if you really want a hard backup of the file you can burn it to a DVD
How many of you guy's own Perfect Photo Suite 9.5- how do you like it? Can I use it as a stand alone program or do I need to couple it with LR or another program. I tried the trial version of Perfect Effects 9 and really liked it as it seemed much more user friendly than others. Thanks for your input so far. Paul
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
I've used Perfect Photo Suite a little... It's good. I'd say very good. It's not Photoshop but it's still very good. It is a stand-alone application; it does not, and can not, integrate with Photoshop although Perfect Photo is compatible with .PSD files. I guess whether it's right for you or not depends on how deeply you plan on getting into this. If you're pretty casual about your editing the Perfect Photo is probably a good choice. If you think you're going to want to really dive into this and get all hard core, then I'd suggest you simply pay the $10 a month to Adobe and start learning the industry-standard software, Lightroom and/or Photoshop. Neither application is hard to learn and you don't need to know every little thing those applications can do to reap huge benefits from using them.
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
The layout of Perfect Effects *is* very user-friendly, I agree. I think part of what scares people away from using Photoshop is the user-interface which does look confusing and complicated. All that being said, if I couldn't use Photoshop, I'd be hard pressed to find a better application than Perfect Effects.
Furthermore, and really just in case you haven't, you might want to consider either ACDSee Pro 8 or Corel's Paintshop Pro X7 Ultimate as well.
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I have the Suite and its comparable to Photoshop. I would suggest looking at their latest videos if in doubt. You can use it as a standalone or combined with LR/Photoshop, its your choice.
Its a really package, I actually did my last shoot with only importing into LR and then editing in the Suite. Worked really well for me, very please as a matter of fact. Now I am not a super user of Photoshop, so you could shoot holes in the package I am sure. It has a lot of tools, a lot of plugging and a lot of pro's that are using it.
I am trying to figure out if I can live with it and get rid of Photoshop. I dont need both, but will keep for a while longer.
Its a really package, I actually did my last shoot with only importing into LR and then editing in the Suite. Worked really well for me, very please as a matter of fact. Now I am not a super user of Photoshop, so you could shoot holes in the package I am sure. It has a lot of tools, a lot of plugging and a lot of pro's that are using it.
I am trying to figure out if I can live with it and get rid of Photoshop. I dont need both, but will keep for a while longer.
I own the Photo Suite and love it. It's easy to take a preset and deconstruct or add to get the exact look you're after, and the portrait module is quite nice to tweak with. It's sold as a standalone product, but I prefer to do all my cropping/straightening/cataloging in LR, and I much prefer the healing brush and cloning abilities of PS (not to mention the perspective tool), so I use them all.
LR first, then to the Perfect Suite and back to LR (all easily automated). If there's any healing, cloning, or perspective work to be done, I go to PS 2nd, and then an easy automated port to the Suite and back to PS before saving the final copy back to LR.
There are also a lot of tutorials on their site, along with monthly sampling of new presets to add. The only downside is with upgrades, as they charge for the next round where the NIK tools do not. Some here swear by the NIK collection, but for my style/approach, I've found the Suite to be a bit more user friendly (NIK is NOT hard, btw) toward how I approach and do things.
It's definitely a good bit of editing software, to be sure.
If there's a product key involved with any software purchase, a screen pops up with it, and usually one is emailed as well. I usually copy the key just in case the email fails...