SOLVED Looking for replacement programs

[draceena]

I'm a long time user of Photofiltre http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm

I'm not sure how it's menus and toolbars compare to Paint Shop but it has more complex adjustments if you like to tweak and play.

 

[Mychael]

Yes, I am serious. I use an older version of PSP, that disables Aero every time I am running it, and I don't really want to pay to upgrade and I kinda like the looks of that.

TM, what version are you running? As per my OP I have version 8 when it was still JASC Paint Shop Pro and it falls over most of the time in windows 7 even in compatability mode.

 

[TrainableMan]

I run PSP X. It runs fine in W7 but Aero is automatically disabled any time it is open.

 

[TrainableMan]

I'm a long time user of Photofiltre

Is the help, menus, etc available in English or is it only in French?

 

[Core]

Try Gimp. Pretty sure it has a Windows clone.

 

[Mychael]

Thanks everyone lots of suggestions here. Maybe I can find me an old copy of PSP 10 lying around at a swap meet or something.

 

[TrainableMan]

I don't know how big a difference X is from 8 but I can tell you I came from PSP 6 and it would have been just as easy for me to learn a new product as it was to learn X. The changes were so huge it may as well have been a new product. I still don't know all the bells and whistles.

 

[Mychael]

I think I had 6 at one time in the distant past. Cannot even recall how much differeent 8 was to 6. I've found references to version 9 but not 10.
Like you I've not learnt all the bells and whistles but I also plan on joining a camera club and might get some lessons there.
Also with any luck maybe get some club discounts on new photo software.
Just a damm shame I cannot get pro 8 to run relaibly in Windows 7.
No one has commented on the other program I mentioned SD Viewer so I must assume no one ever used it, you'd only ever have come across it if you'd owned a Panasonic camera.

 

[TrainableMan]

If SD viewer is just to look at photos from a camera SD card then Windows Photo Viewer does that natively.

And if SD Viewer provides some way of sorting pics into folders and tagging your photos, well then Google's Picasa does that.

 

[Mychael]

Yes it does those things as well as automatically recognising the camera when it's plugged in and loading.
Mainly it has a very easy and quick interface for re-naming files and for tagging to re-size. I guess I like it 'cos I'm used to it and in XP it runs perfectly as does PSP8.
Of course given I can dual boot then the programs are not lost to me as such but it would just be nice to be able to do all my work in Win7 as it's faster. (most of the time).

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

I know my mate is well in to his Canon Camera gear. He once got stuck and decided to load up the program that came with the camera (I'm assuming Canon). He was very highly surprised at what he could do with pictures. e.g. adding a missing person into the group shot. To be honest, when he showed me the photo I couldn't spot the odd one out until he told me. That may be his abilities in this kind of stuff but he swore the program did 95% of the donkey work.

 

[TrainableMan]

If your camera has the firmware needed it may automatically be recognized as a drive when connected under W7. Other cameras require a driver. Older cameras like mine actually stopped providing that driver and my USB interface cannot be used; Nikon's instructions for my camera now say to plug the media card into an all-in-1 reader. Regardless of which method you use, under W7 the files are simply there as an extra drive (it may be necessary for some users to go to Disk Management and assign it a drive letter but it should be there).

So Windows Explorer allows you to drag & drop and create folders in "My Pictures" and move them there, rename them, etc. If you want a bulk renaming utility then I use WildRename which is a powerful utility that can rename all the files under any folder tree.

Tagging to resize, this I don't understand?

 

[draceena]

Is the help, menus, etc available in English or is it only in French?
View attachment 3489

They are in English

 

[Mychael]

Tagging to resize, this I don't understand?

With SD viewer when it loads automatically upon sensing the camera (otherwise I start it manually) it brings up all the images in the camera (more correctly the camera card).
If I just put in the card via a reader it wont load the program automatically and I have to navigate to the card then open it.
You can highlight (it calls it tagging) any number of the images (although 6 at a time seems to work better), then in tools you can re-size. It gives quick options as to what you want to re-size the image to, you then click 'apply to all images' (the ones tagged) and it creates a duplicate of the original only re-sized.
Very quick and easy to reduce things for sending etc.

 

[TrainableMan]

That program of Dracena's mentions being able to do batch mode stuff - I think that might be able to resize groups of pics that way.

 

[Mychael]

I've had a play with photofiltre. I like it so far.. Interface feels a lot like PSP though icons not as clear. I like it's auto shadow and highlight adjust. Have not found the batch re-sizing as yet.
Thanks Dracena and everyone else for your input.

 

[TrainableMan]

Automatisation module
This module allows you to apply basic functions/corrections (conversion, image size, framing) to a group of images.

This is what you are looking for.

 

[Mychael]

Found it, thanks TM not quite as easy as SD viewer which lets you just choose the size in bytes but still pretty good.

 

[draceena]

For Batch functions, look under the Tools area; it's called Automate/Batch - set the Source Folder then the Output folder and you should then be able to use the Tabs to make the size adjustments you need.