MS Paint   |   ACDSee   |   PhotoShop

MS Paint

Microsoft Paint (frequently called MS Paint) is a simple graphics painting program that comes bundled with all modern versions of Microsoft Windows. The program opens and saves files as BMP, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and TIFF. The program can be in color mode and in monochrome mode. Thus for shades of grey the color mode is used.

Tutorials:
Microsoft Paint Tutorial
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/ahunt/MSPttutr.htm

Microsoft Paint!
http://edtech.utb.edu/6301/Paint.html

Advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
• Comes free with all versions of Windows
• Basic drawing, shapes, and cropping tools
• Support for JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG images

Disadvantages:
• Very basic editing capabilities
• Windows only
• Does not support layers

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ACDSee

ACDSee is a shareware image viewer software for Windows developed by ACD Systems. Besides the usual thumbnail viewing of folders and file type conversion, key features of ACDSee include slideshow presentations, CD/DVD burning, HTML gallery creation, image folder syncing and editing/indexing of image metadata like Exif. It is also possible to do minor image manipulation like cropping, scaling and rotating. A good image browser (with some editing options thrown in) and an excellent image management tool.

Tutorials:
Getting Started
http://files.acdsystems.com/english/acdsee/manuals/acdsee80-gettingstartedguide.pdf

VCD Slideshow Creation in ACDsee 8 Photo Manager
http://photography.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=35032

Getting Started
http://www.scrapbook-bytes.com/cgi-script/tutorials/publish/article_605.shtml

Advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
• Inexpensive
• Excellent file browsing • Support for metadata on images
• Good printing and publishing support
• Good file format support
• Acquire images from camera/scanner
• Batch editing capabilities
• Create PDFs and Flash slideshows

Disadvantages:
• Very basic editing options
• User interface set up more for browsing than editing

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PhotoShop

Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the market leader for commercial bitmap image manipulation, and probably the most well-known piece of software produced by Adobe Systems. It is considered the industry standard in most, if not all, jobs related to the use of visual elements.

Tutorials:
Photoshop Tutorials
http://www.absolutecross.com/tutorials/photoshop/

Photoshop Crash Course
http://www.webmonkey.com/design/graphics/tutorials/tutorial1.html

PhotoShop Cafe
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/

PhotoShop Lover
http://www.pslover.com/

Advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
• Cross-platform (Mac and Windows)
• Very powerful and full-featured
• Opens/saves any image format
• Integration with Acrobat (PDF creation and editing)
• Includes a file browser
• Good interface
• Creates files that can be edited later (i.e., for changing text)
• Supports layers
• Can download many add-on plugins

Disadvantages:
• The number of features can be overwhelming
• Very expensive
• Not as quick-and-easy for simple tasks

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