editing software

jennypeny

Hi all

Not sure if this is correct place to post but...

I am looking to buy some editing software online for home use and I was wondering if anyone might be able to recommend one that is easy enough to use but still has all the cool features you would be looking for and chances to do more with the movies / pictures ones you got the hang of it?

Any ideas?

5uspect

At the costly end Photoshop CS5 extended will edit both images and video at a professional level.

At the free end GIMP will do most of the image editing Photoshop can do but in a less intuitive interface. For video VirtualDub is a great free editor.

There are a host of less complex image editors such as paint.net and picassa.

In the middle you have Paintshop Pro and Photoshop Essentials.

I would start with the free software. There is some excellent free software that can far exceed what a lot of crappy pay software can do. GIMP is a great choice, tricky to get to grips with at first, but very powerful. Once yu get to grips with that try out the free trials of pay software. Adobe provide 30 day free trials for all their software as well as heavily discounted student editions.

Windows comes with Windows Movie Maker which isn't bad for editing home movies.
If you're on a Mac you have iLife of course with nifty iPhoto and iMovie installed by default.

mathepac

+1 @Suspect, a good balanced lists of options and alternatives there (just what I was going to type of course ). Good post

5uspect

Don't a lot of them use Sony Vegas on Mac? Linux video editing is still maturing at the moment.

Mister Man

5uspect wrote: »

Don't a lot of them use Sony Vegas on Mac? Linux video editing is still maturing at the moment.

I'm not sure you can get Sony Vegas on a mac, Most mac users use iMovie and Final Cut Pro I believe

5uspect

Mister Man wrote: »

I'm not sure you can get Sony Vegas on a mac, Most mac users use iMovie and Final Cut Pro I believe

FCP, that was it.

p

Premiere Elements is supposed ot be pretty good.

en.r4cart

gimp should be better cos it is free.

I would recommend it.

5uspect

It's got a gimpy UI tho.

ScumLord

5uspect wrote: »

At the costly end Photoshop CS5 extended will edit both images and video at a professional level.

I didn't know photoshop extended did video at all. By god she does, I guess you learn something new everyday.

5uspect

Yeah it's pretty cool once you start adding adjustment layers.
Also you can use the tween tool to make flash like animations for animated gifs very quickly.

ScumLord

5uspect wrote: »

Yeah it's pretty cool once you start adding adjustment layers.
Also you can use the tween tool to make flash like animations for animated gifs very quickly.

I had used gif animation in older versions of imageready, it was a separate program wasn't it?

At this rate Photoshop and After Effects will end up doing the same thing. I'm just after getting my head around After Effects it's a madly complicated program, the more like photoshop they can make it the better.

5uspect

ScumLord wrote: »

I had used gif animation in older versions of imageready, it was a separate program wasn't it?

At this rate Photoshop and After Effects will end up doing the same thing. I'm just after getting my head around After Effects it's a madly complicated program, the more like photoshop they can make it the better.

I think they split ImageReady into PS and Fireworks.

Totally agree about After Effects, complicated as hell but I still wish I could use it.

imyourman

can someone direct me to which application is used to create this kind of animation? I'm looking to do something similar for my media class
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flodMj-DyhI

p

5uspect wrote: »

At the costly end Photoshop CS5 extended will edit both images and video at a professional level.

Just to clear up any confusion, this isn't really true. Photoshop CS5 has some video handling features, but it would be a very very poor video editing tool.

5uspect

imyourman wrote: »

can someone direct me to which application is used to create this kind of animation? I'm looking to do something similar for my media class
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flodMj-DyhI

Adobe Flash is pretty much the industry standard for such animations.

imyourman

adobe flash... thanks I appreciate the info....
Cheers

fishkyjim

cs5 rules