Posted on by yoongz

Fixed! And Discovery…

Hurray! My brilliant hubby fixed the computer! He came home on Saturday morning and looked into it that afternoon. He went out to get a SATA cable/drive the same afternoon and proceeded to download all my files, which was my major concern, and kept them safe. After which, he spent most of his free time over Sunday and Monday restoring the Operating System. Success by Monday evening! Then some testing and we were back online!! Thank God for a “geeky” husband 😉

So while the husband was busy trying to pump new life into old computer, i was on my little netbook (which is normally used only for writing), trying to get it to work like a big laptop, in order to carry on doing everything i want to on a computer. With that in mind, i searched the internet for a replacement to Photoshop (my version of Photoshop is sooooo very old) so i can continue sharing pictures here. (Yes i know i can just upload the raw pictures but i just like to tweet my photos and have a little control over them)

Now i offer to you my very short first ever tech review of software (and likely my last?):

Photoscape and Paint.NET

i like Photoscape for it’s easy to use interface and the quick way you can make changes such as applying sepia tones to a photo and put it into a special frame (i did not manage to create my own frame, i used one of the pre-sets). However, it does not support layers and is mainly a program to simply and quickly enhance your photos. And for this purpose, it is a great program! Below is an example of what you can do in a few short minutes:

Sepia tones, frame and text added in just a matter of minutes.

For me, Paint.NET comes closer to Photoshop. It supports layers and has similar tools and icons. The extend of manipulation is far greater than Photoscape and with the exceptions of a few functions, such as the variety of saved file format available, i’m very happy with it. The one thing i did not like was that text immediately becomes pixels and thus can not be changed after you click enter. It can be worked around if you do a little extra planning. Here is what i managed to do about 10mins into using the program:

Custom frame, text and slight image manipulation done using layers.

The best part is both programs are free to download!

Here’s a review of Photoscape and Paint.NET by Cnet. Have a read. Maybe give it a try. Let me know what you think 😉

syc

7 Replies to “Fixed! And Discovery…”

  4. Glad your computer is up and running. I’ve dabbled with Paint.net, but find it very hard. I wish I could take a graphic arts class, but everything I’ve looked into you have to actually be a declared art major to enroll, and I just want a few classes, not another degree. Sigh.

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    1. hmm… yes, i should qualify that few sentence review on Paint.net – if one is moving from Photoshop to Paint.net, then it is ok. But with no background, it can be difficult to understand… do you not have like a community centre of sorts where they offer such classes? We have a major supermarket here which opened a Club School and offers all sorts of classes – from aerobics to sewing, baking to computer stuff & of course language classes too… in Singapore we have community centres which do the same… sort of like hobby classes etc… maybe you could find an Arts Major who needs extra pocket money & they could teach you?

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