Photocraft

 

 The last few days I've been playing with Photocraft, a sort of Photoshop clone, this free software has gone up I think 4 versions since I downloaded the early version.

I'm still playing with the last version (haven't had time to update it)  So far I have to say I'm impressed.  It's one of the better free offerings.  Yes Gimp has been around ages and works fine, but Photocraft has the advantage of an almost identical interface to Photoshop, which makes it simpler to use if your a Photoshop user.

Given that this is still in development, there are a few niggles, but the core editing is working fine.  Also it's worth remembering they are updating almost every day.  In a few weeks this has the potential to be even better.

Now to be fair there are a number of free offerings, Gimp I've mentioned, Raw Therapee, Rapid raw, Darktable, Photo Demon and many others.  Some are easy, some are insanely complicated with interfaces designed by a sadist.

Out of these Photocraft and Photo Demon stand out as easy, for me Photocraft wins, it's so like Photoshop which I'm used to it's a piece of cake. 

Is it better than Photoshop?  the short answer is not yet, but it's close, and considering it's free.....  

Pirate pug

 Arrr Jim lad, there be a Spanish sausage treasure ship to port.  Prepare to board

Farmer pug

 Pugs like growing's this, especially sausages......

Evening walk pic

 Took this a few days ago. I'd gone out with the intention of getting a sunset, but there wasn't really one that evening.  I ended up exploring a new way home.  Got this shot on the way back, this is as close to a sunset as we got.

Halloween is getting closer

 Pugs love treats, even trick or treats

Free photo software, a rival to Adobe?

 Recently a new software company have launched a Photoshop style free software.  The Photocraft is a Photoshop similar offering, and Lightcraft is their Lightroom similar version.

Still in the very early stages I've tried both and somewhat surprisingly they work quite well.  The company do other versions similar to Premier After effects and Illustrator, although I haven't tried these.

The photocraft version I tried is the portable version, it worked quite well on a small low speck computer, although slow to boot up (30 seconds maybe), once up it worked fine with real time editing.

Keep in mind this is the early release, in a few weeks a more refined version is expected as I understand it.

My job has gone to the dogs...

 Wedding photography for pugs.