Which Photoshop do I need?

Hi,

As all of you are probably tired of hearing right now, I am starting out in underwater digital photography. So, being a newbie, but an exceptionally computer literate, and fairly technical generally, which Photoshop do I need, and why? I'd obviously prefer to spend as little as possible, but given what everything else costs, I don't want to skimp on software if it is going to allow me to make a significant difference.

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Justin

If you have close to no money, the Gnu Image Manipulation Program at

http://www.gimp.org

is free, and does ok color stuff with levels, contrast, filters etc., and the

clone tool is especially nice for blending out backscatter.

No matter what you start with, you'll end up with Photoshop CS

I'd also urge you to "byte the bullet" and pick up Photoshop CS. It's the standard, and for some good reasons.

Learning Photoshop is a long-term process, one which may never end. The sooner you start putting together an undertanding of how to use this program the better.

Once you've bought in, the upgrades for new releases are reasonably priced. The "guts" of the program and the skills needed to use it have remained pretty stable over a long series of upgrades. The main differences (for me, at least) between CS and its predecessors are:

(1) the ability to do almost all image adjustments in 16-bits rather than having to convert to 8 bits early in the process;

(2) a very functional file viewer that works well enough to make it unnecessary to purchase this as a separate item;

(3) - last but not least - a very powerful and easy to use built-in plug in for converting raw digital files into photoshop work space, which now covers almost all digital cameras in current use.

Frogfish