Easy image manipulation software: five of the best

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1. Adobe Photoshop Elements [PC / Mac]

Photoshop? Easy?

There’s no denying that the various flavours of Photoshop contain some very advanced features, but in fact it’s possible to do basic image and photo editing and manipulation plus a range of “fancy” things without a whole lot of training.

Photoshop Elements is a cut-down version of the full-blown package which means it doesn’t have as many features but it’s also cheaper. In fact, it often comes bundled with digital cameras.

Get to grips with the basics of Photoshop Elements and you may well find yourself wanting to delve deeper into its powerful tools.

Ease of use: 3/5
Features: 5/5
Price: Latest version around £60, may be bundled. PC / Mac

Intel launches Digital Artist of the Year competition

In an art gallery on Pall Mall in London last night, Intel launched its search to find a Digital Artist of the Year. Digital Artist 2009 will be searching for the UK’s most talented artists in thirteen categories.

One of those thirteen is a ‘Rising Star’ award, which will be given to five entrants under the age of 25, and other categories include Architectural Visualisation, Motion Broadcast, Digital Painter and Ethical Design.

To celebrate, an exhibition of the digital art world will be on display at the Galleria from the 2nd to the 8th April. There’ll also be a number of ‘masterclasses’ held across the UK for aspiring digital artists. For full details, or to enter, see the competition’s homepage at www.digitalartistawards.com.

Digital Artist Awards

Photoshop Magnets – for your geeky designer Valentine

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Do you, or someone you know, spend a little bit too much time in Photoshop, tweaking those digital camera images a little more until you really can’t see the difference any more? Well, here’s the perfect birthday present, or Valentine’s gift, I suppose. It’s a set of magnets that look like the myriad of menus and toolbars that come in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Brazillian company Meninos sell these magnets on their own for $25, with a 20″ magnetic whiteboard for $65, and with a 40″ whiteboard for $95. That seems rather on the bargainous side, to me. Just a pre-order for the moment, though – they’ll be shipping on Feb 15th, so your Valentine will have to make do with an order confirmation until it arrives.

Meninos (via Technabob)

Related posts: Scientists on Google Earth discover that cows are magnetic | Tetrius Magnet Set

Adobe pleases poor designers and bloggers with the release of the free Photoshop Express

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As we wrote about last September, Adobe has been working on a not-so-secret online version of their Photoshop program for a fair amount of time. Thankfully, they’ve saved us from the trauma of having to use SnipShot when in dire need of a free online image editing program, by releasing Adobe Photoshop Express today.

Having fooled around with it for the better part of today, I must say I’m hugely impressed. In the above screenshot you can see I’ve used several effects on poor Gates and Jobs, including ‘distort’, ‘pop color’ and ‘sharpen’, along with standards such as cropping and resizing. Flash 9 is the driving force behind it, which…