photoshop elements vs microsoft word

[skittlesfirehawk]

hi everyone im in love with magnets and want to make lots of my own but i was wondering what software you prefer.For example making name fillers seems to take alot less time in word than in element.I would have to buy either as i have a mac so word is not free.

[PrincessShmoo]

Originally Posted by skittlesfirehawk

hi everyone im in love with magnets and want to make lots of my own but i was wondering what software you prefer.For example making name fillers seems to take alot less time in word than in element.I would have to buy either as i have a mac so word is not free.

I use a combination of Word, Paint and a little Corel, depending on what I want to do. Works for me.

[ekatiel]

Originally Posted by skittlesfirehawk

hi everyone im in love with magnets and want to make lots of my own but i was wondering what software you prefer.For example making name fillers seems to take alot less time in word than in element.I would have to buy either as i have a mac so word is not free.

Photoshop elements is A LOT more versatile than Word. There is a learning curve associated with it, but once you figure out how it works, you will prefer it over Word. My advice is to buy Elements and spend a little bit of time on you tube learning how to use it. You will LOVE all that you can do with it!! --Katie

[wendyoconnor]

MS Word is not designed for graphics and is very cumbersome for moving pictures around, adding text. Another option is MS Publisher which is designed for working with graphics.

[DarthTod]

Originally Posted by skittlesfirehawk

hi everyone im in love with magnets and want to make lots of my own but i was wondering what software you prefer.For example making name fillers seems to take alot less time in word than in element.I would have to buy either as i have a mac so word is not free.

I use Photoshop Elements and a little program from the Mac App Store called Art Text 2 (20 bucks). I do most of my text work in Art Text, then place it into my image in PE. IMHO, I get the best out of each program. Art Text is great for textured, 3D, shadowed, filled text, etc. and PE is good enough for the image work.

[SnipsNSnails]

Well, I do graphic design and I shudder to think of trying to manipulate images in Word. I would definately go with PSE. I use full photoshop but PSE will do exactly what you need it to do much easier than Word.

[LVaughn]

Have you tried OpenOffice? It has all the major functionality of MS Office, but it's completely free and can save in the MS Office formats if desired. You can download it for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

[owensamo]

I use the GIMP, which is a freely available Photoshop-like image editing tool. It's pretty powerful, and takes a bit to learn, but you can do a *ton* with it, and it's free! Not sure if it's available for Mac, but it is available for both Linux and Windows.

[LVaughn]

Yes, GIMP is available for Mac OS X.

[SnipsNSnails]

GIMP would work well for what you want to do too.

[skittlesfirehawk]

how do you find a mickey head and fill it with an image. i see cloud ones or map ones and cannot figure it out.

[DarthTod]

Originally Posted by skittlesfirehawk

how do you find a mickey head and fill it with an image. i see cloud ones or map ones and cannot figure it out.

In photoshop elements? Easy. But since you're asking, you probably don't have any real experience in photoshop. Here's a quick explanation:

Photoshop works in layers. Each layer sits on top of the one below. So a background image under a layer with Mickey ears will show the image through the Mickey ears if what is normally the black of the ears is made transparent.

Uh oh, I can hear the head spinning from here. To be honest, photoshop takes a little time to learn. But to do what you want, you need two pictures: the one you want to be inside the ears, and the Mickey ears themselves, preferably black on a white background. Open the picture for the fill, photoshop will designate it as the background. Go back to the file menu, choose 'Place' and open the Mickey ears image. Now you have a layer with the Mickey ears. Grab the color wand selection tool, select the black of the Mickey ears, and hit the 'delete' button. Bam! The Mickey ears disappear, and you can see the background image through them. You can center it my moving either of the layers to suit. Keep in mind, these are VERY simplified instructions, and you will no doubt get errors like 'layer must be simplified' (right click on the layer on the layer list to the right and click 'simplify'), but just get in there and play around. You won't hurt anything, and photoshop has a long memory on the ol' undo button (command Z).

[4redheads]

Before you spend, try out this website as you will probably be able to get it done for free.

http://pixlr.com/