Replacing PhotoShop Elements for Leopard

I am not sure, if you are talking about the features I understand you are writing, also I am not a power user of photo editing software. Some features I only found on second sight. You don't happen to mean layers?, which it does include.

Anyhow, after spending a day to get my scanner to work on leopard, I was just simply too fed up to go through the same withanother software 😉

Dirk

Try making a layer from a selection or doing a proper levels adjustment (which involves adjusting the RGB channels separately.) If your needs are modest, I'm sure it can work well for you, but then Preview also includes some pretty nice basic image adjustment features.

Pixelmator may have better selection abilities in leopard, since Preview does and Pixelmator is really just a front end for what's built into the OS (including some filters that are not available in Preview.)

All that really matters is whether it fits your needs or not. I was horribly disappointed in it (I'd love to have a PE alternative to recommend for Mac, the way Paint Shop Pro is an alternative for windows), but I'm glad it works for you.

yes, my needs are indeed fairly modest, though higher than just Preview. And I do admit that some of the functions of PSE are missing, most of them I never needed. For some of the others, when it comes to automatic repair options, I have other software that I use. So, considering Adobe's present path or non path on supplying an updated version, I took the chance to use another program, which I know works well with Leopard and my machine.

I did try the functions in Pixelmator that I need in connection with the Scan software I use (Silverfast) and found this combo to not only be sufficient for my needs, but also more reliably running. Considering the short time this software has been on the market, I would also expect it to improve further.

From what you are writing, I think I did indeed make a layer from a selection in Pixelmator, but again, I may understand something different from what you are saying.

Overall, and this does not only apply to PSE 4, Leopard has been the most troublesome and timeintensive systemupdate I ever bought from Apple, and that is going back to the Apple II.... I wish I had planned the installation for a time, when I had more time 😉

Dirk

I must agree with Dirk. Why spend hours and hours of time trying to fix a software issue? Isn't it supposed to work as advertised? I too will jump ship to another bit of software immediately if it doesn't function like it's supposed to. IF there's certain features I miss doing so then so be it. Is there any wonder why there's so much Piracy? Who want's to pay hard earned cash in this day and age for software that may or may not work unless you have ideal circumstances. It's time Apple and other software companies start focusing on developing good, functioning software, software people will want to purchase and not software that people will Pirate to "beta" test it.

My statement. Only, Apple software used to be that way 😉

The machine came with Leopard installed, but after several partition changes/set ups, the OS soon became a custom install. I did not include "Additional Languages."
"the BSD underlayer" Are you referring to X11? I believe I let "Developer Tools" install because it was very small compared to the 500GB space available! But I think that was called "X11" on Tiger.
Nor has anything like Monolingual been used to remove any 'standard' languages.

I have also been able to install PSE 4 on an external drive and actually ran it by booting into the Tiger install on that drive. I was even able to run PSE 4 on the external when booted from Leopard on the internal set up! So, PSE 4 does seem to run on Leopard and the newest Intel chips on my iMac. I simply haven't been able to actually install it on the internal drive (HFS+ with Journaling enabled) which is formatted exactly as the external drive. [headbash]

I plan on researching pixelmater as soon as I post this, BTW. 🙂

Ok, not liking to give up, I made it on Leopard with a few obstacles to overcome. Firstival, prior to all these installations, I did a COMPLETE, clean manual install of all my programs, all off original disks!

Two programs were left with problems: SoundSoap, PSE 4.

With SoundSoap I found, that the program could not create its license folder under (myhd)/library/application support (I am NOT talking of the library folder in the user's folder). Turned out, that leopard is handling permissions to install and write more strictly, so I manually added this folder giving myself the necessary permissions.

I then dared to turn back to PSE 4 and give it a final try. Installation worked (I assume the clean reabuild of my Mac helped), but it would not run, claiming it did not habe the registration database.

I compared the file tree on my powerbook with that of my G5 and found, the installer did not have persmission to write. I then copied the registration file form my powerbook ((mydrive)/library/applicationsupport/adobe/AdobeRegistrationDatabase) to the appropriate location on my G5... again after granting myself permission to do so in the folder information window. Same procedure for some scanner plugins. Now it works and I could also update to 4.0.1.

I personally start to get the impression, that a lot of the problems going along with Leopard is not only on part of the third party software developers, but also in part for Apple changing some permission schemes, which older installers just can't cope with.

I hope this is comprehensible and will help some of you.

Dirk

Well, I certainly have to hand it to you for being persistent in this, Dirk. Thanks for posting your solution.

Thanks 😉 again, hope this may be of help to anyone. the idea of give and take in this forum.

need to mention though, if it weren't for a best friend, who guided me since Apple II, I would not dare try what I try and do today.

Dirk

Dirk, I never even thought about permissions until you mentioned it. What's odd is that seems to be the first suggestion of help from people. Good job.

Happy for my post to be of help 😉 When fiddling with PSE, I had originally not expected to find a solution for other programs / installer, too.

Dirk

Jeff and others, can you tell me where to find the airbrush tool on Elements 4?

Pick any brush, then use the little airbrush icon (about in the middle of the options bar) to turn airbrushing on and off. It works like a button.

Should have said this doesn't work for every brush, but for most round brushes you should be okay.