Microsoft Paint is all I really have, too.

So I rarely alter my photos.

I use Impress from Open Office for word balloons and some sound effects. Paint's pretty much the only software I use for effects (muzzle flash, explosions). I tend to use effects sparingly because they tend to not look as good as I would like, but are needed so the reader can tell what is happening.

I use paintshop pro to lighten/Darken pics. I also use it to add the explosion effects, tracer fire, blue, etc.

As most of you - I only add some muzzle flash, explosions and blood here and there. Sometimes - I lighten my pics a bit. Nothing more because I'm a bit too lazy ;) And I spend too much time writing text lines ;)

I use Photoshop quite a bit. Often to set an overall mood for the picture. Case in point. The only thing in that pic that isn't some kind of photoshop job is the figure itself.

The background, the lighting effects...it's all been added.

Colour Pickup tool
 

Ok, This is related to the topic, however the photo's i'm showing are offtopic (none joe related).
I got using photoplus the other day. I took what I considered to be a decent shot of Marvel Legends Mr.Sinister. Across the Kitchen Window at around 2:40am with the moonlight behind him. The effect was fantastic. Yet again I was faced with hot pixel spots all over my photo.
See here:


Obviously I didn't want to trash this picture. I read up that these are stored spots for when the ISO setting is too high. However I only have 2 options on my camera. 100 or 200. So my actual options are limited when it comes to night time shots. :(

I had a quick mess around with Photoplus and decided to give colour pickup tool a bash. Using this tool is really good. It's like a select tool for colours that are in the photograph that aren't primary colours from the colour palette.
Using this tool, and meticulously picking each colour to replace the areas effected I redone the shot edited and attempted to turn it into a better picture.


It took me a while to go through and remove the spots, but i think the effort was worth it, has anyone here done something similar, even with a Joe related picture?

'Mr. Sinister' definately looks.......well, SINISTER!!!


Excellant job on this 'shopping............Way to go Rich!!! :cool:

Sweet shot Rich, very atmospheric! That's the great thing about Photoshop (or PhotoDeluxe in my case); not only can it be used for creating effects, etc, but it is perfect for cleaning up/sharpening/clarifying pics. I use it to enhance shots in this way all the time. ;)