how do you use photoshop CS3 or later post effects?

Toobis

I was wanting to purchase a product on renderocity which is meant to be used on a Daz render in post work to make it more cartoonish (I won't post link) it says under requirements to use: 'photoshop CS3 or later'  I have used standard windows 7 paint to add postwork in the past in other works but I am assuming 'photoshop' is something else right? is photoshop CS3 or later something i'd have to purchase or will standard windows paint program work?

Roman_K2

In terms of post work the later Photoshops (CS series, Photoshop "CC") are to Windows Paint what a Ferrari is to a Volkswagen Beetle. Just one example of the many features would be support for layers. Also lots of color and perspective/distortion and warp controls, and lots of "brush" settings and special effects.

Sounds to me like the Rendo product that has your interest is a custom filter of some sort, one that blocks out areas of color to do a sort of selective flattening on a given image, with perhaps some edge enhancement thrown in. If I'm not mistaken there are products in the DAZ store that do this sort of thing as well. Personally I have never actually done it (cartoon filtering, that is) and I'm not really up on any "breakpoints" eg. if the author of a filter says "you need CS3 or later to use this" I have to draw a blank... could be true, maybe not -- I just don't know.  FWIW I am very interested in filters that make an image look more like a graphite pencil sketch.

You can probably subscribe to Photoshop CC for a month for something along the lines of $20-$30, just to try things out. On the other hand a quick look at Ebay just now shows several "old" Photoshop versions selling for as little $4, $5, or even $25, plus shipping... and there are lots of listings for the newer versions for several hundred dollars, ulp. You can also try a program called "GIMP" for free.

I think the choice between "old" or "new" software is a personal thing. Sometimes old stuff (and open source) works very well esp. in a narrow range of applications. Sometimes the real deal is much better for instance there is a vector drawing kit of some sort in "Open Office" but I don't think it compares to Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator. I could be wrong.

Again I'm not sure of the breakpoints... might be an idea to ask the vendor (or Rendo themselves) for guidance as to whether something absolutely, really MUST be used with CS3 or newer.

FeralFey

Generally if the product says it requires Photoshop (any iteration) it means it requires Photoshop to work. You can, however, get by with using some Photoshop filters and brushes inside of Gimp (a free program that does most everything that Photoshop can) but that's about the extent of where it can be used in another program.