Updating from Photoshop 5.5 to ???

[IronWing]

I am moving from XP to Win 7 and I suspect that Photoshop 5.5 will be one casualty of the move to 64 bits. My wife uses Photoshop a lot but only a few features of it. Specifically, she cleans up scanned line art and pencil drawing using the eraser tools and magic lasso (wand?) tool.

Does Photoshop have these functions? We may have to buy a scanner as part of the switch over as the Umax 1220U may not function with Win 7. The Epson V600 scanner comes with PS Elements so if that version of Photoshop includes the same editing tools as 5.5 did we might get by with that.

The Adobe website is extraordinarily unhelpful in describing the features of the new software.

Any other photo editing software that might work that is zero to a hundred bucks?

Thanks for any insights.

 

[lxskllr]

Try Paint.NET...

http://www.getpaint.net/

I use it for all my image editing, but I'm not a power user. It may, or may not do everything you need. It is a quality program for what it does though.

 

[gsaldivar]

If you are getting Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate, you can continue using PS 5.5 in XP Mode. I'm not sure however, if this will support the use of hardware devices like a scanner. Failing that, you can always just boot from a separate XP partition/disk to maintain total software and hardware compatibility.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

 

[Modelworks]

Photoshop is probably more than you want to spend to do what she does, you are probably looking at several hundred dollars for a newer version.
I haven't tried it but I can't think of why PS5.5 would not work on windows 7.
Here are some free alternatives that can do the basics of photoshop
http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/photoplus/key_features.asp
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/index.html
http://www.ultimatepaint.com/
http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm
http://artweaver.de/overview-en/

 

[Ken g6]

If you need more power than these programs provide, don't forget about The GIMP. It's not as easy to use, but probably comparable to Photoshop.