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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;brg5658, post: 1302368, member: 29751&quot;]As always Lance, you have offered sound advice and gorgeous pictures.&nbsp; I <i>would </i>argue a bit that the Mac isn&#039;t <i>really</i> superior to a Window&#039;s PC for much of anything any more besides being impervious to viruses.&nbsp; In 1998 I would have agreed with you that the Mac was a powerhouse of graphic design and composition.&nbsp; As such, most newspapers, graphic designers, studios, etc. were trained on such machines...and because in those industries the &quot;status quo&quot; was set, that is the reason for their persistent use.&nbsp; Again, unless you are a professional ala Mark Goodman, I don&#039;t think your operating system matters or that a Mac is in any way superior in 2011.</p><p><br /></p><p>As a disclosure, most of my time is spent on a PC running Linux, an oft-overlooked operating system that is free, stable, and can run a host of powerful open-source pieces of software.&nbsp; I would say in the &quot;computer world&quot; that Linux or Unix are the gold standard, and most of us &quot;computer geeks&quot; look a little disdainfully at the Micro-soft empire. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p><br /></p><p>Nonetheless, I also want to put in a plug here for the open source editing software called &quot;GNU Image Manipulation Program&quot; or called &quot;GIMP&quot; for short.&nbsp; It is a powerful freeware software, with add-ons and plugins allowing you a LOT of artistic freedom and leeway.&nbsp; It has full contrast/brightness, levels, hue, and other post-processing capabilities.&nbsp; In addition, it has a nice sharpening tool, easy to use real-time rotation (in whatever degree you want, not just multiples of 90), and it has a circular crop and built in &quot;layering&quot; system for building up images.&nbsp; You can download it here (<a href="http://www.gimp.org/downloads/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.gimp.org/downloads/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gimp.org/downloads/</a>) and there are user manuals in many languages as well.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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