College freshers will find the days of pen and paper are long gone. Many courses require some degree of proficiency in elaborate software packages. Be it photo, Web or audio editing, industry standard software is the only way to go, but they don’t come cheap so we’ve compiled an overview of the main packages and what students they suit – with one eye on price.
Microsoft Office
It goes without saying that every student needs to be familiar with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook. It might be self-evident, but simple things like creating and saving files, changing line spacings and using graphs and tables are essential skills. Ideally a copy should be bought with your PC and a home and student edition is €125.
OpenOffice.org
The free open source competitor to Microsoft Office. The interface may look a little dated but it covers mostly the same territory.
LibreOffice.org
Last year’s offshoot from OpenOffice.org again does all the basics. Again, it’s available as a free download.
Adobe Photoshop Elements
It’s safe to assume that you’ve heard of Photoshop. Not only is it the leading product in graphic design, it has become a common term for any digitally enhanced image. Students will find in most cases that image manipulation will be primarily through Photoshop. The major drawback about Photoshop is that it does come with a hefty price tag.
Enter the much cheaper, although limited, version: Photoshop Elements. That said, we’d recommend Elements due to it being very much suited to learning the ropes without being overwhelmed by advanced features. Elements can be upgraded to a full version at a reduced cost.
Corel Painter
This is a software package much more suited for painters and people creating art with a canvas and brush. Often used with a graphics tablet, Painter allows for similar to real-life options and an array of tools that any painter would use in real life. The modelling and real to life action of the tools is superb.
Adobe InDesign
Many businesses will stick with one brand of design and image editing software for consistency and ease of workflow. For this reason alone InDesign, Adobe’s companion products Photoshop and Dreamweaver, has become the industry standard.
A major bonus to InDesign is its incorporation with Flash. This allows for seamless across print and online publishing.
As with any of the professional industry standards, it does come with a steep price tag. Thankfully there is a trial for you to test beforehand and there is also an educational version available for students to get them in there early!
Quark
Once the dominant layout package, Quark is still widely used, and a forthcoming iPad app might be enough to return it to prominence. Again it’s not cheap, so you might like to make a choice between it and InDesign.
Serif Webplus
Adobe’s DreamWeaver may be the industry standard, but Webplus has plenty to offer as well. More student friendly in this sense and can achieve great results. Having industry standard software in Web design isn’t as important as other fields due to the fact that many designers work on a freelance basis so it will be results that take priority over what package.
Coming in at under €100, Webplus is vastly cheaper than DreamWeaver and can get the job done in most cases. For larger projects it may not hold up, but by that time most designers reach should be looking to upgrade to a more substantial package anyway.
Webplus suits students in many ways: it has built-in tutorials, a well written manual, and a strong online user base. It is a robust product that contains a large image library, powerful tool set and extremely easy to use interface, while still allowing you to take on more advanced tasks. Take all this into regard with its price tag, integration with YouTube and Flash, and you have a winner.
Coffee Cup Visual Site Design
This is another easy, popular and relatively inexpensive design suite.
CyberLink PowerDirector
Video editing is possibly the most competitive field of software due to the sheer number of packages on the market. For this reason it ranges in price tags, from the price of a night out to that of a new car.
The industry standard is generally hailed as Avid, which is an incredibly powerful package but can reach up to nearly €2,000. Not realistic for a student, but thankfully you don’t need to go for such high end software to get great results. CyberLink PowerDirector is an extremely useful package often a large amount of tools, a stable easy to use interface, and all at a reasonable price (€80 in most places).
PowerDirector is constantly growing in popularity and there are many online tutorials on how to do professional effects and production techniques within its capable walls.
It comes with quite a few usable transitions and effects. You’ll also be glad to hear that many of them aren’t completely cheesy, as is common in this price range. For creating a polished product it is quite capable, and is more restricted by the quality of your input than the software itself. It’s compatible with all codecs and is a relatively easy program to run, leaving it suitable for even lower range laptops (just don’t expect the preview video to run that smoothly). Under the hood there is quite a bit going on, even though it may not seem apparent. You may find yourself jumping through menus the odd time for things but overall the clean and pleasant interface leaves it worth the menu hunting. PowerDirector can even do functions like green screen that you may not expect of such a low cost software package. The amount of ‘picture in picture’ videos/images you can have is quite surprising and leaves for a lot of possibilities although if you’re using many of these expect your computer to feel the strain. Also, there is a video wizard that will create all your transitions and effects for you. While this will not suit most it is a useful feature to have if you’re really stuck for time and want to make a video seem somewhat more finished.
Overall, a very capable and usable video editing software that is constantly being updated and growing. For under €80 you’ll be extremely hard pushed to find anything better. Oh and there is a trial version available for you to get straight into it!
Cubase Elements 6
Next to the video editing world there is audio editing, in terms of hefty price tags and competitiveness. Unlike video there aren’t many usable low cost consumer products that will sort you for years but thankfully all the big players have cheaper versions of their flagship software which can be gradually upgraded as it suits you, allowing you to grow with the software at your own pace.
It’s not totally untrue to say that audio software has some of the steepest learning curves of all, this is particularly due to a lot of audio software being based on principles of it’s real life analogue counterparts, such as the order of which you do things affects the outcome. For this reason it goes further than just knowing the software, you must also know the history and the mechanics. For this reason the stripped down versions are actually a blessing in disguise. Throwing yourself in the deep end can often be too overwhelming and slow the whole learning process. It’s also important to note that, unlike most other software types, audio software is vastly different from one to the next.
This makes it hard to really suggest a particular software to a person as it’s pretty important to make use of all the available trials so you can to get a feel and find one that suits you best. Our conclusion was the Cubase series is superior. In recent years many critics have agreed that Cubase is arguably the best, technically speaking.
And there you have it. This covers some of the most common software types that students ask for, Thankfully most companies now recognise the importance of students and how daunting the price and scale of their full software may be. Hence the availability useful trials along with entry level versions of their software that can be upgraded over time.
Campus.ie is Ireland’s largest third level student website. It offers students a variety of services including news, advice, discounts on education products from Apple and O2, and e-mail,
Ltd
