Digital photography & design software forum: Suggestions for easy photo editing software, please?

I've downloaded Irfanview and spent the last hour using it to practice editing and try out all of the buttons. You're right that it does a lot more than what I need, but I can happily ignore those features for now and stick to the basics -- right there, easy to learn, easy to use--for my various projects. Eureka!

And yes, it's free! I am always grateful that people are so willing to share their programs with the world for free, and I'm a little curious as to why they do it as well. But I did see the "make a donation" icon so will definitely do that.

Mark, thank you again for your alacrity in replying and for suggesting that I try Irfanview. As I said in my first post, CNET Forums and their members--especially Mark--are the BEST! (Sorry, Mark, but I'm too old to say, "You ROCK!")

Ellie

Another good simple, free, editing program is Google's
Picasso, it is also a good photo organiser and more.


Brian

My Canon camera came with software to copy pics from the camera to the hard disk of my PC (either all or only the one not copied earlier, that's just clicking the right button).

That's not standard Windows, however, so you'll have to look into the documentation of your camera how to do that. That's comparable to mp3-players: with some you can use Windows Explorer to copy mp3's to, with others you need the makers software (like iTunes for an iPod).

Once these pics are on the hard disk, in the folders you prefer, they are 'kept' there (unless you delete them) and are as easy to mail as all your other pictures and documents. You don't need any special software for that.

Kees

I agree with the person who suggested Irfanview for the most basic photo editing tasks. It's a good, solid, capable program that is primarily a photo viewer (the best photo viewer, in my opinion), with editing added sort of as an afterthought. I have had my photo files default open in Irfanview for years because it is the fastest and most tailorable viewer out there.

But if you actually want to get into a little bit of actual photo editing (what is generally referred to as "Photoshopping" your pictures) and don't want to pay through the nose, then I recommend the freeware open-source GIMP. It's been around for years and years and years, with programmers around the world continuously tweaking it, and is very nearly as capable as Photoshop itself. Indeed, it comes with a set of filters that even Photoshop can't match.

I use Photoshop and Paintshop Pro (Paintshop Pro is particularly tailored to optimizing digital photos and has very useful batch functions) and GIMP.

For my taste I suggest Paint.net for Windows or Pinta for Mac.

I am a budget friendly wedding photographer in phoenix, AZ that uses paint shop pro x3. It costs less than $100 bucks. The feature that makes it so easy is the batch edit feature. The software will edit, rename, and file hundred of pictures with just a couple keystrokes. It literally saves me hundreds of hours worth of editing. The pictures look good too. If you want to see some just check out my webpage at http://theperfectmomentphotography.net Every picture on my site is edited with paint shop pro. They have a free trial version too. That is what I started with. It has to be easy as I am very impatient and couldn't handle photoshop as I couldn't figure it out. Hope this helps!

Jason

Thank you Mark

I'm an Adobe person who change to a CPU without Adobe. Scary world outside a program I've been using for years. I haven't removed all the photos from the old CPU to deleted Adobe and install on the new CPU.
I use the free photo editing on picnik.com. Its a great site, but I need something to use when I'm not online.

About Google's Picassa...there's something about the interface with blogger I don't recall the details of. I think when I deleted photos in Picassa that were on a blog, the blog photo disappeared as well. Blog photos automatically were going to my Picassa album. That was over a year ago.