What's the best Photo editing software??

[mesquitecountry]

Let me know what yalls favorites are. I'm just using a simple free irfanview. I'd like something that allows me to do it all! PS I love black and white photos that have a splash of color. How do yall do that??

[scotty]

I have an older version of Photoshop CS. I need to update it one of these days. I also need to take a class to learn how to really use it.

[Sully]

If you are going to pay for it, Photoshop has to be the front runner. There is a substantial learning curve but it will do just about anything.
There are free alternatives that come close to rivaling Photoshop. Two that I have are Gimp (XP, Vista, linux, Mac OSX) and Seashore (Mac OSX).

[Russell Graves]

Photoshop Elements 6 is a good choice for most people and it costs about $100. It has all of the essential image manipulation functions like Photoshop CS3 like contrast and levels adjust as well as many other features.

You can't do quite as much with Elements but then again, I own the $600 version of Photoshop CS3 and I am not sure I am getting my money's worth out of it.

Thanks,

Russell

[Shane]

Travis, I used a free program called PhotoFiltre for a good while. (I didn't spell that wrong, it's English or Australian or something). It's not bad at all for just very basic things. I also used GIMP, and then the version of it called GIMPshop. GIMP is an open source freeware Photoshop copy. The GIMPshop version is the same program. It just has things set up more similarly to Photoshop. The advantage here, even if you've never used Photoshop, is that Photoshop tutorials are useful to you on GIMPshop since most of the menus and commands are the same or very similar.

I recently bought a used laptop on ebay that had Photoshop CS3 already installed on it. I got the whole thing for $300. I didn't get the CDs for PS, but as long as it doesn't crash I'm good.

Photoshop is just freakin' incredible. The best part about it is the ability to handle RAW files straight out of the camera. It allows for a LOT of different adjustments and tweaks while still in the RAW conversion mode. All that means is that you get to work with every last pixel that the camera captured without losing anything in compression, like what happens with JPEGs. Of course, for small prints or posting pics online, you'll never tell much (if any) difference. But you still know that your original RAW file (your digital "negative") is still pristine. If you ever do want to have an enlargement done, it's there. Or if you want to take it back into the "digital darkroom" to process it again in a different way you can do that, and you haven't lost anything.

GIMP probably does everything that Photoshop can do (that I would understand how to do) equally well. BUT...GIMP doesn't read my Canon RAW files. I don't know if it will recognize Nikon's or others either. It tries to convert them into TIFFs, but on mine I just get sold black pictures. If I use the Canon software to convert to JPEG (or just shoot JPEG in the camera), then GIMP works extremely well.

By the way, please don't let all this fool you into believing that I really know what I'm doing. I have a whole bunch of crappy-looking snapshots of my feet, the walls of my office, the deer heads on the wall, and stuff like that. I have been doing a lot of that kind of thing to simply learn how to fiddle with the camera's settings and then to have something to fiddle with in the software. I'm trying to learn both the camera and the "darkroom" stuff. I don't have a ton of awesome pics yet, like several other folks here do. I hope that I am learning some stuff that will improve my "luck" when I am out trying to get pretty pictures though.

[Shane]

Oh, about the B/W pics with color elements....they do that in Photoshop using Layers. You set 2 or more layers of the same pic, make the top layer black & white, and then use a "brush" to paint away the top layer to allow the color layer underneath to show through. (I think) I also read something about a history brush. I think that might only require the one layer, and then you brush away the black & white conversion to go back to the color history of the area you brush.

I want to figure that stuff out too, but I've only played with it briefly. I hope somebody that knows the easiest way to do it will post.

[Hafernick]

I have Photoshop 7.0 and I have just begun to use it....the help function is pretty easy to use!

[mesquitecountry]

may have to check it out!

[Bluesman]

Here's some free stuff:

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelbasedwin/tp/freephotoedw.htm

[Casey]

I just upgraded to Photoshop CS3 yesterday. It has a few enhancements over CS2 that I've seen already. I still have a lot to learn, though.

[1369]

Anyone use Aperture on a Mac?

[Convert]

I use Photoshop, currently the CS2 version. I think it does a great job. Plus at this point I'm comfortable with it, I've been using the Adobe suite since high school when it constantly crashed our computers and lost our literary magazine and newspaper every other day.

But 1369, I have seen Apperture in action, and it is a pretty sweet program. A lot of people that work with RAW love it.

[doncom]

Travis I use about 10% of Photoshop CS3's potential, but it does a couple of things that I really like but can't figure out how to do in Elements.

[Bill M]

I'm using PS Elements 5.0 and have CS2 that I haven't installed since I bought the new PC a few weeks ago. Elements does MOST of what I am capable of with it but there is a thing or two I like about CS2 that Elements can't do or I haven't figured out how to do. Will have to consider upgrading to CS3 one day soon.

[scotty]

Casey, if you don't mind, what did the CS3 upgrade run you? Do you know if you can jump upgrades? I have Photoshop CS.(I think it's the first version) PM me if you want. Thanks, Scotty.