I have just bought a digital SLR (Nikon D40x) and have found that the software my mac came with doesn't allow me to do much photo editing. I only have iphoto on it which is fine for viewing photos but fairly useless for photo editing. I had a look at Aperture but as a beginner it seems to be more than what I need and quite expensive. Can anyone recommend any other software?
Many thanks,
Suzanne

Welcome to the site Suzanne.

Did your camrea come with any photo editing software that you can instal? If so, that would be the first place I would start.

There are several programs out there that you can use. Most people use Photoshop. Since you say you're a beginner, I would suggest Photoshop Elements. I'm not sure what version they are up to now. It's a scaled down version of Photoshop, but it will have everything a beginner needs to get started, and then some, at a fraction of the price of the full version.

Other people are using the Nik software that is produced by Nikon that many people use as well. I have never used it, so I don't know anything about it.

There is also a free photo editig program called GIMP, but I have never used it, and I know nothing about it.

Photoshop is always the mainstay, but it's far more expensive than Aperture, which is actually on the cheap side as far as good programs go.

Aperture, though (and Adobe Lightroom) are more RAW converters and "Digital Asset Management" software than full scale editors.

Most people who stop short of Photoshop do go for Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro.

Nikon Capture NX is another very good program, and licenses will be pretty easy to find as Nikon is giving them away free with Nikon D3 and D300 cameras- and many of those buyers are either getting both or already have NX.

I found that for casual photos editing and such, Photoshop elements is great. It is at version 4.0 for mac though. Fairly easy to learn and use. Only about $80.00ish..

Phil

I agree with Photoshop Elements. You can usually find some pretty good deals on Ebay, especially for older versions. I have version 1 and 3 and still haven't figured out the advantage of version 3. It came with a camera, awhile ago. I also have Paint Shop Pro X program. I haven't used this one as much because I'm so used to Elements. They'll both do more than you'll need for quite some time, if not forever.

PSPP X2 is a very inexpensive and powerful editing software. It can view NEF files which
is native to NIKON. It can be had for as little as $49 US.