Good Editing Software for Photos ????

[bwilke]

I am currently using the free version of picasso and was wanting to upgrade to a better editing/cropping software program.....

I am a beginner and would like some advice.

I have a nikon D80 with a 18-135mm DX-AFS and a 80-200mm f/2.8 ED-D lens.

Thanks

[SmartWombat]

Photoshop, probably elements (the cheaper version) is a good starting point without spending too much money on Photoshop Creative suite.
Also Paint Shop Pro has been around for quite a while, enough to have plenty of tutorials and to be reliable.

I'd also recommend Lightroom, though it's not an editing program. It has basic editing like cropping, red eye, spot healing, but it also manages your photos, indexes them, allows you to use keywords and rankings to find your photos again.
Also while editing the original file is preserved, so you can always to back and start again like going back to your negative - you don't lose the original image.
I swear by it (and at it) and currently have 269000 files in 3000 folders indexed in Lightroom - about 1.2 Terabytes of data.
But I need Photoshop as well with it for the complicated editing that Lightroom doesn't do.

If you're a Mac user, take a look at Aperture as well as Lightroom. I liked it a lot, but not enough to buy a Mac specially to run it. However if Microsoft doesn't fix Vista and insists on pushing manufacturers to sell it with every new PC - then I may well have to move to Mac.
I'm sure the Mac users will say "I told you so" as they welcome me form the dark side


I don't think to start with many people can justify the expense of the high end editing programs like PS CS3 and by the time you've learned the basics in something like PS Elements the world will have moved on to Photoshop 4 or 5.

[bwilke]

Thank you...I actually went to CNET downloads and there are a few free versions and I saw paint shop on their site...I will read up on the photo shop as well....

What I need the most is resizing without losing the sharpness and quality of the image. Since I am not always getting a close up of my object with my zoom, I need to be able to resize and crop to get the zoom......does the paint shop do that?

Thanks

[SmartWombat]

What I need the most is resizing without losing the sharpness and quality of the image. Since I am not always getting a close up of my object with my zoom, I need to be able to resize and crop to get the zoom......does the paint shop do that?

Ah - you were fine up until "without losing the sharpness and quality" TANASTAAFL *

How are you measuring the quality, and the clarity?
What size are you going to print, or view images on the screen?

If you're just going to crop the image, and then instead of printing an 8x10 you print a 4x6 then not much changes. It's like taking a pair of scissors to the 8x10
If you're going to crop the image, and then try to print an 8x10 of the crop - well there you're going to notice a difference.

How much of a difference depends on how much you cropped it and how large you print it and how far away you stand to look at it.

I'd advise you to use RAW if possible, not JPEG. That means you start out with the highest image quality. JPG files are always a compromise, they use a lossy compression system which means they are small - but you always lose some detail each time you save it. That starts right out where the camera saves the JPG for the first time.




* (There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)

[bwilke]

I will play around with the RAW files as my camera has that setting...as a Rookie this may be a challenge , but one that I am up to.

I plan to crop and primary print 4x6 but on an occasion will blow up to 12x18 or greater for sport poster for my kids room.....

Thanks for your help....

[mwfanelli2]

I am currently using the free version of picasso and was wanting to upgrade to a better editing/cropping software program.....

I am a beginner and would like some advice.

I have a nikon D80 with a 18-135mm DX-AFS and a 80-200mm f/2.8 ED-D lens.

Thanks

Hardly anyone on this site actually needs Photoshop. That is a knee-jerk reaction because everyone else uses it. PS is a tool for professional graphic artists. As mommy would ask, "would you jump off of a bridge just because all your friends are"?

For you, I would suggest, as others have, Elements. It has much more power than Picasso yet is still easy to use. When (if ever) you outgrow Elements, you can go with the much more powerful Picture Window Pro, a tool designed by and for photographers instead of graphic artists. But, just like Photoshop, there is a large learning curve.

P.S. SmartWombat: Vista was shaky when it first came out. I had it soon after the consumer release (a convergence of circumstance, not choice) and I went bald pulling my hair out. But now, the only really damaged part about Vista is it's reputation. It has turned into a very fine OS.

As for Mac, I'd look at the myriad of complaints, especially the nasty "wipe out my files" bugs, that Leopard brought to the table before going that way. Leopard (or Apple Vista as named by scallywags) is a real shame considering Apple controls the hardware as well as the software. But hey, they issued the largest Apple update in history that supposedly fixed the major bugs. Nothing high tech is perfect, a sad fact of life.

[bwilke]

Thanks for the advice....The elements, would you recommend the elements 6 if I do not have the others. Thanks

[mwfanelli2]

Thanks for the advice....The elements, would you recommend the elements 6 if I do not have the others. Thanks

Buy the latest version.

[gahspidy]

Elements would be a great program for you, the latest version should be well under 100.00 bucks. Very powerful bang for the buck. I would discourage Picture window Pro, only because it does not use layers and you may suffer from being accustomed to a totally different concept of editing if ever you went with PhotoShop. I do hear that Picture window Pro is very good , however and was actually considering it myself at one time in the past.
Paint Shop Pro I believe from Jasc is now taken over by Corel and may have a different name, if I remember correctly.