What Image Editing Software do you recommend?

[Gronnuck]

Up till now I’ve been using Paint Shop Pro 7 for tinkering with my photos and it’s been fine for photos in a variety of formats. However I now want to be able to edit photos in RAW format. I’d be grateful for any advice from the many digital boffins who produce such great photos for this form.

[Gronnuck]

I'm looking at switching to Adobe Photoshop Elements. - does anyone have any opinions?

[Mystical Potato Head]

Elements is great value for money,does more than most people ever need and is a fraction of the cost of the full CS versions.

I've used elements 6 & 7 and currently use CS4.

It has the same basic tools and filters so i would say go for it.

[Deemac]

Not sure what camera you have, but all my Canon's came with a free RAW file converter in the software supplied (Digital Photo Professional - DPP). Not sure of other makes but should be fit for purpose. I use Photoshop CS5 - very nice!!

[Happy Guy]

I use both Canon Digital Photo Professional, and Photoshop Elements 8, which is great value for money, does all I could need and more, and as a bonus there are MANY on-line VERY helpful tutorials - just google Photoshop Elements, and there's pages of You Tube video tutorials, on every imaginable subject, so for a dummie like me, its my choice every time

[Mystical Potato Head]

Not sure what camera you have, but all my Canon's came with a free RAW file converter in the software supplied (Digital Photo Professional - DPP). Not sure of other makes but should be fit for purpose. I use Photoshop CS5 - very nice!!

Ooooooooo,you'll have that new content aware thingy then.Whats it like?

[Mystical Potato Head]

I use both Canon Digital Photo Professional, and Photoshop Elements 8, which is great value for money, does all I could need and more, and as a bonus there are MANY on-line VERY helpful tutorials - just google Photoshop Elements, and there's pages of You Tube video tutorials, on every imaginable subject, so for a dummie like me, its my choice every time

And here's you telling me you liked your photos un photoshopped.

[Chewyhairball]

my canon came with digital photo professional and i love it. Cant comment about any other software as i dont have any...except photomatix but i think its dedicated to HDR photos and nothing else so not really much use for what you want.

[Mystical Potato Head]

my canon came with digital photo professional and i love it. Cant comment about any other software as i dont have any...except photomatix but i think its dedicated to HDR photos and nothing else so not really much use for what you want.

That digital photo professional is a bit like marmite,you either love it or hate,i detest it.I think it comes in a very poor second when working with raw files.Just doesn have the versatility of Elements or CS.It is free with canon cameras though.

[Chewyhairball]

do people do a lot of tinkering with thier photos then? The DDP has everything i think ill ever need. It is extremely basic though so i guess it depends on what you want to do. Your right, there is not an awful lot you can do with it as opposed to the others.:(

[Gronnuck]

Thanks everyone for your input. :D I have a couple of more people to talk to before I make up my mind.

[Boozeburglar]

Gronnuck, you can download a trial version of Photoshop so it costs nout to try it out. It is very user friendly.

I would also recomment GIMP, though it is not as user friendly it is FREE!!!! That is always a bonus for me! :)

[Gronnuck]

Gronnuck, you can download a trial version of Photoshop so it costs nout to try it out. It is very user friendly.

I would also recomment GIMP, though it is not as user friendly it is FREE!!!! That is always a bonus for me! :)

Thanks Bb I'll try anything for free :D

[dragonfly]

I use Elements 8, only use about 20% of what its capable of doing but learn more as I go along. My sony came with free editing software but I never use it

[nirofo]

I use Nikon Capture NX for rendering and adjusting RAW files and Photoshop CS4 for all other post processing work. Photoshop Elements 8 is excellent if you don't want all the extra bells and whistles of full Photoshop. Plugins are an essential addon if you want that extra bit of tweaking for that top shot, noise reduction plugins like Imagenomic Noiseware Pro, image resizing plugins like OnOne Genuine Fractals 6 Pro. There are lots of others, many of them are free downloads, Google around for Photoshop Plugins, there's thousands of them available. Most of the photoshop plugins will work perfectly with Photoshop Elements.

nirofo.