Starting into Photography, What is the best program for editing digital photos?

lil_love1982: Starting into Photography, What is the best program for editing digital photos?
I have been told that Adobe Photo shop is the way to go but I really would like some input before I drop all that cash. I am looking into Portrait and nature photography. I would like to use one program only and I want to be able to do all sorts of things, for instance, adding hints of color to B&W images, changing filters etc… Any input would be helpful. If anyone has used Adobe tips would be welcomed too! Thank you so much.

Answers and Views:

Answer by J N
Adobe Photoshop is the best image editing program. You won’t regret buying it. And once you start learning it, you’ll love it

Answer by JBT
I liked and used Corel Photo Paint for several years. Photo Paint is compatible with Photoshop, in that any plug-in you can buy for Photoshop is supposed to work with Corel Photo Paint.

The two programs don’t work the same way — so when you’re learning one, you’re not learning the other.

In my opinion, Photo Paint is easier to use, and I prefer Photo Paint’s methods for selecting areas/masking.

However, there’s no substitute for Photoshop. Every photo magazine you pick up has a how-to using Photoshop. There are a million books on Photoshop in your local bookstore. There are several good online tuturials for it, also. You’ll ultimately end up using Photoshop one day; there’s no avoiding it.

For all the things you’ve said you want to do — adding color tints, adding filters, etc. — either program will work.

Answer by Dr. Sam
If you want to explore the world of Adobe Photoshop without spending the big money for the full product, get Photoshop Elements. It is a tremendously powerful program and it only sells for $ 99.00. You can get it at https://www.adobe.com or any of the usual places you buy software. I am still using Photoshop Elements 5.0, but PE 6.0 is now out and Adobe claims that it has enhanced Brightness/Contrast tools, Clone tool and Black and White Conversion tool. The other enhancements seem to deal with merging photos (panoramic stitching) and organizing your photos.

You can use it practically right out of the box with the “Quick Fix” option and then you can advance into the full program, learning TONS about the Photoshop world as you go. Frankly, I think most casual users would never explore the full capabilities of Photoshop Elements. If you are ever ready for more, you will already know much of what you need to know about using “real” Photoshop.

Just go here https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html and click “Free Trial” for a 30-day free trial.

Almost every single image on my Flickr site was processed with Photoshop Elements 5.0. Some have from zero to barely any post-processing at all and others have considerable amount of perspective alterations, saturation changes, etc., and these are specified under the picture most of the time.

Check out this question. Look at the image linked in the question. There is not a lot the photographer could have done at the scene to make it better. I mean, when the sun sets – there are shadows. Then look at the “after” version in my answer. This is not a “great” job, but it shows that Photoshop Elements is not just a toy.
index?qid=20080113212714AAC2e6R&r=w#QcYvXTPoBzJbHwGQRPpEMiEuf4oRXTQLxBFKf6yeHQiiq3.igf9r

Answer by proshooter
A good introduction is the Gimp.

It is free .

It has many similarities to Adobe Photopshop so many skills learned using the Gimp can be applied to Photoshop.

Answer by fhotoace
Editing is the sorting of images; Trash for the ones that art out of focus, miss framed, over or under exposed and like that. Then you pick the ones that are the best. That is editing as in a magazine or newspaper photo editor.

For that you can use something as simple as the file manager on your computer or you can buy Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, Aperture, iPhoto or iView.

Photo manipulation is what I think you mean. Photoshop is the one that professional photographers, pre-press and post-production techs use.

Other than clearing up skin on the subjects you shoot as a portrait photographer, no further adjustments should be necessary if you have done your job as a photographer … Perfect exposure, perfect composition and a good choice of lens and camera position.

Answer by laurlaur
I absolutly love adobe photoshop the best out of everything that I’ve tried. If you want to get it cheaper, I would look at colleges. Student discounts can be amazing. I’ve seen it for less than $ 200, the only downfall is that sometimes you need to be a student of the school…or know someone who is. Another great program is Adobe Lightroom, which is awesome for color correcting and many other general adjustments and cropping (it can also add special effects like sepia tone, or other cool tones that come out looking really interesting on just the right photos). This runs cheaper at $ 99 student discount at most colleges, and this one I’ve never had a problem with being able to buy it at a school that I didn’t attend. The only downfall to this is that it doesn’t make the same type of corrections that photoshop can (they are very general adjustments, although they are accurate…you can’t fix just a small section of a photo, must fix the whole thing). You can’t use lightroom to erase wrinkles, or fix a zit on someone’s face. But if your photo is under/over exposed, it does a great job.