Digital Photo Editor
 

The link to travel is that I take lots of pictures in Europe. I finally went digital.
Now I need suggestions as to which software is the best for editing digital files, jpg format.

I need the ability to color correct, contrast adjust, brighten/darken, crop, and resize for printing.

I cannot make Vicman work with Vista.

I have the distinct impression that Adobe might be my best option.

Hi Bob,

You might want to give Google's Picasa (free!) a try. It's definitely not Photoshop, but it does all the things you listed, plus many other effects, some utilitarian and some purely aesthetic.

It's a wonderful photo organizer as well, allowing you to easily create web albums, email resized photos, or submit photos to popular printing services. It's the only software I miss since moving from Windows to Mac.

I've also heard great things about Picasa but haven't tried it myself (I have a Mac). Just in case you don't know - there's a scaled-down version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements that will do everything you likely need at a MUCH lower price than full-fledged Photoshop.

For very simple tasks to be executed in bulk, you can go with IrfanView.

I use Photoshop Elements for most things. Resizing I do in Irfanview as well as turning photos as it has a lossless plugin for jpegs. Always make a duplicate of your photo before you do anything to it, and back up the originals too! Be aware that jpegs are lossy and you will end up losing details if you do much or open them too often. Another good reason to back up the originals.
PSE also handles RAW photos should you move on to shooting RAW.

Oh and Photoshop organiser which comes with PSE is very good too.

Thanks for the help.
I looked at Picasa but I did not see the resizing option. I must have missed it.

I will also consider the other one. That is a very good suggestion.

I am new to this digital game having spend the last 25 years with SLRs.
I hated to give up my lenses, but my new Canon S5 IS has a 36 - 400 zoom equivalent and is very compact.

I love the option of deleting the bummers. I think 70% of what I take gets the zap button.

I cannot wait to try it in Switzerland next month. Hope it quits raining so much in the Berner Oberland!!

And please, no more avalanche tragedies.
I know personally Dr. Durrer who had to go up there and organize the rescue.
The helicopter pilots who got the rescue team up there to the Rottal on the Jungfrau deserve a national award as well for bravery and skill.

Durrer is a high altitude specialist who also has a more mundane practice in Lauterbrunnen. He once patched up my wife after she caught her arm on a sharp piece of metal.

Fortunately, the good doctor is multi lingual. His English is quite good in addition to at least French and German.

There's also the free program, GIMP. It gets good reviews.

If you want to pay, Photoshop Elements is a great option as Jent103 mentioned.

Everything you can do in the full Photoshop, you can do in Elements - you just might have to do 10 steps instead of 2.

There's also a new software suite that's coming out called Aviary. It is created by the folks from Worth1000 (a photo website). The photo editing software portion is Phoenix. It may be something to watch and see.

I just received a disc from one of the Microsoft magazines. It has PaintShop Pro. This is a very good program which will handle everthing you need. Your biggest problem is finding the "Windows Vista" magazine for the "Summer" version.

Blackduff

This has all been most helpful.
I will download two of the editors at least and see what I can do with them.

I have space to store all of them!

When I got the digital camera, I also upgraded my storage capacity.

I tried a couple of them, but they would not run under Vista and I ended up deleting them. I know Picasa will run under Vista. I will check out the others.

Bob, keep adding to that storage capacity. It's amazing how quickly it disappears. :)

One of the best is Adobe Lightroom, what alot of amateurs and most pro's use.

Again thanks for all the good advice. I have acted on the free ones and will continue to experiment with them for the next few days. Now I need to check out the Adobe ones.

As for storage, I have a flash drive plug I can use and a hard disk with a capacity of 232 g which is intended for picture files.

I think playing with the pictures may be a fun chore to do after I get a little better at it.

I'm nor sure what you mean by 'resize for printing'.

I use Picasa2 and am very happy with it. When I put a photo in the 'Photo Tray' and then click on 'Print' on the bottom, I get a screen where I can get many sizes of the print. Is that what you want? ((*))

Bob, I have loved Picasa 2 and find it a great organizer. I also edit and print from it. Holler if you want more.

Bob - I'm betting you'll love post processing. It's like having a darkroom. It's amazing some of the things you can do. And once you get the hang of it, all those family photo albums are waiting for restoration.

You can correct discolored photos, torn photos, faded photos, etc. It's wonderful!

The July issue of Consumer Reports reviews photo software.

Everybody has their own favourites. I have an older version of photoshop that is superb but does about 5000% more than I will ever need.

I have heard excellent reviews of "The Gimp", and it appears to be able to do nearly everything that photoshop can do (And it is free), but it also appears to have a very steep learning curve.

For simple editting , particularly of batches of files, I use Irfanview. This is another free program and I find it excellent for resizing large numbers of files for webpages or thumbnails.

As others have said, if you want a simple , straightforward program for simple editting, then Picasa is very hard to beat - particularly as google give 1gb of webspace to upload photos.

You folks know what I am after and have advised me very well. I have played with Picasa a little and it seems ok.

I need to do more experiment with this new toy of mine. After all these years, the old guy has gone digital.

Anybody want a Minolta SRT 202?

bob - I came upon your OP a little late, but I have tried so many programs and at last I tried PS Elements. It works with Vista (download an upgrade).
It just is so much superior IMO and worth the price and the learning time.
Bonus - it will grow with your abilities and cameras.

I guess I missed the July issue of Consumer Reports with the photo software reviews. Can anyone summarize what they thought was the best for the price? I hear lots of good things about photoshop elements. A friend uses photo finale which came free with her camera and likes it for basic editing. Any other comments on photo editing?

All of the programs listed here are good ones. I haven't heard of any real complaints with any of them. A lot of the decision is based on your budget.

Free - Picasa for basic processing
Irfanview for basic processing
Gimp for more advanced; much closer to Photoshop in abilities

Under $200 - Photoshop Elements really can't be beat. It can do pretty much everything the full program can do, you just go about it a bit differently

Over $500 - the full Photoshop. It's the king.

I'm with Willit. While I started with PaintShop 5 and 8, I switched to Photoshop for its amazing control (took a class and got student rates) but I am an avid user of the free Irfanview at irfanview.com - be sure to download the free plug-ins set also. Loss-less rotation. It has batch editing of an entire directory if you just want to change brightness and contrast for all but also has the main basic adjustment features too.

I use this one everyday, for viewing and quick edits and resizing. I use Photoshop for problem pics.

You'll love the digital. I joined up in 2003 :-)

- Andrys
www.pbase.com/andrys/abtravels

I just read a short article about some type of photo program which is provided on Vista. I do have Vista but I haven't found a section like this so far.

I have the Vista-Business version. I'm not sure which version has the photo manager. Check into your manual (hah, hah, they didn't give us a manual)or buy one of the Microsoft Vista magazines.

Blackduff

The photo stuff is on Vista home and Ultimate.

I've used both PhotoShop and PhotoShop Elements, and I prefer Elements. I just saw it at Costco yesterday for $79.99 (Windows and Mac 10.3+).
:)>-

Hi everyone,
Bob, am I glad you asked your question--I have learned so much from the discussion! (I, too, tend to take hundreds of pictures when traveling.)

I have an "editing" question to ask of all of you, since we are talking about editing...(and because you all sound sooo knowledgeable): On our last trip (used FujiFilm Finepix F700 digital) after editing completed, including rotating all vertical shots, when trying to view the CD on TV (always back up finished slide show to CD), every single time we reached one of those pictures that I had rotated, the screen went pink and the slide show stopped. The only way we were able to continue the slide show was for me to come back to the computer and eliminate each and every one of those shots. I asked the gurus at the camera store about it, but they didn't seem to know what I could be referring to....have any of you had this happen and do you know what I can do ...sometimes those vertical shots are the only way to take the picture! Thanks for your wealth of editing info.

What software did you use to rotate the images?

Hi toedtoes, I believe I just used the "FinePix Viewer" program I installed when I first purchased the camera, (which, by the way, I have replaced now with a Cascio Exilim EX-V7). I have ArcSoft Photo Studio 5 on my computer (came with it), but I have never downloaded or purchased a program specifically for editing--maybe now is the time to do so, so this doesn't happen again?!?

By the way, when viewing ON the computer, everything seemed fine (I could view the rotated pix), just not after they had been backed up to CD and attempted to be seen on TV...not until they were deleted from the CD.

I did a search and couldn't find any known problems with FinePix viewer's rotation. It could be the software that you're using to back up onto CDs. You might try just doing a "copy to CD" or using another program to save to CD - whichever you're not currently using.

If that doesn't work, try downloading one of the free programs listed above and do the rotation from that program, then back up to CD and try viewing on tv.

Someone else may come along who's had this problem with an easy solution. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking for a "culprit".

Thank you so much, toedtoes--I'm not at all a "techie" LOL so I need all the help I can get! I will study this thread and look into a suggestion or two--it is probably time that I "upgrade". Let me know if anything comes to mind.