Photo editing software?

[only1asterisk]

Need a Windows XP photo editor.  My wife like to mess with pictures.  Whats best for under $500?  Under $250?

David

[TarpleyG]

If you have $500 to spend, I think you can get PhotoShop.  Undeniably the best around AFAIK.  Big learning curve though.

Greg

[Marnoot]

You can get Photoshop Elements 4.0 for around $80-$95. While it is a stripped down version of Photoshop, it really has everything the average user is going to need. I have elements and my brother has the full photoshop; there's never been anything I've wanted/needed to do with a photo/photos that has required me to use Photoshop over just Elements.

[MaterDei]

Gimp is a good, freeware graphics package.  I don't know whether it does photo editing or not though.  It's worth a look.

[Guest]

email me and i may be able to help

[Standing Wolf]

If you buy Photoshop, be sure to read the manual.

Any nitwit can figure out some basic stuff. The people who read the manual from cover to cover are the Photoshop wizards.

[jefnvk]

Gimp is what I use.  Free, and for free it does everything I need it to.

If you really wanna pay, PhotoShop.

[BobCat]

ImageJ is free from NIH - http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/ - it is very powerful but there is a learning curve.  Platform independent, lots of plug-ins available.

[garrettwc]

Photoshop Elements from Adobe, Paint Shop Pro from Jasc are both good ones in the $100 range.

[Justin]

They can have my copy of PhotoShop when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

PhotoShop is the best.  Period, end of story.

I've only toyed with GIMP here and there, and while it's rough around the edges it's well done.

For low-medium cost commercial packages, PhotoShop Elements or Paint Shop Pro will probably do what you need.

[Zundfolge]

PhotoShop is the best.  Period, end of story.

+1

Of course I have over a decade of experience with it and use it professionally so I may get a little better results out of it then the average user.

If all you want to do is simple resizing, minor color correction, brightness/contrast adjustments and such, then GIMP is your best value (and I would recommend it over Photoshop Elements).

But if you want to put in the time to learn it ... Photoshop just cannot be beat.

[RadioFreeSeaLab]

The Gimp.  100% free.
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html
Download both packages on that page, install GTK first, then Gimp.  You'll be all set.

[Brian Williams]

Do a search for PSP412.zip and download the last Paint shop Pro Shareware edition and see if it works for you, it will run on XP.  I use PSP ver 7 and it does All I need.

[Winston Smith]

Is there a readme for ImageJ? I can't find anything more in depth than "how to install"

[BobCat]

Winston,

At http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/ click on "Documentation" and it will take you to http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/docs/index.html - where you will find links fo  "introduction" and "basic concepts" and so forth and so on - as well as a .PDF of Overvies and Examples.

If this does not work in your browser, please let me know.  I'm just using netscape and it seems to work.

Regards,
Andrew

[Winston Smith]

Thanks bobcat.