Having recently purchased my first digital camera (Olympus Stylus 400), I’m now looking into an editing program. I’ve read reviews on PhotoGenetics, Paint Shop Pro, GIMP, ACDSee, PhotoSuite, and of course, Adobe Photoshop. Seems some are weak in sharpening, not all can make panoramic photos, and so on. What would really help me is to get any input from anybody who has experience using any of these and suggestions on which is overall the “best”. Photoshop does seem to be the one, but the price is a tad out of my range right now. I know that you can’t take “Cadillac” pictures with a “Volkswagon” camera, so I need all the help I can get. 
Photoshop is the standard, Paint Shop Pro does a pretty good job for a lot less money. I haven’t used the GIMP, but I’ve heard good things about it.
Since most of these programs have trial/shareware versions, why don’t you download some of em and see which works best for you?
Thank you. I’ve already downloaded trial version of ACDSee and am playing with it. I really didn’t like the idea of cluttering up my computer more than it already is, but that may be the way to go.
Photoshop Elements is the “lite” version of Photoshop, and retails for $99. It has a “Photomerge” feature (that is not present in the full version) that’ll make panoramas. And just because it’s the little brother, it is by no means a lightweight – from what I can see, the only thing it lacks from the full version is CMYK support, which you probably won’t need unless you’re working with commercial printers.
Another possibility for panoramas is to use a dedicated program – Panorama Factory is pretty well reviewed, and has a 30-day free trial period, so feel free to try it out.
Earthling, I’d seen Elements on the Adobe site, that and Album. What I wasn’t sure about was whether or not they were usable without having Photoshop. Elements does sound good…thanks. I’ve already looked at Panorama Factory after seeing what somebody had done: It was like you were in the middle of a back yard and could pan 360 degrees, seeing it just like you were there. Very awesome. Thank you for your input.
Just in case you’re still not sure, Elements is a fully stand-alone program. No need to fork out for the full version of Photoshop.
You might also want to check out this book, which looks to be pretty good – though bear in mind that my opinion is based on having some experience with Photoshop (full version) already, so I can’t really tell if it’s helpful for newbies or not.
I use Photoshop 7 for everything, but I’ve been using the program since version 4, and it is very complex. I have used it heavily for nearly 7 years now, and I still only know about 65% of what it can do. I really wouldn’t use anything else, but that’s because I’ve learned how to do most everything I ever want in the 2D realm with it. The Elements version is a great middle man between power and usability. It’s a great place to start.
PhotoShop is the best, but it’s expensive.
However… you can get PhotoShop LE (Lite Edition) bundled free with all sorts of gadgets and gizmos, from cameras to computers to scanners. I ended up with two legitimate copies without even trying. It’s worth asking around to see if any of your friends have spare legitimate copies they don’t mind giving to you.
When you get PShop LE, you’re not really missing anything vital - some functions to do with channels, masks and CMYK support are missing, but you have all the main tools and functionality, and the bits that are ‘missing’ are ones you probably wouldn’t get round to understanding or using for months anyway.
Well, I’ve been looking at all the suggestions and advice and do appreciate it. After I read about Adobe Elements I downloaded the tryout version (sure glad I have cable modem…lol). I’m impressed. Of course, the trial version of ACDSee I tried didn’t have all the features of the regular program, but Elements has pretty much convinced me. Plus, I have 30 days to make my final decision :-). Thanks. jman, thanks for the info about Photoshop. It does seem more than I can handle right now. ianzin, I’ll look into PhotoShop LE. It sounds almost like Elements. Could that be the UK version? I’ll ask around anyway…thank you.
I downloaded PSP7 off kazaa LOL
Photoshop LE is no longer available. It used to be the junior version of Photoshop, but has been supplanted by Elements.
I’ll give a brief run-down on the history of Adobe’s consumer photo-editing programs, in chronological order, with hopes that that’ll clear up any confusion:[ol][li]Photoshop LE: A stripped-down version of Photoshop that was bundled with a lot of scanners for a very long time (perhaps even after Elements was released – which certainly doesn’t help with the confusion of PS versions). Many years ago, that’s what I started with, and IMO it was too stripped down (in my uncharitable moments, I’ve called it “brain-dead”), and I upgraded to PS as soon as I scraped together the moola.[/li][li]PhotoDeluxe: A dedicated consumer-level photo editor, designed from the ground up. I’ve never used it, but from what I’ve seen, it suffered from a goofy and inflexible user interface (i.e., you do it their way or no way), and it saved files in a non-standard, proprietary format – IIRC, it wasn’t able to save JPEGs until some versions after the initial release. I think LE and PhotoDeluxe co-existed for a while, but both are now no longer available.[/li][li]Photoshop Elements: The latest incarnation, and in the opinions of many, the best. You get 90%* of the full version’s features at 1/6 the price, and there are shortcuts and wizards to help novices harness PS’s powers. Of course I may be biased, but I don’t think you’ll be missing out on anything by getting this program.[/li][/ol]* That’s just a WAG number. Don’t make me go count features.
Another vote for Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements.
I found an older version of Photoshop on eBay. I was able to register it with Adobe. (I made sure it could be registered before I bought it.). I then upgraded it to the latest version, which I also registered. This cost me hundreds less than if I had bought it retail.
Elements is also excellent. It got good reviews from the Photoshop-only magazine, Photoshop User. Elements also benefits a lot from being “related” to Photoshop—it can use the same “styles” as the full version of Photoshop uses. There are plenty of books for Elements, message boards, support groups, etc. etc. Not to say that these other programs don’t have support and books—some of them do. But not nearly as much as Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.
Earthling, your comment about PhotoShop LE being bundled with scanners made me go “hmmmmm”, and I checked my Cannon Scanner CD (which is loaded onto my no-longer-used older computer) and I found that it came with PhotoDeluxe. I’ve had the scanner a few years now, haven’t used it in a year, and forgot all about that. Needless to say, after playing with Elements I’ve no interest at all in PhotoDeluxe, and will take your word that it kind of stinks. After playing around with the features in Elements I agree that it is excellent, as yosemitebabe says. I also like that there are message boards for it, since they are so helpful. When I posted this question I couldn’t have hoped for a better response. Thanks to all of you for helping me decide on PhotoShop Elements. And Ally424, good for you, but I still think PSP7 is too much for me, especially after what Jman said.
I have Photoshop 5 LE, PhotoDeluxe 2.0, and two versions of Paint Shop Pro (7.04 and 8). I use Photoshop the most. PSP has a neat browsing function built in (similar to ACDSee from what I hear) and its photo retouching capabilites can’t be touched by the other two. The only thing I use PhotoDeluxe for is geometric fixes that are difficult to do with Photoshop or PSP.
I got PSP 8 for free because I bought v7 from the JASC website. I haven’t even installed it. BTW: PhotoDeluxe 2 is capable of saving JPEGs, it has to be done through Send to -> File Format.
I use three, wait four programs for my photo and graphics:
Photoshop
Paint Shop Pro
Micrografix Picture Publisher
Illustrator
Photoshop, huge learning curve but the standard and expensive, very little control over virgin graphics, no vectore capabilities.
Paint Shop Pro, excellent output with usually higher file sizes but for the price it offers a lot of things Adobe’s products don’t unless you spend hundreds for various programs. I think this is the best one for beginners and people new to digital and graphics manipulation. The learning curve is lower and you can use a lot of Photoshop plugins. I use this about 90% of the time.
Picture Publisher, it is very good, a little pricey, not even sure it’s still around. Is the best program (for the web) to compress file sizes with out a lot of pixelation but is more difficult to learn than Paint Shop Pro.
Illustrator, leave that for the schooled graphics artists. I mainly have it because I got it at a steep discount through Adobe and I occasionally need to open ai files for web design jobs. I now work with a few graphic artists that work heavily in Illustrator, so glad I have it because I can reduce and change files better for the web then they can, oddly enough.
Does Photoshop Elements have Actions? I don’t think it does, but if so I may recommend it to a friend of mine so we can swap files. I use the full version professionally, but my friend doesn’t want to shell out full price for what little use he would get out of it.
Another Photoshop Elements user and fan here. Unless you do professional pre-press work, PE will handle all of your photo editing needs.
On the Mac side, you can do some basic photo editing with iPhoto.
Also on the Mac side, I occasionally use Graphic Convertor to do some basic photo editing as well.
Fixed link
Illustrator is not really a painting program, it’s more a drawing program similar to Freehand and CorelDraw.
For sheer power, you can’t beat PhotoShop. It’s the software that pros use. But, of course, as you said, it’s very expensive and you probably can’t justify the expense. The GIMP is an OpenSource alternative that is free to use. You can always download it for a try.