Photo editing program

[WhiteD3]

Maybe this should be in the IT section but maybe not.

Looking for recommendations on freeware/shareware (ie cheap:angel:) photo editing software.

Don't want it to do too much other than crop, rotate and most importantly, resize in terms of resolution and/or pixels. And of course be able to save in jpg, tif, etc.

...and I do NOT want to have to create an album or "search" and find all 2000 odd pictures on my PC just to open one!

I used to use MS Photo editor under XP and Office 2000 but since upgrading to Vista and Office 2007 I've found the new MS Picture Manager too dumbed down.

Cheers.

[EchiDna]

the gimp...

no question in my mind at all - the best freeware on the planet

[dmdigital]

Adobe Photoshop Elements would be my pick. OK, its not free but for the price would be the pick of the products with lots of support, tutorials, how to's and other info available on the web. You don't need to use the album feature either.

[Slunnie]

I'd just use Irfanview.

I'll do all of these in batches also which makes processing 2000 holiday snaps very very quick.

http://www.irfanview.com/

[dmdigital]

I'd completely forgotten about irfanview. Good product, used to be a bit fiddly, but that was several years ago.

There's also Google's Picasa

[camel_landy]

Should have bought a Mac... That kind of stuff comes bundled with the OS. :D

M

[tombraider]

Should have bought a Mac... That kind of stuff comes bundled with the OS. :D

M

Love your thinking!!!!

http://www.peoplehelp.com.au/images/mac.gif

[JDNSW]

The Gimp. Comes bundled with almost every flavour of Linux, also available for Windows and, I think, OS-X.

John

[mittadisco]

paint (http://www.getpaint.net/)

[Bushie]

I'd go with the Gimp as well, very capable. For windows you will need to load the GTK=2 runtime environment first

go here
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

The user manual is here
http://docs.gimp.org/en/

For tutorials go here
http://gimpguru.org/Tutorials/

For irfanview
http://irfanview.com


Martyn

[p38arover]

Should have bought a Mac... That kind of stuff comes bundled with the OS. :D

M

Blowed if I can use a Mac. My wife keeps asking for help with hers and it's totally foreign to me. I can't work it out. Gimme Windows, I understand it.

Ron

[p38arover]

I'll do all of these in batches also which makes processing 2000 holiday snaps very very quick.

Crikey!

My 22-yo daughter has been complaining that we have taken virtually no photos of her as she grew up - certainly very few in the past 15 years.

Ron

[WhiteD3]

Thanks Folks, appreciated the feedback.

[5teve]

Crikey!

My 22-yo daughter has been complaining that we have taken virtually no photos of her as she grew up - certainly very few in the past 15 years.

Ron

The beauty of digital... you only print the ones you want.. i try not to miss anything and 2000+ snaps is a regular occurance... i think in egypt we took an average of 400 - 500 a day! mind you we only printed enough to fill a 200 photo album :D

i used the gimp, but found it not too friendly, but didnt spend too long using it.

generally i dont process my photos at all (other than colour spaces done in CS2) but for cropping i use a small program (but not free) called photo elf!

no harm having them all installed and develop a workflow round them!

Thanks

Steve

[Rosco]

....... but since upgrading to Vista .......

Cheers.

:Rolling::Rolling::Rolling::Rolling::tease:

[Quiggers]

Photoshop.

If you have a student handy, you can get it for the right price.

Easy to use once you get the hang of it.
And it's the programme used by the pros.

I wouldn't anything else.

GQ

[Bushie]

Photoshop.

If you have a student handy, you can get it for the right price.

Easy to use once you get the hang of it.
And it's the programme used by the pros.

I wouldn't anything else.

GQ

$225

http://www.educationsoftware.com.au/product.php?id=384


Martyn

[dmdigital]

$225

http://www.educationsoftware.com.au/product.php?id=384


Martyn

For that price you'll have to have a full-time student in a full bachelor degree course (for uni ones). Don't know if secondary schools students qualify either. This licencing is very tightly controlled and retailers can get in to serious trouble for breaching the student version licence.

The next level up is Academic pricing which is about $400 and you can be any sort of student to qualify :)

Both licences are still for the full version. Photoshop CS3 is very, very powerful unless you are seriously into photography, the Elements version (academic) is the best way to go. The other option to consider is Adobe Lightroom. If you use Nikon DSLR then I would also recommend Capture NX.

[WhiteD3]

:Rolling::Rolling::Rolling::Rolling::tease:

It wasn't by choice. Had to get my folks their first PC (they're both in their 70s) and it came with Vista, so I thought I'd put Vista on mine so I can answer their questions.

[WhiteD3]

Photoshop.
GQ


I've got an 8 megapixel Konica that takes these humongous photos which are absolutely fantastic quality, etc. I really don't want to do anything else with them other than crop sections and save as, in various resolutions and sizes.

What I've found is many programs seem to struggle with 7MB jpegs, especially when they try to catalogue every bloody photo on my PC at startup, of which there's a thousand or so.

Infranview and Gimp seem to do what I want quite well.

Cheers.

[dmdigital]

I've got an 8 megapixel Konica that takes these humongous photos which are absolutely fantastic quality, etc. I really don't want to do anything else with them other than crop sections and save as, in various resolutions and sizes.

What I've found is many programs seem to struggle with 7MB jpegs, especially when they try to catalogue every bloody photo on my PC at startup, of which there's a thousand or so.

Infranview and Gimp seem to do what I want quite well.

Cheers.

And there in is the answer to this thread. For me, I shoot almost exclusively in RAW and Nikon View NX, Nikon Capture NX and Adobe Photoshop CS3 allow me to do what I want. This is not to say they suit everyone any more than Adobe Photoshop Elements, Infranview or Gimp. Even Google Picasa has its followers.

One thing with any software or freeware is that it is not suitable for everyone. But if it serves your purpose then there is absolutely nothing wrong with it and that has nothing to do with the cost of the software.

The most important part of any picture is at the point when you press the shutter release. Post processing should be then just crop, resize and save.

[Rosco]

It wasn't by choice. Had to get my folks their first PC (they're both in their 70s) and it came with Vista, so I thought I'd put Vista on mine so I can answer their questions.

Only having a loan .... ;)
Came across a laptop with vista on my recent travels and was singularly unimpressed. As usually happens to me, whilst we were away one of the boxes on my small office network decided to go to the big Bill Gates resting place in the sky. My IT supplier bloke advised strongly against it also.

Cheers

[WhiteD3]

Only having a loan .... ;)
Cheers


NO worries, no offence taken :)

I find OS all about expectations. My expectation is that with every MS upgrade (Since DOS to Win 3.1) there'll be blood, sweat, frustration and strange looks from people who have no idea why we computer geeks do it to ourselves.

Vista did not disappoint in the regard :(