Is there any alternative to Photoshop?

[wrogers]

just as a hint... Photoshop Elements 7 is £49.95 ATM at Cameraworld, and a few other equally good retailers have it at a slightly higher price
(phew hope that gets past the moderators )

[Gill Catton]

Gimp is ok but I find it cumbersome in comparison to paintshop pro 9 which I bought off that website that is named after a big river for £25 and love...

I love its edge preserving smooth tool (very useful for my panasonic which can be a touch noisy) and haven't found something similar in Gimp and Gimp although brilliant for the price is almost too high tech for me and i agree less intuative....

[RobinP]

Picasa 3 is not at all bad and is free, now works with Vista.

[squishy]

Originally Posted by Gill Catton

and Gimp although brilliant for the price

what price gill?

i have to say, for flicking through my photos, and doing quick editing to see if the photos have potential, picasa 3 is very good. it has a very neat retouching tool, which let me edit out meal worms from a robin shot () flawlessly and quickly

[Mandy1]

I have CS3 extended, but I have to say that at the moment there is a huge amount that I don't use but hopefully with time and patience I will grasp some of the techniques.
I wouldn't normally entertain buying such an expensive piece of software (normally in the hundreds of pounds) but as I was a nursing student at the time I was able to get the student edition for about £120! So something to consider if you or anyone in your household is in education - student edition software which is no different to the standard edition, you just need proof when registering the software of student status.

[mickmassie]

The latest GIMP (2.6) is much better than previous releases and the upcoming 2.8 is promised to be better still. Photoshop is a bit slicker, but I bought a copy of Akkana Peck's book 'Beginning GIMP' for £25 and I am converted. You need UFRaw for RAW processing, but again that is much improved from earlier versions. I haven't tried the Photoshop lookalike version. Photoshop Elements is very poor in comparison to GIMP + UFraw.
Mick.

[Geoff F]

Just ordered Serif Photo Plus X3 after they tempted me with a special offer price. But you do have to be very firm with those salesmen!

It has a RAW editing studio and they claim it is equal to Photoshop CS2 but only a tenth of the price. 'They would say that wouldn't they'. Anyway, I will give it a go next week and see what happens.