Photo editing

[Airehead]

Can anyone tell me if there is any low cost photo editing software available?
I am using Arcsoft Photostudio 2000 which came with my scanner but I wonder if there is anything better which I can afford, ie. which costs less then Adobe Photoshop.

[Oy]

I'd recommend Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Version 5 is due out any day now and will cost about £85

Version 4 will do everything you need - has lots of support online & in ther photo mags via free tutorials etc - and can be had for less than £50.

[eeyore]

also, GIMP will do 90% of what photoshop ele will do and is a free download from here GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program . There is also a beta download of adobe lightroom (which is suposedly going to replace photoshop in the fullness of time) available here Adobe Labs - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom

[Mr Mag00]

im with eeyore, gimp is very good for most average users. why pay when open source software is available

[eeyore]

admittedly I actually use photo ele but it is version 2 and came free with my DSLR

[speckled wood]

I use elements 2 and 3 also use Nikon View which came with a Nikon 4500. Have downloaded Lightshop but can't honestly say that it looks to have anything much more to offer me than elements ..... doubtless I will be proved wrong!

Have to say that I do see a lot of images which IMHO have oversharpened, not that the original images have been bad but that they have been oversharpened so much so that they no longer looked natural.

Example here of the sort of image I like http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/ga...56F15D3244.jpg
to me it looks natural

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by speckled wood

I use elements 2 and 3 also use Nikon View which came with a Nikon 4500. Have downloaded Lightshop but can't honestly say that it looks to have anything much more to offer me than elements ..... doubtless I will be proved wrong!

Have to say that I do see a lot of images which IMHO have oversharpened, not that the original images have been bad but that they have been oversharpened so much so that they no longer looked natural.

Example here of the sort of image I like http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/ga...56F15D3244.jpg
to me it looks natural

sharpening is definitely one of those areas where less is more, but that is down to the user rather than the software , there is very little difference between the sharpening algorithms (or at least their results) of photo ele , gimp, and paintshop pro

I think one of the key improvement in lightroom is suposed to be that it has integrated raw shooter from pixmantec thus giving it increased ability to handle RAW and NEF files.

[Airehead]

Thanks for all that, folks. I shall have a look at them all.
I try to write my own software but this is way beyond me.
I agree about over-sharpened images looking unnatural and rarely, or never, do it.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by Airehead

Thanks for all that, folks. I shall have a look at them all.
I try to write my own software but this is way beyond me.
I agree about over-sharpened images looking unnatural and rarely, or never, do it.

If you have chosen a parameter on your camera settings that already sharpens your images, the as you say there is often no need to further sharpen. I suspect some folk may be re-sharpening images that are already sufficiently sharpened. I use a parameter on my camera with no sharpening at all.
I don't really understand this bit fully - but here goes, if you turn off sharpening and you take a shot that may require interpolation, i.e. may need to make the file bigger, then if the file is already sharpened the results will not be so good. The other thing to bear in mind is that if it is turned off then you can select how much sharpening is required as opposed to the camera deciding for you. I may not convince anyone with this simplistic view but I do know Andy Rouse says turn it off, so I did!
Admittedly, I suspect this malarkey may not matter one jot for many shots, but for me the whole point of shooting RAW is to have as much control as I can possibly have, as opposed to the camera taking contriol. Jon