h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would like to buy some software for viewing and editing photos, but am bewildered by the array available. Also, the prices seem to range from £8 to £100. Firstly, I want to be able to view photos (mainly from Kodak CD-Rs, though I will be adding a scanner soon) so I want to be able to browse easily, see thumbnails, maybe with a slideshow mode. I also want to be able to edit, for example change colour balance, crop & cut, edit out scratches from scanned images... I suppose I'm looking for a package which is up there with the best, without actually being 'The Best' (and hence expensive). The chap in the PC shop recommended Adobe 'PhotoShop Elements'. At £60, I would be willing to pay this if it was *exactly* what I am looking for - otherwise it's an expensive mistake. I am running a 900MHz AMD processor & Win98+. Comments welcome.

Incidentally, my main complaint with the 'freebie' image browsers which come on the CD-ROMs is that many of the images load upside down or on one side, so each time you load an image you have to click the 'rotate' button. For the same reason, the slideshow mode is unusable unless you want to give yourself a cricked neck!!

I've got the full version of Adobe Photoshop. It's extremely powerful for editing images - you really can do anything you want to them, but I actually find it TOO powerful. There are loads of featues I don't use and don't understand. In the hands of somebody who knows what they're doing (ie not me) I'm sure it's the dog's whatsits, but it's too much for me.

I'm told by a mate that has it that Photoshop Elements is easier to cope with.

If you go to http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/demoreg.html you can download a 30-day free trial version of Adobe Photoshop Elements - have a play and see what you think.

You should be able to find free trials of anything you fancy buying online (Google is your friend ) - if they don't offer a free trial you have to ask yourself - why not? Actually, I think I might just download Elements myself now...

Erm - if you're on a dial-up connection you're not going to want to download Elements. I'm on broadband, and it's threatening to take 25 minutes. So if you've a fast connection you're laughing, but if not...

When you buy your scanner, shop around and you may find one that comes with good digital image processing software as part of the package. They all come with some kind of image processing software these days, but whether the software is any good is a different matter. Look for a scanner that has an Adobe package. Photoshop *is* powerful - as Captain says, it can be *too*powerful, but that's because it's intended for use by professionals who need to tinker with pictures as part of their job. It's also expensive. Forget £100, it's more like $500 - $600, so you have to be sure that it's what you need.

As far as 'off-the-shelf' packages are concerned, Paintshop Pro is a good one. I'm not sure what version they are up too, but cost is £90 - £100 and it should be available at any good computer shop.

You could try the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Totally free and can be downloaded from http://www.wingimp.org/
Like Photoshop though it is very powerful and can be daunting to use (and probably is much more than you need).

If you have a look in your local newsagents for digital photography magazines,(on the top shelf at mine for some strange reason...), these mostly come with a cover cd. At least 2 or 3 of the ones I've seen have the trial version of 'elements' on. Could be a cost effective way (as opposed to the download) with the added extra of some excellent image editing tips as well...

alternatively, find a friend who's into digital photography and borrow his or her coverdisc...

good luck...

p.s. I use a version of elements which came with my digital camera and find it smashing for everyday mucking about with pictures. When I'm being more arty farty I use Paintshop pro.

Jacko.

I use Micrografx Picture Publisher for playing with my photos and images. Similarly to the other mentioned software it's much more powerful than I actually need but lots of fun to experiment with.
I got my software bundled in with my scanner so perhaps you should avoid paying any money out until you've decided what scanner to buy and checked what's included.
Sounds like a good idea in the meantime to get hold of as many free trial versions as you can via downloads and cover discs.

Hi Metal Chicken!

I got Micrografx free with something (I can't remember what - I had it before my scanner so it must have been a printer) - I liked it. It was a lot easier to use than Photoshop, I found, but when I reformatted my hard disk the other week (long and sad story) I couldn't find the CD - must have another look.

I just downloaded a 30-day trial of Paintshop Pro v7.04 -http://www.jasc.com/products/psp/ - it looks pretty good, I have to say. It seems to have all the basic features, as well as a lot of not so basic features - all the usual toys. Certainly enough for a casual user like me.

It comes with an animation doberry as well. It's $99 to buy, which is £64 according to XE.com.

The best digital photo programme I've had was free and it was Adobe PhotoDeluxe 1.1 which was offered by a PC magazine with the chance to upgrade.These days there maybe such offers but more often than not yoy will find mostly demo's of such software.I can only say that you will find such offers regularily with PC magazines and they are a good way to evaluate software before you buy.Another product I've tried was PhotoImpact which wasn't bad either and you can also get a free demo download of that to evaluate.I like Adobe products because they are intuitive to use and as a consequence of that free offer I've gone on to buy other Adobe products plus try out a few free samples.I note that PhotoDeluxe Home edition 4.0 is available at $49.00 which on my currency converter works out at about £32.00.Not a bad price really.Ulead products are fairly intuitive too.

Incog.Look for the freebies I always say.

I started with Adobe PhotoDeluxe Business edition 1.1 with absolutely no computer experience at all, and it was really easy to learn on. You can do some pretty surprising things with that one if you play around with it, and basic photo editing is a breeze.

Now I use Photoshop, but it's taken some time to learn to use it properly.