Software Advice...

I am a little confused about all the software options I am finding in my online search (Photoshop, onOne Software, Alien Skin Snapart, PhotoStudio, etc.). Just looking for some good, not too expensive software to use...I am obviously a novice, and don't want to spend the money for professional versions...any thoughts?

Thanks in advance...

 

what are you looking to do.

GIMP is a free alternative to photoshop

 

Photoshop Elements 7. $80

If you can qualify as a student CS4 Extended ($1000) for $199.

 

Photoshop Elements 7 is a fairly powerful photo editor for a very reasonable price. Lots of information available to help you too.

GIMP is a very powerful photo editor that is free but it's not that easy to learn (thank goodness for YouTube though).

There are a number of other free photo editors that will do basic photo editing like color, hue, contrast, sharpness etc...and some will also organize your photos.

 

I would recommend either Photoshop Elements 6 or 7, and Topaz Adjust 3 plug in.
Topaz Adjust - Redefining Creative Exposure

 

thanks for the thoughts...working on learning gimp now

 

Grokking The GIMP

 

Agree with Samanax. Gimp is free and pretty damn good.

 

GIMP's big limitation is it still can't handle files that have a 16-bit color depth.

If you check Amazon.com there are some new user instruction books for GIMP.

 

Check out paint.net, also free and similar to GIMP. I like paint.net better than GIMP, but just my opinion.

 

I tried that for a while, but eventually went back to GIMP