Need help on choosing photosoftware

[zuzanne]

I need to purchase a photo software package for my desktop computer. I need one that will give me good results using photos scanned onto computer from Sea & Sea underwater 35 mm camera (will be either scanning printed photos or downloading from picture cd roms) as well as photos downloaded from my Kodak digital camera. I am new to photo editing so need all the help and recommendations I can get.
I have an HP computer/scanner & printer, use Windows XP for operating system.


Zuzanne

 

[jcclink]

Dpends on your budget. You can do alot with Photoshop, but it isn't cheap. For about $90 you can get Adobe Photo Elements 2.0. Its essentially Photoshop basic. You will have about 70% of the PS features, just not ALL the filters & tools. A good investment.

 

[Curt Bowen]

Photoshop is the best, I use it 5 hours a day.

 

[BIGSAGE136]

Download a trial of photoshop elements free for 30 days. $53 bucks at Sams Club if you are satisfied. You can do the same with Adobe photoshop Album. The 2 work in concert. Free trial and $53 bucks at Best Buy. Awesome combination.

 

[DivingGal]

Photshop comes in two varities. Full-blown (CS) and a down-sized version (Elements). Check to see which has the features you need.

 

[Dee]

I can't afford the full Photoshop program for just photos, so I use PS Elements. It does everything I need it to do.

 

[HammerNoMore]

A quick warning on Photoshop Elements. It has a nasty bug in it where on *some* people's XP machines it completely disables the Cammera wizard, thereby getting rid of what is IMHO the best way to download your images.

It's been covered in their forums and happened to me. Uninstalling the software does not solve the problem. The only way to fix it is to use System Restore, so if you try it make sure you have System Restore turned on and that you check to make sure you can download BEFORE System Restore times out your backups.

 

[Dee]

James, I hadn't heard of that problem. I have Windows ME (yeah, I know!) on my desktop but have XP on the laptop and haven't had any problems. Guess I'm one of the lucky ones!

 

[HammerNoMore]

James, I hadn't heard of that problem. I have Windows ME (yeah, I know!) on my desktop but have XP on the laptop and haven't had any problems. Guess I'm one of the lucky ones!

Here's some more information:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q35326858

I tried everything under the sun to make it work and be able to keep the software, no go for me.

James

 

[BioG]

I use Paint shop pro version 8 and that handles anything I need it too. What first got me into the software was a few years ago, I was using the trial version of photoshop and got fed up waiting for the initalizing screen. I'm assuming it's still the case PSP is much faster loading up. Plus, it's a lot cheaper ($79 last time I checked).

One con for PSP, it doesn't open Olympus's RAW file format (which photoshop does). I don't shoot RAW, and since you're just scanning/downloading files it wouldn't be a problem there either.