Alicia2 Loc: San Clemente

Im trying to purchase editing program.
Can anyone tell me a good one that isn't
to complicated. photoshop is only one I know of?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Alicia, you might want to check out Light Zone.
http://lightzoneproject.org/

It's free. It's quite powerful. Like all of them, it does come with a bonus learning curve. However, there are tutorials.
--Bob

gym Loc: Athens, Georgia

Photoshop elements.

northsidejoe Loc: pittsburgh

Paint shop pro x8 is my suggestion saying hello from Pittsburgh.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Alicia, have you tried the free one that came with your camera? They are really easy to learn and you can get help lead I g it from your cameras tech dept! Good luck. ;-)
SS

par4fore Loc: Bay Shore N.Y.

:thumbup:

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Are you saying that PhotoShop is too complicated, and you want one simpler?

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

photoshop/lightroom cc. 10.00 per month and the best of both worlds. lightroom has a small learning curve with a lot of presets available if you look online, and photoshop for a more complicated learning curve, but worth the effort

Papa Joe Loc: Midwest U.S.

Hi Alicia, a very easy to use editing program and it's also free is PHOTOSCAPE. Just download it and you'll be using it almost immediately. If you want to get more involved, such as layers, etc. I suggest you purchase Photoshop Elements.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Are you Apple or Windows? Each comes with simple to use programs. I believe Photo is for Apple and Photo Gallery in Windows 10 or 7. You may want to try them first. If they are not sufficiently sophisticated for your needs you may have a better idea of what you should explore. (Photoshop, Lightroom, Photoshop Elements or others.
Mark

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Photoshop ELEMENTS (currently version 14).

It actually might be all you ever need. Costs about $80 I think.

Don't be fooled into subscribing to the Photoshop/Lightroom CC combo, if you want something relatively uncomplicated to learn with. Seems like a great deal at $10 a month... but if you find the combo utterly overwhelming and aren't able to use it effectively, that will be money wasted.

Elements is a stand-alone program that borrows key features from both Lightroom and Photoshop. Elements gives you choice of three interfaces: Beginner, Intermediate and Expert. You can start out using whichever you feel comfortable with, then advance to others later if you wish. Or you can change back at any time.

Lightroom and especially Photoshop are nowhere near as easy to start with. Neither of them have similar support for beginners. Also, neither PS nor LR is truly complete without the other. LR is a digital asset management, cataloging and organizing tool with "lite" editing capabilities. Photoshop is the "Mac Daddy" of all image editing programs, with minimal asset management, cataloging and organizing tools. Some people get by with only one or the other... but many find both necessary.

Where Elements has built in support for beginners, LR and PS don't. Figure on getting at least one or two thick books and spending several months, maybe taking a couple classes to get good at using Lightroom. However, with Photoshop you should plan about a years worth of college-level courses and texts to get up to speed using it really well. Most people only use about half the features of LR and I bet very few use more than about 20% of the capabilities of PS.

Lightroom 6 can still be bought outright, rather than by subscription only, although the CC/subscription version of LR does have a few more features. Photoshop cannot be bought outright any more... it's subscription only and Adobe has stopped supporting any of the licensed standalone versions. So you end up paying "rent" for LR and PS each month, though that's not a lot right now (could change in the future). If you stop paying, the software stops working. When that happens your images will still be there... but you may have trouble finding what you want without LR, and won't have access to any work you've done in LR until you reactivate the software. Photoshop is more typically used to finish image, which are saved and available via various programs. But if you have work that's in progress and saved in proprietary PSD file format, you may not be able to complete the work in another program.

So, there are a lot of reasons that Elements makes more sense for beginners. Besides, if you ever do need/want to move up to it's "big brothers", Elements is a great way to get started and learn the basics. But it also might easily be all you ever need.

SwedeUSA2

What is a "bonus learning curve"?

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

I think Bob was saying that, "tongue in cheek". All software has a learing curve - some steep, some shallow. The more sophisticated it is the steeper the curve. As he mentioned, there are tons of tutorials out there Just Google and you'll find a plethora of available videos and articles.
Mark

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

All of this chatter {I use gimp, but that might have exactly the wrong interface} is kind of pointless if the OP is unwilling to be more specific in describing the problem. Maybe the OP cannot handle "curves"; maybe the OP cannot handle "sliders". There are various approaches to editing, but without some actual information about the actual problem, no one here can provide actual solutions.

SwedeUSA2

Maybe, but what is the meaning of "bonus" in this context?
And why cannot we hear Bob himself answer the question?