russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I find different programs have different strengths, so at the present I use Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Lightroom 5 Beta, Corel PaintShop Pro X5, Corel Photo-Paint X6, Corel Draw X6, and Word 2010.

I use Photoshop the most because I have my camera set to shoot RAW files and I find Adobe Camera Raw, specifically how it is set up with Photoshop, to be easier to use than the other program's RAW processors, even though Lightroom also uses Adobe Camera Raw, just set up differently.

If I just need to quickly frame something, I'll often go to Word 2010. It has a bunch of nice, unique frames and is quick and easy. Just a mouse click or two.

If I need to do something really complicated, like wrap a picture around a vase, I'll use Corel Draw.

wlgoode Loc: Globe, AZ

I am a fan of GIMP it's like a $600 app for free!

That said, if you go for GIMP, take $12 and join the site of a fellow Hogger: Kat Landreth. at PareandFocus,com. Her e-book and course
"Before and After" makes the steep learning curve of GIMP like a friendly gentle slope.

Boone Loc: Groundhog Town USA

Get PSE 11 and LR4 (or wait for LR5, out this summer) I don't think you can go wrong with these. Boone

Pepsiman Loc: New York City

I use Picasa 3... It's free from Google and is easy to use...

Start with Picasa and you can grow from there.[/quote]

Julieb Loc: LaSalle, Colorado

Lightroom takes some time to understand due to the way that images are stored, but it protects your images. Once you get the hang of it, it is relatively fast and easy. I also use PS5 and Corel. Corel lets you "thinafy". Women really like that option. My PS5 has plugins of portraiture, and Nik.

ggttc Loc: TN

I agree...get your feet wet with Picasa...its simple and will give you a good idea of what you will actually use in an editing program.

rcurrie Loc: Kingsport, TN

I recommend Lightroom 4. It will do almost everthing you need for excellent photos. It is easy to use after a bit of info. A lot of good free tutorials on internet. For $30-$40 you can get great tutorials. Check out laurashoe.com. LR also has a great database for indentifing and organizing photos.

wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

I would suggest photoshop elements. I use 8. Easy to learn to crop and a few other simple things. If you are brand neww at PP it has a "Quick Fix" program that showes your original and the one you are working on side by side. It has severel things you can do the first is just an automatic fix. In it you can get severel boxes that have how much they fix it and you can go for a little or a lot. It also has darken highlights or lighten shadows and some color corection etc. all using sliders or sample boxes showing how much. Then once want to do more you can go to full edit and do all kind of other neat things. - Dave

RicknJude Loc: Quebec, Canada

As Linda from Maine said Picasa by Google is a great free place to start. Another good free one is Fastone Image Viewer. Either of these programs will keep you busy for a long time. :-)

GaryS1964 Loc: Northern California

Are you aware that if you own a single NIK piece of software you can now upgrade to the full suite for free? Just thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't heard.

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

I use the Faststone Image Viewer and have it coupled to Paintshop Pro X5 Ultimate (PSP) to do the heavy work. The image viewer is free and easy to use. It does have some simple adjustments for brightness, contrast, saturation, and colors. These two programs work together very nicely. PSP, in my estimation, is probably easier to learn than any of the Adobe programs and it does everything I need and then some. I am uploading some photos to support my opinion. The original photo (Photo 1) was taken over 5 years ago with a NIKON D70s and the 18-70mm lens that came with the camera. Photo 2 is the original photo adjusted in Faststone Image Viewer for brightness, contrast, saturation, colors, and slight sharpening. Photo 3 is Photo 2 taken into PSP X5 and adjusted for digital noise removal and to take out the microwave tower and a couple of very small distractions. Also used the unsharp mask tool, cropped, and resized. Photo 4 is Photo 3 again in PSP X5, using the NIK EFEX Pro 3.0 filters that comes with PSP X5 Ultimate. I used the Brilliance and Warmth filter and the Contrast Pro filter. I am very happy with the final result and I don't believe I need any other software. And, I have less than $80 invested in software.

Photo 1


Photo 2


Photo 3


Photo 4

Wezza1977uk Loc: London, England

I have used photoshop on and off for many years but only sort of dabbled with it prior to finding photography. Once i started taking photos I continued with an old copy of photoshop as I couldnt afford the new CS6 version. Then i discovered that adobe do a subscription service as an alternative to buying the full version. You basically rent the software for a small fee every month (£17 in the UK) and have access to all updates etc. Recently however I downloaded a free trial of Lightroom 4 after hearing many good things about it, and because I shoot RAW all the time. Lightroom took a little getting used to (By that I mean a few hours on Youtube and Lynda.com watching tutorials) but in all honesty now I use lightroom more and more and Photoshop less and less. In fact I only really use photoshop for fixing images now. ie removing unwanted elements i didnt notice in the viewfinder or cleaning up spots etc. Photoshop is excellent but Lightroom is my no1 go to program of choice now.
However this question is kinda like asking which car should I buy as most cars will get you to work and home again but everyone has their own preference for why they use the car they do. I suggest downloading the free software and trial versions of the paid software and seeing which suits your needs and whose interface you prefer and go from there.