markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Great post and suggestions, Susan!!
Mark

dylee8 Loc: South Florida

I also use Paintshop Pro Ultimate and find it satisfies all my needs.

I also use PSP with Faststone. They work well together.

To start with I suggest you download and use the free Faststone viewer/editor. It provides basic editing functions such as batch, crop, brightness/sharpen, etc. It gets you started on the photo editing process.

tombran

I've been a Lightroom user for years and just switched to AlienSkin Exposure (what is it with names these days)
Free trial then $149 very direct and simple interface and really like the organization approach.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

Thank you Mark!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Affinity Photo. $50.00 or less. 30-Day Free Trial if you can find the link at Serif's web site. (Yes, it IS there. Scroll to the bottom. It's in gray.):

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/?gclid=CjwKCAjwtdbLBRALEiwAm8pA5dYDULtbcyoQgJc7SZ7D-Y6y8rbZPj4LD8F8Src4CAOh9upOww7EtRoChaEQAvD_BwE?trial

Lower end Nikons and dSLRs in general are mediocre video cameras. The latest mirrorless cameras from Panasonic and Sony are MUCH better for video. My current favorite hybrid camera to recommend for both stills and video is the Lumix GH5 from Panasonic, because it was engineered for independent film producers and videographers as well as still photographers. See Tom Antos' review on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5gtfxy7rwM

If you are going to edit video, Apple iMovie on the Mac is a fantastic place to start. Final Cut Pro is a higher end product for the Mac. Adobe Premiere is available for Windows and Mac.

If you want to get into advanced color grading, DaVinci Resolve is the ticket.

BebuLamar

I would suggest Photoshop CC. It's free for 30 days. After 30 days the OP should know whether or not it's worth the money.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Adobe Photoshop CC is probably the LEAST friendliest way to go! It's the "Mac Daddy" of image editing programs and you should plan to spend about a year reading books, taking classes to learn to use it really well! Photoshop is also bundled with Adobe Lightroom CC now, and is only available by subscription ($10 a month for both, when you prepay a year). The two programs complement each other.... LR is a high volume, batch RAW processor with "lite" or relatively crude image editing capabilities, extensive cataloging, keywording, search and archive management functions. PS is one of the most intensive image editors... basically one-at-a-time, but possible right down to pixel level.

One of the MOST friendly is Adobe Elements 15. It's available as a stand-alone, fully licensed version for around $70 or $75, last time I looked. It combines many of the most-used functions of both PS and LR, but in a more user-friendly format. It actually gives you choice of three different interfaces: Beginner, Intermediate and Expert. You can change between them at any time.

If you shoot video, too... Adobe "Premiere" Elements 15 is a bit more expensive, but can handle both video and stills.

Free 30-day trials of any of these are available to download from the Adobe website. That's probably plenty of time to "test drive" Elements... and maybe Lightroom. But it's nowhere near enough time to get up to speed with Photoshop. In any case, if you do a trial, I'd recommend do only one at a time and buy a book about the program you're going to test, before starting the trial. That way you can get the best use out of the trial period. Scott Kelby and others have some excellent books on all the Adobe programs.

Digital1022 Loc: Holland, PA

Your going to find that deciding on post processing software is like deciding on your first camera; so many choices and so little time. I have found on threads like these that most posters are trying to use the most user friendly and cheapest software for post processing that they can and that is fine. I am not a pro, but I try to think of myself as an advanced "hack" because I have been shooting images for close to 50 years. I have been lucky over the years to have friendships with a number of professional photographers. All of them use lightroom and photoshop to organize and to post process their images. When I first decided on a post processing software, Adobe was clearly the leader with Photoshop, but it was not user friendly in any form or fashion. It took me a year to get use to it to the point that I could impact the final quality of my images. The Lightroom was introduced, and although it required some learning, was light years (no pun intended) ahead of Photoshop. I have tried just about every piece of softward introduced, including Afinity, which seem to be the other high percentage product. There also seems to be a general bias against subscriptions in these posts. For most of my time, I owned lightroom and photoshop. But I switched about a year ago to subscription. Adobe has a photography bundle that costs $9.99 a month or $120 a year. If you bought everything in the bundle separately, you would pay upwards of $700 and it might last you two, maybe three years and then you would have to upgrade. Cost/benefit told me that the subscription was a better deal, since you got all of the updates and new releases included in that annual charge. Afinity costs about $50 and you will get maybe two to three years out of it before a new release. Again, to each his choice. However, in my opinion, you get far more capability to enhance your images in Lightroom and photoshop than you do with Afinity. Yes, it takes a little longer to learn, but there are plenty of learning videos out on you tube that help the process and Adobe has a number of tutorials that are free. If you take a lot of images, organization becomes a problem. You want to be able to find specific images a year or two from now. Nothing I have found provides a better organization process for your images than Lightroom. So, basically, it comes down to what do you want for your images. If you want the most capability to have an impact on the final production of your images, in my opinion, you can't do better that Lightroom and photoshop. Lastly, you want to checkout NIK software. This is add-on software for whatever post processing software you end up choosing (lightroom, afinity, etc.). I have used it for probably 10 years back when you had to pay for it. It is now available through Google for no charge. The suite includes about 6 pieces of software, but the two I use the most are Define 2, a noise program and Silver Fx which is for black and white photography. Both are first rate. Hope this gives you some useful information and good luck with your shooting.

mdougc Loc: Sarver, PA

Photoshop Elements 15 is an easy way to get started. $70 on Amazon.
When you learn this and want to step up to powerful editing, you will go to Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC combination.

Pine Warbler

I would suggest that you also think about organizing all those photos. The Adobe Creative Cloud suite has Lightroom and Photoshop for a monthly fee ($9.99 + tax)...and you get free upgrades. Lightroom can do a lot of the basics as well as organize. Lots of tutorials available.
Any program you use will require you to spend time learning.
I am not a professional or even an advanced hobbyist...just an enthusiastic photographer, and I have used Lightroom for about 3 years.

Pine Warbler

I would suggest that you also think about organizing all those photos. The Adobe Creative Cloud suite has Lightroom and Photoshop for a monthly fee ($9.99 + tax)...and you get free upgrades. Lightroom can do a lot of the basics as well as organize. Lots of tutorials available.
Any program you use will require you to spend time learning.
I am not a professional or even an advanced hobbyist...just an enthusiastic photographer, and I have used Lightroom for about 3 years.

Pine Warbler

Sorry, everyone...I don't know what I did to submit this twice...and couldn't figure out how to delete the second post.

louparker Loc: Scottsdale, AZ

OMG! Here we go again! How many times are people going to ask about PP software? This topic has been covered almost every day for the past month -- don't you people ever search for previous messages before starting yet another thread on the same topic? That's what the "Search" function is for.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

...this, yes...and get 'em both as cc...if you don't like the combo (and you may not "like" the PS part for awhile, ijs) you can stop the subscription painlessly...

Pine Warbler

People are always joining UH and are learning about how to use this question/answer format. People are always just wanting to start learning about different topics: cameras, photo editing, lens, camera strap & slings.
One of the great features of UH is the list of topics...if you don't want to read about something, you just don't have to click on it.
When I first signed up for UH, I was intimidated by many of the questions and the high level of expertise in the photography world. UH is not just for the advanced learner...I have found there are many levels of experience, and have found many supportive people.

Next time, just phrase your comment as something like "Hey, did you know there is a search field that will give you background information on a topic?"