jwn Loc: SOUTHEAST GEORGIA USA

If shooting Canon use the DPP4 that came with the camera.

mwoods222 Loc: Newburg N.Y,

Picasa is simply to use for me

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

Adobe Lightroom is far from "Easy", there are better apps for editing photographs which are more friendly.

WJShaheen Loc: Gold Canyon, AZ

I too think it's a great choice. At the moment, it's on sale for $59.00 https://skylum.com/luminar

The interface is very straightforward but still provides a high degree of control and creativity.

Bill S.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Adobe Elements is a relatively full featured, easy to use software.

Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are designed to complement each other, are available by subscription only and are good... but NOT "easy". Neither LR nor PS have built in support. You have to look elsewhere for that. With LR, you should expect to buy a book or two and possibly take a class or two to learn to use it reasonably well. With Photoshop, plan to buy a stack of books and take a year's worth of college level courses to learn to use it really well.

Adobe Lightroom IS NOT an image editing software... it's an image archive management software and RAW converter. It has some simplistic, mostly global image editing tools built in, which some people find sufficient for their purposes. Lightroom is intended for very rapid "proof quality" editing and organizing of large numbers of images.... If you have just taken 1000 shots at a football game and are trying to get a bunch of those images proofed out at Internet sizes and resolutions, and uploaded to a website for the kids' parents to view... Lightroom is the tool to use.

Adobe Photoshop is the "Mack Daddy" of all image editing software... It's what you use when are asked to make a 16x24" print from one of those images... to remove the zit from the kid's face and the power lines from behind the subject's head... to be able to selectively adjust the exposure of the person's face a little brighter while holding back or even darkening the background.... to adjust the color balance in one portion of the image without effecting others.... or to apply sharpening to part of the image, but not to others. You can't do these things very effectively in Lightroom. Photoshop is used to fully finish images, one at a time. Photoshop is not designed for rapid handling of large numbers of images.

Adobe Element is a bit of both. In a sense, it's an all-in-one software made up of "lite versions" of LR and PS. It's sold outright under a perpetual license. And it has built in support. The user can choose between Beginner, Intermediate and Expert interfaces, to have more or less guidance while working on their images. To get up to speed quickly using Elements, a book or class might be a good idea.... but isn't required.

At the core of all three is Adobe Camera Raw... it's a module within Photoshop (can be updated separately), but is fully integrated into both Lightroom and Elements (if needed, the entire program is updated).

One difference between them is that Elements is an "8 bit" software. What this means is that you can only save 8 bit files out of Elements (i.e., JPEGs). It cannot produce TIFFs or PNGs. This is no problem for most purposes, since JPEGs are by far the most commonly used and universal type of image file. In fact, JPEGs are pretty much mandatory for a lot of things.... Internet display certainly.... and they have more than enough quality for most printing processes. Lightroom and, to a greater degree, Photoshop can produce both 8 bit and "16 bit" files. A professional photographer may need to provide those at a client's request or in order to use a color space that's appropriate for commercial printing purposes. 8 bit files have a color palette of around 17 million colors. That sounds like a lot (and the human eye can only discern around 16 million), until you consider that 16 bit files have a total of about 23 trillion distinct hues. Understand that while you are working on an original RAW file, there's no real difference between the programs (they all use essentially the same Adobe Camera Raw at their core). It's only what can be saved out of the software that differs.

For price, ease of use, versatility... I'd recommend Elements. Adobe has just released Elements 2019, which costs $90 for a perpetual licensed version. (Adobe releases a new version of Elements each Fall. But there's not a lot of difference from year to year.... There's little reason to buy a new version unless you've bought a new camera that's not supported by the previous version.)

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Alan, you left out Photoshop Express. It is not Photoshop CC and not Photoshop Elements. It is the newer entry level Adobe product, is free, runs on everything and quite good.

https://www.photoshop.com/products/photoshopexpress

Basics: Crop, straighten, rotate, and flip your photos. Remove red-eye and pet-eye.

Auto-Fix: A one-touch adjustment for contrast, exposure, and white balance.

Raw photo support: Import and edit photos in raw formats.

TIFF support: Edit TIFF images seamlessly.

Blemish removal: Remove spots, dirt, and dust from your photos with one touch.

Text tool: Add text with the Photoshop Text engine working behind the scenes. Choose from a wide variety of styles to quickly get professional-quality results.

Upright Photo: Easily fix perspective distortion by choosing the auto options.

Corrections: Slide controls for clarity, contrast, exposure, highlights, shadows, temperature, tint, and vibrance. Various corrections like Blacks, Whites, Reduce Luminance, and Reduce Color Noise make images look their best.

Looks: Choose from more than 45 eye-catching effects! Different categories of looks like Black and White, Portrait, Nature, and Duo Tones help find the right look.

Customization: Create and save your own looks.

Perspective Correction: Fix those skewed photos with just a click! Choose from auto (balanced or full auto), vertical, or horizontal perspective correction options.

Borders: Add a distinctive personal touch to your photos with 15 borders and frames. For a coordinated look, match the border color with the colors in the image.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

You can probably download from the manufacturer of your camera their editing software if you don't have the disc that may have come with it. What camera do you use?

Whether or not you shoot in RAW will affect the answer.

Personally, I tend to use most what came with my 1st digital camera, Zoombrowser. It was a Canon and I can download the editing software from their website the software that came with the body. You do need to have the s/n of of the camera body. If your camera is a Canon, you can too.

Picasa was quite popular and still works well even though Google stopped supporting it. FastStone is also free and fairly simple.

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

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I would suggest Photoshop Elements. It has 3 different editing modes so you can start with built in help and progress to expert mode as your knowledge and skills develop. Aside from that, I would suggest downloading a trial copy of either "ON1 Photo RAW 2018" or Skylum "Luminar 2018" and try it/them out. Both are reasonably easy to learn. All 3 of these programs is capable of doing a great job for you. "ON1 Photo RAW" and "Luminar" will be up grading to the 2019 versions by the end of the year and in either case if you decide to buy the 2018 version, you will get the new 2019 version as a free upgrade when it releases.

rfmaude41 Loc: Lancaster, Texas (DFW area)

OnOne upgrades are NOT (one time) FREE.

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

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I have and use ON1 regulatly and If you check their site it tells you if you purchade 2018 now you will get the new 2019 version as a free upgrade when it releases later this month and if you do purchase the 2018 version you you can also download the beta2 version of 2019 too if you want to or just wait a few weeks until the 2019 release if you prefer.

Daryl New Loc: Wellington,New Zealand

We use photoscape.org absolutely the easiest to use.

TucsonDave Loc: Tucson, Arizona

I would try Affinity Photo. Similar capabilities to the Adobe products, but it costs $49 and they provide free updates. Tons of videos available. The MAC and windows versions are identical. I have had mine for about 8 months. Very pleased.

MartyfromWNY Loc: Rochester, NY

Google no longer supports Picasa. It still works and I love it, but I'm afraid it's one Windows 10 update away from ceasing to work.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Good is rarely easy. You will get all sorts of ideas on this - but there are over 9,000,000 users of the Adobe suite - and I doubt that all the alternatives taken together do not equal the industry acceptance of Photoshop and Lightroom. You are likely to end up with PS/LR eventually, so why bother wasting time on learning other less capable software. Before the monthly subscription, the cost of LR and PS was a prohibitive $1150, and the upgrades were similarly expensive. But today, the software is completely accessible at $10/mo or $120/yr - making it one of the best deals available. I would start with Lightroom, since parametric editing is easier with fewer commands, but it has some limitations that generally require the capabilities of Photoshop for properly finished images.

anotherview Loc: California

Photoshop Elements.