Which editing tools

[Boogie99]

I have just started posting here and was wondering what editing tools people use. With Photoshop, Elements , lightbox ,Paint shop pro and the all the others where is the best place to start. As you can tell from this the pics I put up are croped and I do nothing else to them as I realy don't know where to start.
Help from Boogie the confused.

p.s if this is in the wrong place sorry.

[Cody21]

I use Photoshop CS3 .... Windows version. Very powerful, but requires some skills & education to use all of its abilities. I've only grazed the surface of the product.

[Mike McCusker]

CS3 has a substantial learning curve. If you are new to post processing I would recommend Elements as it is very reasonably priced and has a lot of the features that CS3 has. When you feel you have mastered Elements you can upgrade to CS3

[GORDO]

Try corel.They have a 30 day free trial download right now and if you decide to buy it,its only $99 I do believe.GORDO

[poloman]

If it is in the budget, I would suggest getting CS3 and learning how to use it. In the long run you will be glad you did.

[yogestee]

Photoshop CS2..As Cody mentioned I only use about 20% of its full capabilities..I only need to use around 20%..IMHO do all you can "in camera"..

Photoshop et al are only an aid to photography,,,the skill is in the actual picture taking..

Jurgen

[Lonnie]

I really enjoy Photoshop Elements 6.0. The only thing I don't like about it is that it can run really slow in Vista sometimes. It really does do everything I need it to do as far as editing. The "Auto-Levels" button is magical. The healing brush works great too. The red-eye removal works perfectly. Photomerge Panorama works very well, usually.

I will admit that I used to run a pirated version of Photoshop. I went ahead and bought Elements and am glad I did. It's dumbed down, and not quite as powerful, but it's exactly what I need to produce outstanding results without spending all of my time learning the software.

[phylet]

I Use Photoshop 7. I know the newer ones are better, but ive not found anything i cant do in 7, i dont use it alot or do batch work, just individual images, maybe 1 in 50 frames i shoot will make it to 'shop. If your on mac, try aperture? Should be a demo of that somewhere...

[EcoRick]

I just picked up the 30 day free trial of Elements 6 from Adobe. I suggest that might be a good starting point for you as well. It will give you an idea of the learning curve associated with the product. For me, I'm glad I'll be getting Elements 6 instead of CS3 as I simply don't have the time or patience to learn CS3 at this time. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I have the time to learn Elements6!