The best PP softwares??

Which are the better PP softwares? I am a newbie to this field (exp of about 6 months) and haven't really used any photoshop software. I have tried the canon supplied DPP program and nothing else.

Looking at all the discussions in the forum, looks like I'm lagging big time!
Which would be a good software to buy? And how much would it cost (approx)in USD? Also, do any softwares have free upgrades? or do they become extinct once a new version arrives?

thanks!

All depends on what you’re looking to do and how deeply into image editing you want to get. My tool of choice is Photoshop CS3. It is powerful, capable of way more than I know how to use and rather expensive. Adobe does make a scaled down version for much less called Photoshop Elements. It gives much of the capability of PSCS3 at a fraction of the cost. Then you got Paint Shop pro, Digital Image Suite, PhotoLab, GIMP, IrfanView, and many others.

asty80 wrote in post #6553045
Which are the better PP softwares? I am a newbie to this field (exp of about 6 months) and haven't really used any photoshop software. I have tried the canon supplied DPP program and nothing else.

Looking at all the discussions in the forum, looks like I'm lagging big time!
Which would be a good software to buy? And how much would it cost (approx)in USD? Also, do any softwares have free upgrades? or do they become extinct once a new version arrives?

thanks!

The ultimate in post processing software is Adobe Photoshop CS4. You may be able to buy an older version slightly cheaper as it is an expensive item.

Adobe Lightroom is also a great program for editing RAW images and organising your image library. I use this more than photoshop!

Adobe Photoshop lements is pretty useful software for beginners. Cheaper (not sure the $ price) and has many of the features of its big brother.

Paintshop Pro Photo X2 is also pretty useful but I'd try and stick to the Adobe software if you can.

Software updates are generally available for free until the next version comes out. i.e. Lightroom 2 is out and a neew upgrade to 2.1 has been issued free. However when Lightroom 3 eventually appears, it will cost to upgrade (although usually it's a discounted price).

Hope that helps.

For a newbie, I suggest sticking with DPP for RAW and Photoshop Elements for pixel-level editing for awhile. In fact, as mentioned above there is Gimp for pixel-edits, which I also like (and its free.)