Best editing programme

I've been doing digital photography for about 5 years now, currently using 400D and 40 D , 100-400 L ,etc, full range including scenery, family, wildlife. I am not particularly computer literate. I have wrestled with PS Elements 4 for much of this time and and now have a mass of broken links and frustration at how slow it is....I find it complicated beyond my abilities and hate having to do EVERYTHING via PS. I have also tried Picassa which I like but my pc is now littered with those little .ini files and , worse, it seems to be an inbuilt fault of Picassa than you cannot export photos without massively reducing the size of the file ( from Mb to Kb ). So.....does anyone have a recommendation for an editing programme which is at the technical level of Picassa but which is really user-friendly....please....​...

John.

It sounds like you need to buy a book on Photoshop, Picasa, or digital editing in general. Scott Kelby writes suitable books.

I would also recommend downloading the Elements 8 trial and compare it to your version.
They made many enhancements along the way that made it more user friendly, although since it is powerful, some aspects will still be complicated.
I'd also look at www.photoshopelementsu​ser.com.

Thanks for that Merlin, but I really would like to move away from PS. As someone who came to PCs later in life, I find the programme totally overwhelming.....it is also very slow , often grinding almost to a halt, and having to do everything via PS is a pain. I guess I really need to separate organizing ( which is just putting pics in folders) from editing.

John

jhopkins77 wrote in post #10799906
...As someone who came to PCs later in life, I find the programme totally overwhelming.....it is also very slow , often grinding almost to a halt, and having to do everything via PS is a pain. I guess I really need to separate organizing ( which is just putting pics in folders) from editing.

You should download a trial of Lightroom 3... Then you can have your editing AND organizing. There's no reason why Photoshop or LR should slow your PC unless it's very old and underpowered. In that case consider upgrading your computer.

Isn't that just Photoshop by another name? My PC has 75Gb hard drive, Pentium4 2.6 GHz,1.5Gb RAM...is that old and slow? When I use PS to edit it just gets slower and slower.

John, I think you'll find that on a forum aimed at "serious photographers" the "bias" will be toward "serious photo processing", meaning relatively complex programs (like Photoshop/Elements) that have the capabilities we need to get the most out of our photography.

But, we all had to start somewhere, and for many of us that was with simple software, often what was given away with a camera, printer or scanner, and gave us simple tools to quickly and easily enhance our photos to some degree and then to print or use.

As you've seen, early editions of Photoshop Elements is one of those programs that is often freely distributed simply because, despite your first impressions, Elements is quite easy to get up to speed with compared to other popular photo processing programs.

But still, sure, things can seem overwhelming.

So, what is it that you want in a simple editor? If you are using Windows, you can open a basic editing program such as Paint, or a couple other options that will allow you to do some things -- crop, resize, some basic adjustments to tones, etc. Be aware, though, that the more you want to do, the more complex the program will need to be.

Another tactic would be to do an internet search of what's out there. I just did a Google search for "free photo editor" and came up with this page:

http://www.google.com …urceid=ie7&rlz=​1I7ADRA_en

"Free" will typically imply "simple", although some programs such as the Gimp (which is on that page) are the results of some serious programming in the open source community to come up with alternatives to Photoshop. But, if you take the time to download and try out the various offerings, you'll hopefully find some that satisfy you.

You say you are unhappy with Picasa, although that is actually one of the simpler programs out there, so it may take some time of finding a fitting editor and learning what you need to learn to get up to speed. But in time you might find like many of us here that processing our photos is a rewarding task, and we enjoy the fact that a bit of processing can really enhance the appeal of our images.

Hope this helps some!

jhopkins77 wrote in post #10800031
Isn't that just Photoshop by another name?

No, Photoshop is a pixel editor, meaning edits irreversibly modify your images. It works alongside Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which is a raw editor and converter, plus Bridge, a powerful media file browser and organizational application.

LR incorporates ACR and any edits are non-destructive. It's a powerful cataloging tool, utilizing embedded keywords.

Picassa is actually quite a respectable basic editor and organizing application. And it's FREE!.

It's a dinosaur. A typical $500 laptop will run circles around it. You should increase your ram to 4 gb, add a large (250-500gb) data storage HD and move your data onto the second HD. Then your PC should speed up considerably. Cost? About $200 USD.

wise words from tony. just sayin'.

jhopkins77 wrote in post #10800031
Isn't that just Photoshop by another name? My PC has 75Gb hard drive, Pentium4 2.6 GHz,1.5Gb RAM...is that old and slow? When I use PS to edit it just gets slower and slower.

Lightroom is actually a "companion" to Photoshop in that it wraps photo organizing with basic processing and other common tasks in an integrated interface that we can use to do most of what we want to do with our photos in the one interface.

But, as to your PC hardware, yes it is a bit out of date. A larger/fast hard drive to hold your images and have "working space" for your system and software and added RAM will make a big difference -- of course a newer motherboard/processor won't hurt as well.

computer hardware is much less expensive than it used to be, but then I'm still a penny pincher myself -- I built a nice desktop system a few years ago that has served me well, I upgraded the motherboard/processor a few months ago and now I'd just as soon sit tight. But I also had a high quality laptop that I will now have to replace the motherboard on and it will probably cost me up to $500 or so. I'm not in a rush to spend the money, though, but still it is a good unit and good for photo processing. The one I'm using now is one of the little ones for $500 with 3GB of Ram and Windows 7 64 bit, but these newer little guys can do quite a bit of quick photo processing, etc.

Ouch !!

jhopkins77 wrote in post #10800438
Ouch !!

Heh! Yeah, but when you think about it -- we pay money to take photos -- in fact the cost of a decent camera is about the same as the cost of a budget new computer...with an older PC such as you are using, sure, you can do some very simple stuff with "small footprint" software, but then you have to be satisfied with the most basic functionality!