Photo Editing Software - Whats your favorite and why?

[cdness]

We all use different tools to edit photos. What is your favorite and why?

Also if you have a favorite FREE application let us know as well.

I prefer Photoshop Elements due to its price and feature set. However I have used GIMP too.

 

[Im_Tanked]

I use all of adobe suite, I am a graphic designer and all the programs are so easy to deal with!

 

[Im_Tanked]

But snap seed for the iPhone is amazing honestly, it isn't "professional" quality but it is darn good! And free atleast it was when I downloaded it

 

[Rob.D]

Nikon's ViewNX2, its free from Nikon. It does a great job adjusting white balance and is very user friendly, the only downside is that to make adjustments the photo has to be taken in RAW; I'm not sure that RAW has to be used for all editing software?

 

[Lalani]

Gimp is a pretty good free photoshop surrogate.

 

[ValorG]

Nikon's ViewNX2, its free from Nikon. It does a great job adjusting white balance and is very user friendly, the only downside is that to make adjustments the photo has to be taken in RAW; I'm not sure that RAW has to be used for all editing software?

It does not need to be raw. I know for lightroom, it can take jpg.

 

[Reef_Lounge_USA]

As for snapping pics of corals and fish. When I decide to put my Note 2 phone camera down and use a DSLR, I use GIMP 2.6.. its totally free, but be super careful who you download it from... lots of free edition out there with spyware hidden.

Nothing fancy with it, all I do is white balance, contrast and brightness

 

[Rob.D]

As for snapping pics of corals and fish. When I decide to put my Note 2 phone camera down and use a DSLR, I use GIMP 2.6.. its totally free, but be super careful who you download it from... lots of free edition out there with spyware hidden.

Nothing fancy with it, all I do is white balance, contrast and brightness

Last time I downloaded software from a bittorrent it totally crashed my hard drive.....NEVER AGAIN!!!!

 

[Reef_Lounge_USA]

Last time I downloaded software from a bittorrent it totally crashed my hard drive.....NEVER AGAIN!!!!

Yeah, over the years, I've upgrade laptops so the old ones becomes my canaries for downloading sketch files to avoid that issue... we'll leave it at that before this thread stops being family-friendly... hahaha

 

[Marquiseo]

Lightroom. User-friendly interface and easy for beginners(me). Also, I installed it for free using my buddy's info.

 

[Lalani]

I use GIMP 2.6.. its totally free, but be super careful who you download it from... lots of free edition out there with spyware hidden.

Why not download it directly from Gimp's webite?
GIMP - Downloads

 

[howaboutme]

I use Lightroom, simple and fast if editing many pictures. I also have Photoshop and it works for doing more complicated adjustments but Photoshop is overkill and slower if you have Lightroom. Manipulating/adjusting in Lightroom does not affect the original picture because it does it as "ready only" so you can always go back to the original and try again, similar to using adjustment layers in Photoshop but much easier and intuitive.

Nikon's ViewNX2, its free from Nikon. It does a great job adjusting white balance and is very user friendly, the only downside is that to make adjustments the photo has to be taken in RAW; I'm not sure that RAW has to be used for all editing software?

You can edit JPEGS but JPEGS will degrade in quality permanantly. If you edit in RAW, the image will not degrade and you'll be able to use the max image size allowed by your camera after manipulations with no issues.