Favorite photo editing software

[Tokas]

Hi. What's your favorite program for editing photos and why?
I'm using Photoshop CS 5 atm, but I find it a little complex.

[Iusaset]

I use PIXLR Editor which is free and online, very easy to use and much like photoshop but its not as good. I use it just to change stuff on pictures when I cbf waiting through that loading screen for Photoshop, that and I only have photoshop on my computer and I use my laptop more.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

I generally use the picture manager that comes with Microsoft Office. I have GIMP, but it is totally unnecessary for what I do with pictures (plus I don't really understand what all the stuff does).

[Deleted]

Sometimes I find it amusing to see people purchase $1000 professional image editing software and say "this is complicated". Oh wait...

But yeah, also PS CS5 user here. Although nowadays all the "editing" I usually need I to more fast with just Mac's Preview tool, so I hardly even start Photoshop up.

I lol'd. The people surprised that it's a tool for professionals don't pay a single dime for it.

[Tokas]

Sometimes I find it amusing to see people purchase $1000 professional image editing software and say "this is complicated". Oh wait...

who said anything about paying?

[Vetali]

Photoshop. After using it for 6 years straight I guess you kinda get used to it. Just look up some basic tutorials and you can figure out how to do things fairly easily. Even for simple things like cropping and resizing I just use photoshop.

[Deadvolcanoes]

GIMP. It's free and it works well.

[Arkenaw]

Photoshop. Once you learn it, you can do anything and I only know how to use like 20% of it. Right now I'm making fake pokémon cards based off of Monster Hunter like this:


There's no way I would have had the patience to do this outside of shoop.

[Deleted]

What kind of photo editing are we talking about here?

Photoshop is good but for a lot of stuff it's completely unnecessary. When it comes to just importing, organizing and post-processing RAW files I use Aperture. For heavier editing I go to Photoshop. For tone-mapping HDR photos I generally use Photomatix and then touch things up in Photoshop if needed.

If we're talking about general image editing then I prefer Illustrator for vector graphics, Sketchbook Pro for quick sketching and Painter or Photoshop for more involved raster graphics work.

[Deleted]

Illustrator for vector graphics

I work as a developer but get design work lumped in and tend to mostly use Photoshop, but can't beat Illustrator. However, it's no less complicated.

OP might want to give Fireworks a try though

[Deleted]

I use Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator (for vectors).

I use it professionally however, so I've never had to factor price into the software...

[Deleted]

Photoshop for thing like editing the contrast, tone, light levels and so on.

For simple stuff like resizing I use pictureviewer.

[Maharishi]

If you're just talking about basic image enhancement, lightroom is great for getting through a lot of photos fast.

Other than that the photoshop cs6 beta is out, and they made a lot of good UI/UX changes.

[Deleted]

If you're just talking about basic image enhancement, lightroom is great for getting through a lot of photos fast.

Other than that the photoshop cs6 beta is out, and they made a lot of good UI/UX changes.

And they've improved 'Content-aware' which basicly Photoshops an image for you.

It's a fantastic feature, but I imagine it's used most by people who haven't purchased the software themselves, considering most people who can Photoshop can do a better job manually.

[Yavannie]

I use PS CS4 because it's on my computer. I would say I'm a fair PS user. I first started using PS5 when I was in upper secondary school. Our computers were Macs and had Photoshop on them. We got some basics from our contemporary arts teacher and the rest I've found out by trial and error. I know enough to be able to do what I need to do

[macdisciple]

Photoshop...been using it since version 2.5, so it's been easy to adapt to later versions with additional tools. Some I use, and some I do not.

[Adam Jensen]

I use GIMP for one reason.

It's free.

---------- Post added 2012-04-19 at 12:56 PM ----------

I use Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator (for vectors).

I use it professionally however, so I've never had to factor price into the software...

And I use Inkscape for vectors . . . same reason why I use GIMP. I don't know how well Inkscape matches up to Illustrator

[Ryan Ron]

My favorite is ReaConverter photo editing software. We can download this software from that link. I have just downloaded that it contains anything a digital camera owner might need to correct or enhance their photos.

[OmniSkribe]

GIMP for photos and art. Photoshop is nice but the price (((

[Deleted]

Photoshop, of course. I have CS6, but only b/c my employer bought the license. :P