Home Forums Gear Photography Which editing program for digital images ???

For those serious digital photographers, which program(s) do you use to edit and adjust your images.

I've been dabbling with my digital camera but am about to step up to a "pro" model and want to be able to take full advantage of the ability to "massage" images without going all the way to PhotoShop.

Comments about those you tried and quit using and those you like and use now. Good and bad points either way would be very helpful.

PM might be the best way to contact me.

All I use is Photoshop, but you say you don't want to go that route. Why not?

It is the best out there.

FWIW, I tried Corel Paint, didn't much care for it.

I use Lightroom 2.0 primarily (it's a photoshop product). $300
I also have PSE 5.0 (photoshop elements). $100

PSE will do 90% of what CS3 will do (flagship photoshop = $700+ IIRC)

sometimes I wish I had more functionality (particularly masks) but I can't say it's worth adding CS3 to what I have now at all.

I'm using Photoshop Elements 6.0. I previously used 4.0 but I'm now running Vista and 4.0 won't work on it.
For most hobby photographers, PSE works great. It will do an amazing array of editing and photo tricks.
PSE7 was recently released. You can get 6 on ebay for $50 to $75. You'd probably need to go to Adobe's website to find out what the difference is.

I am using PSE 6.0 and just recently picked up Lightroom 2 so we will see how that works out. You can't go wrong with PSE 6.0 however.

Like most of the others I'm running LR 2.0 and PSE 6. (both are photoshop programs) Photo shop elements 7 has just come out and is under $100. Add a quality book (there's a ton of them for elements but books by Martin Evening and Scott Kelby are always at the top of the heap) and you will have less than $150 into software and a manual that will probably do way more than you will ever need.

If you need a simple layer mask tool theres a few freebies out there. There was one included in a plugin bundle I bought when I used PSE so I haven't tried either of these.
Grants Tools
Layer mask Tool

ETA I'd go with PSE 6 or 7.

Why not go with the GIMP or GIMPSHOP(gimp made to look like Photoshop), both are free, and supposedly can do most anything PhotoShop can do.

I use Photoshop CS3, ver 10.1. Does more that I will ever use

Richard

Gimpshop's website says it's only supported by WinXP, not Vista