Which image editing program works the best

Hi guys, not entirely pentax related, i am sorry, however, I wish to update my old photoshop CS 2003 version that I have, that doesn't accept raw files. Are the opinions out there quite strong to go for CS4 or are there others like lightroom, etc, that'll do the job just as good.

Do you need/want something like photoshop or is something like Adobe Camera Raw good enough?

What is adobe camera raw like? I generally use photoshop for cropping, touching up image contrast and saturations, with the odd sharpening. That's about it.

Picasa is very good for basic image editing. Very easy to use, accepts RAW files and is completely free!

free!!!!!!! Whats the catch???? i'll check that one out. Having a play can't hurt.

No catch... It's great. Just download it from Google. It is the only image editing software I have ever used. Idiot proof!

I've used Picasa in the past but only as a image slide show and found it v good
James

For cataloging tons of pictures and editing them on a non pro level (which is more than enough) Lightroom is excellent and user friendly, unfortunately not free. Its main advantage is that it never modifies the original RAW file, so even one hundred steps of image editing you still have the original file, too, not just the latest version. More than that you can withdraw step by step all of your previous modifications later at any time.

Matt, not sure how far you go with RAW conversion and touching up your images but I use CaptureOne Pro for RAW conversion and Helicon Filter for resizing and any additional tweeks.
Rawtherapee is also worth a look, it's free to download and use and you can donate to aid continuing development if you wish.

Hi Mattox

Do you use PC or Mac? If the latter then Aperture may be worth a look too - I've not used it though. I had Photoshop Cs and upgraded to CS4 at the same time as my Mac. To be honest many of the new features I find totally unnecessary but it did come with Adobe Bridge which I use for photo management.

I saw today that Adobe Labs have made available a public beta of Lightroom 3. It's beta software so will have some bugs but is free and will run until end April 2010. Could be worth a look - in fact I'll find the url and post it.

Ok here's the link. I'm using an iPhone so won't be able to create a link fom the url. Also I take no responsibility if this breaks anyone's PC!

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/

hope this helps.

The most versatile tool IMHO is Photoshop. It's not necessary to invest hundreds of pounds in CS4 though, as for 99% of purposes £55 or so on Elements would be very satisfactory.

Most of us only use a fraction of the capability that's in Photoshop anyway, but it is the industry standard.

I understand the latest PSE (version 8 ) is substantially upgraded and now has more or less everything you'd want from Photoshop. Is this right?

What is the 1% you'd miss from PS John?

I use Corel Photopaint 8 for editing. the reason, is I know it so well and being an old version it runs so quick on a modern machine.

I much prefer Photopaint over Photoshop but YMMV.




I also use Adobe Lightroom 2.5 which is excellent but even on modern machines seems to be a resource hog. i.e it's damn slow. LE3 beta is no quicker either.... sadly

I did use Corel Paint Shop Pro X2, and was very happy with it (you get a lot for your money - mine only cost about £20 from Amazon) until it stopped working on both the laptops I have access to. Have yet to work out what happened, but I have an inkling it had something to do with my introduction of a Kaspersky antivirus software, which I think perhaps removed what it considered were some suspicious files that were essential for PSP to work. Have tried reinstalling since but - if this is the problem - Kaspersky rejects the files all over and I don't know how to stop this.

Since then I've been working with an older version of PSE (6) which came free with a Wacom tablet. I quite like it (certainly quicker than PSP X2) though I do miss some stuff in PSP - notably the Curves adjustment. I'm thinking, however, that perhaps the latest PSE would cover all my needs.