Photo editing software

anne_w

anne_w

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Edit My Images
Yes
So, I've just got a Canon 550D and looking for some recommendations for free photo editing programmes. Can anyone recommend any?

Or am I better using the Canon software that comes with the kit? (have a sneaking suspicion there's got to be at least as good tools out there...?)
 
For generally adjusting stuff the Canon software will be fine. Picasa and Gimp are both free and give good cataloging and editing power between them.
 
I liked Paint.net as I found the interface better than the Gimp and there are a lot of useful plug-ins.
The Gimp has more info. on the internet though.
Both are free to download so try them both.
 
The Gimp is excellent but can be hard to learn. It's also free and well supported by a huge user community. If you're shooting RAW then you'll also need a program to handle that - UFRaw is a good RAW plugin for The Gimp.

The Canon software will give you a decent start anyway.
 
+1 for GIMP. very powerful editing software for free:thumbs:
 
I tried GIMP before and absolutely hated it. Most un user friendly software ever was my opinion. I may have to give it another go at some point.
 
another +1 for gimp
takes a bit of getting used to but wouldn't change now (until 2.8 comes out).
 
Another vote for GIMP - but as said it take a bit to learn.

Also agree about Photoscape - if you want some really easy to use, it is excellent.

Dave
 
Digital Photo Professional that comes with the camera will be a good start for some adjustments, but not editing as such
 
I think it depends on what you need from your editing, I found picasa to be fine for basic adjustments and its pretty easy to use as well
 
Rich R said:
Digital Photo Professional that comes with the camera will be a good start for some adjustments, but not editing as such
Click to expand...

Any chance you could expand on that? I've only got DPP (I'm new to this!) and always wonder about bundled software. Whats it good/bad at or simply not capable of?

Thanks
 
Is lightroom worth it?
I've got Picassa but need more?
I looked at Gimp but found it too difficult.
 
If you like being irritated by unnecessarily complicated instructions combined with an unintuitive, smug, geekish, loathsome pile of frustrating *****, suffused with essential shortcuts and secrets you need to pay to get knowledge of, then you just have to start with photoshop elements.

Failing that, Canons own DPP, zoombrowser, picture style editor and tethered shooting, is for free and a doddle to get to know.
 
Lightroom is brilliant, I use it for my entire workflow and anything that I need to do outside like serious "photoshopping" can easily be done in GIMP.
 
latercomer2 said:
Any chance you could expand on that? I've only got DPP (I'm new to this!) and always wonder about bundled software. Whats it good/bad at or simply not capable of?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I started using it more as my version of photoshop elements doesn't support my camera (Canon 60D), and I resent paying Adobe more just to get the update.

Thus I will do any and all 'editing' that is best done in the raw files in DPP first i.e I tend to adjust white balance, contrast/brightness, saturation, apply an unsharp mask, use the lens correction tools if appropriate (e.g for distortion on my 17-85). All of these are in View-Tool Palette. They are the basic things which, I guess, you would want to do with every image (assuming you shoot RAW).

Only if I want to, I'll then save it in a format I can do further editing in PE if I want to - for example if I want to use masks, cloning etc. It might be DPP can do these but I'm just more familiar with PE to do them.

Probably not the best workflow, but it works for me :)
 
Rich R said:
I started using it more as my version of photoshop elements doesn't support my camera (Canon 60D), and I resent paying Adobe more just to get the update.

Thus I will do any and all 'editing' that is best done in the raw files in DPP first i.e I tend to adjust white balance, contrast/brightness, saturation, apply an unsharp mask, use the lens correction tools if appropriate (e.g for distortion on my 17-85). All of these are in View-Tool Palette. They are the basic things which, I guess, you would want to do with every image (assuming you shoot RAW).

Only if I want to, I'll then save it in a format I can do further editing in PE if I want to - for example if I want to use masks, cloning etc. It might be DPP can do these but I'm just more familiar with PE to do them.

Probably not the best workflow, but it works for me :)
Click to expand...

Should add of course you could use the free tools everyone else mentions e.g GIMP after DPP if you wanted to. A lot of the time you might find you don't need to.
 
Thank you so much for all your suggestions. I'm going to pretty much try them all out and see what I can get along with the best. I would see it more for light touches that going for the 'perfect' image, but then, these bugs have a habit of biting!!

Thanks again all
:thumbs:
 
Rich R said:
I started using it more as my version of photoshop elements doesn't support my camera (Canon 60D), and I resent paying Adobe more just to get the update.

Thus I will do any and all 'editing' that is best done in the raw files in DPP first i.e I tend to adjust white balance, contrast/brightness, saturation, apply an unsharp mask, use the lens correction tools if appropriate (e.g for distortion on my 17-85). All of these are in View-Tool Palette. They are the basic things which, I guess, you would want to do with every image (assuming you shoot RAW).

Only if I want to, I'll then save it in a format I can do further editing in PE if I want to - for example if I want to use masks, cloning etc. It might be DPP can do these but I'm just more familiar with PE to do them.

Probably not the best workflow, but it works for me :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I was only just starting to look at PP when my camera was nicked and really have no idea what different packages are capable of (or anything about PP but thats another matter! :) )

Just trying to read up on what I should be doing for when I get it back/get another!
 
Rich R said:
Should add of course you could use the free tools everyone else mentions e.g GIMP after DPP if you wanted to. A lot of the time you might find you don't need to.
Click to expand...

I think I need to crawl before I can run. In fact I probably should be concentrating on taking decent pictures rather than trying to figure out how to fix them :D
 
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