Photoshop HELP!

[myshoes]

Hello all! I'm fairly new to photography, and I'm thinking about buying Photoshop. The question I have is, which one do I buy? I've done a bit of research and I see there are several different "versions"; I'd rather not spend more than $100. I understand you get what you pay for, and maybe it's not possible to buy the program for that price, but like I said, since I'm just getting started I really don't want to pay a lot. I have no plans of going professional..it would mainly be for my own personal use, and maybe for friends, so I would only need the basics. Is there such a thing as a "basic Photoshop" I can buy? Maybe an older version, but one that would still give me some good artistic freedom? ex. changing eye color, brightening eye color or an object in the picture, maybe adding a black background or removing a piece of the background (?), taking a b/w picture but having a pop of red somewhere. Any help is appreciated!!

[mosgood]

Try Adobe Photo Shop Elements. It's not as powerful as the fullblown versions of Adobe Photoshop, but it has many of the same basic features. I think you can pick up either PSE 9 or 10 for less than $100.00. It'll give you some of the basic understanding of Photo Shop without the high price tag. Or if you wish to spend a little more, sometimes PS runs a sale on Lightroom 3 for about $150.00. It works very differently from PS, but is also a really nice program.

[NathanFranke]

For basic stuff, there are free programs out there--Picasa is popular, and there are free programs with Windows and Mac that can do similar stuff. You may want to check the Post-Processing section of the site, or this thread.

[windrider86]

Try Corel Paint Shop Pro. Under $100 and does pretty much everything Photoshop can do