Is Adobe the only way to go?

[ukreal1]

I am def. in the minority, but it works for me.
picnik premium.
upside: very easy to use, has all the stuff if you aren't a heavy edit type, cheap
downside: online appl. so forget it if you have anything slower than fibre optics, will only support up to a certain size until the next version of whatever it's called comes out. Works for my D300 fine large just great, no batch stuff.

[djotaku]

No reponse yet from the original author (I think). So I'll ask what - what is it you ultimately want to do?

If you want to work in the advertising business or doing work for someone other than yourself, you need to know Photoshop. That's what most places will use and if it's between your resume and someone else and you have PSP and they have PS, they will win because they know everything from day one.

If you want to work for yourself, then you can use whatever you want.

If you want to be able to use tutorials, you need to use what enough people use so that there will be tutorials for it. Most Photog magazines I read (the british ones - even though I live in the US) cover Photoshop, Elements, and PSP. There are a decent amount of GIMP tutorials online, but not quite as many.

I'm an avid Linux user and I've used The GIMP, but I keep Windows around for Photoshop and Lightroom. Nothing else comes close when you need adjustment layers, 16-bit support (important so you don't lose too much detail when editing), organization, and so forth.

You can look at this debate in another way. Look at camera choice. You can choose something mainstream like Nikon or Canon or you can choose something obscure like Casio. If you have a Nikon or Canon (or Fujifilm or Olympus) there will be tons of people that can help you with settings, menus, etc the stuff of photography that's camera-specific. If you have a Casio, you may need to go to a Casio-specific forum. The basics will be the same - shutter speed, f-stop, and so on.

It's the same with editors. Layers, adjustments, cropping, etc will be the same no matter what editor you use. But the specific keys and menus you go into will be different. So you need to take that into consideration. If you use Adobe, tons of people can tell you that 'c' is crop in Photoshop and 'r' is crop in Lightroom. Less people will know the key in PSP and even less in Acdsee.

[FoG]

NO NO NO !!! There are sevral Great photoedoting packages out there Adobe however is seen as "the" one to have as it has dominated the market so long there is a snobbery to it like if you do not have it you are not that good .... narrow minded pish... Try Paint SHop Pro or even Serif Photoplus they are equally good and in many ways better than PS.