What Photo Editing Software should I buy?

[rnrettner]

I bought my first DSLR about 2 years ago & I have never used any photo editing software before except the free ones on the net & the ones that come with the camara. I'm no pro, I just like to take pictures of everything, & would like to learn more about Photo editing & I don't want to spend alot of money on this. So whats the best bang for the buck in software.

Bob

[lputman]

Photoshop Elements is a good buy. If you want free, you can try GIMP, it has a steeper learning curve.

[dcclark]

I highly recommend trying the free Gimp before you buy anything. It's not any more complicated than Photoshop, and if you haven't learned Photoshop previously, it won't be any harder to learn.

[sybren]

I'm using Bibble Pro, it's really wonderful and IMO definitely worth the money. Start with The Gimp though ;-)

[FoG]

I use Serif Photoplus X3 it is the most affordable and powerful Post processing package I have found that handles RAW and HDR cost a nice £60 ... personally love the Serif stuff in fact their Drawplus is now reknowned as the best Vector graphics package around pund for performance wise Photoplus is fast catching up

[teaking]

I would also recomend the GIMP its pretty powerful the only thing it doesnt have is the adjustment layers but they are in the works or a version of them. It also has a fully fledged channel mixer, fully functional curves and levels and layer masks. So you can do pretty advanced PP work.

The interface is very much like photoshop most tutorials can be followed some need work arounds but theres lots of tutorials and a lively community... and its free ... I can honestly say who wouldnt want photoshop CS4 ... but GIMP is better than elements.

[deepspring]

If you don't have the cash, I recommend: Raw Therapee for editing RAW files and The Gimp for editing JPEG/PNG/TIFF files.

If you have a little bit of cash any of these three are good...
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 8
- Serif PhotoPlus
- Corel PaintShop Pro

[legman]

OK I got Print Shop Pro, were can I find a good totural, to learn it. Better Faster?
The easy stuff isn't bad but I want to do more. Like turn item into a clipart, or cut out and move to another photo.

Legman

[Rolling Stone]

The best freeware that seems to be what most members use here is the Gimp. There are also plenty of tutorials via guides/podcasts to which to learn from for Gimp. I,myself am a photoshop user and quite happy with it. Photoshop elements is relativity cheap, but upgrades can be very pricey. And once you have PS, you always seem to want the upgrades. It's like a bad drug habit. = )
There's my 2 cents. I hope it has made you richer.