This post looking at Image Editing Software Alternatives was written by former wedding and portrait photographer Damien Franco from Your Photo Tips.

Which image editing software program is right for you? Is it the one you use, or the one you’re thinking of purchasing?

Maybe you use multiple programs, like myself, for different tasks.

One thing I’ve learned over my years as a professional photographer, is that no one image editing software program is created equal. They’re like snowflakes (or pictures), each unique and able to serve different purposes for different people. This in no way means that all professional photographers need “pro” image editing software!

First you need to examine what your specific needs are from editing software. If you do stock, wedding, sports, or any other work that requires tons of images then your biggest needs are probably workflow and batch processing.

If you work in portraits or fine art photography you’re likely wanting full editing professional tools. Or maybe you just want something quick, easy, and cheap!
We’re going to take a look at a few programs that will help you get your work done efficiently and productively. These aren’t the best of the best, more like the best for the job (in my sometimes humble opinion).

Free Image Editing Applications

In the “free” category we have Picasa and Picnik. Both are really easy to use with simple editing capabilities. They are great for beginners. If you just need to spice up your family’s pictures or do photography for fun I highly recommend using either of these.

Picasa by Google

Price: FREE!

PC or Mac

The Good

• It’s super easy to use, which is good because most people who use it aren’t going to be professionals or even advanced amateurs.
• It will auto update albums when new photos are introduced into the folders.
• You can move and rename pictures inside Picassa.
• Create posters, collages, screensavers, slideshows, burn CDs.

Image by Bukutgirl
The following guest post on cropping images was submitted by Peter Carey from Hidden Creek Photo and The Carey Adventures.

Cropping, or removing certain portions of a photograph, has been around since the beginning of photography. In the digital photography age it is easier than ever to use this technique to bring about stellar results from your photographs. Before you discard that photograph you think of as boring or uninteresting, try a few of the suggestions in this article and see if you can pull something out that wasn’t there before and turn that throw-away photograph into a frame worthy print.

Cropping is fairly easy with most modern photo software. In this article I will be using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to demonstrate principles and techniques. While the specifics will be different from program to program, the basics are the same for most. Most programs will let you select a cropping tool and then either click and drag a freeform box around your subject or present you with clickable corners which can be moved about to gain the crop you are looking for. Clicking and dragging is the essence of modern cropping on the computer and is very easy to learn, while still being a powerful tool to help improve your photographs.

Just a short note for Mac users – to let you know that Adobe’s latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 (Mac) was announced a month back and is now available for pre-order at Amazon and some other retailers.

It will be released on 1 April (no April fools joke). I’m yet to see a copy of the new version but am hearing some good reports from those who were at it’s launch.

Here’s a little of how Adobe describe the new version:

This guest article was written by Brian Auer, author of the Epic Edits Weblog, as a part of his own group writing project on the topic of social photography.

Photography is becoming an ever increasing social event with the onset of digital cameras, widespread Internet access, and great new websites springing up every time you turn around. Flickr has been a pillar community for photographers across the globe, and it’s an amazing place to share your work, view the work of others, and communicate with other photographers. But social media and other social websites have given us a taste of what it really means to connect with people who share common interests, and Flickr just isn’t cutting it (socially) for some of us.

This is where photophlow comes in to play — adding a whole new level of social interaction to Flickr. Developers and visionaries Neil Berkman (founder of Oortle, the company behind photophlow) and Bryan “striatic” Partington (photophlow interface designer) have been working around the clock during the beta launch of this new social experience. These guys are real down-to-Earth, they interact with the site users, they listen to those with feedback, and they actually use that feedback to improve the site.

What IS photophlow?

photophlow is a mixture of several concepts and existing services (a mashup of sorts). The basis of photophlow is Flickr: the photo-sharing website that is popular amongst many online photographers. photophlow uses the Flickr API to interface with Flickr users and photos. The interface is somewhat of a skin that allows for added functionality and new features. The main feature photophlow adds to the Flickr experience is the use of chat rooms and real-time interaction with the other photographers.

The following article on using the healing tools in photoshop was submitted by Emma Cake from Big Bouquet Photography.

If you take a look at the Toolbar in Photoshop you will notice that in CS3 there are two different heal tools – the Healing Brush and the Spot Healing Tool. Both Healing tools are excellent for correcting imperfections in your shots such as troubled skin, sensor dust and creases but which tool should you use to achieve the best effect? (click to enlarge images in this tutorial)

The Healing Brush lets you correct imperfections in your shot in a similar way to the Clone Stamp Tool. Like the Clone Stamp Tool, you paint with sampled pixels from your image which you can set with the ‘Alt’ button, however, the Healing Brush Tool also does an excellent job of matching together all of the relevant shades and textures to keep your fixes as seamless as possible. This tool is far more effective than slaving away with the Clone Stamp Tool as it will take a lot of the effort out of accurate blending, however it still requires you to be responsive with your Alt-key selections.

If you only need to fix small imperfections in your photograph then the Spot Healing Brush Tool is great for some quick alterations. With this tool you don’t need to specify a sample spot, simply dab it on the area you want to fix and it will automatically paint over the area a sample from around the retouched area. Of course, this tool isn’t that great if you are retouching an image with intricate details, but it will make light work out of small skin blemishes and dust-ridden skies.

Let’s take a look at how you can use both of these tools: