Beyond Picasa...

As an amatuer photobug I'm beginning to find editing limitations with Picasa (and some online image editors). In trying to decide which image organizer-editor to move on to I've been reading reviews of some more 'serious' products and I'm getting more confused by the minute!

Of course Adobe's products seem to rule, but after a 30-day Photoshop Elements trial I found it very cumbersome and not very intuitive, so I'm wondering which other photo organizing-editing apps you would recommend (and why). While I can't afford the likes of the full-blown Photoshop (and it's probably overkill for my needs), I wouldn't have a problem spending up to $100.

Thanks for any help.
Wendi

 

Thanks but at a quick glance I see that most of the PhotoFiltre documentation/guides/tutorials are not written in English!

 

worth a trial
http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4900069&cid=catalog3550067&segid=8100006

also worth a look
http://www.zoner.com/

 

May be more light, but get a look also to http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

 

If you have any experience with either of these would you please elaborate?

Wendi

 

Thanks but I tried this several months ago and found its editing features much too limited (not even on par with Picasa)!

 

Sagelight Image Editor - http://www.sagelighteditor.com/

 

Looks interesting - do you use it (if so, what's been your experience)?

Wendi

 

Wendi,

You can get tuts in English for PhotoFiltre, they also have PhotoFiltre-Studio now.
The studio version might be more what you want, working with a collection of pics.

http://photofiltre-studio.en.softonic.com/

http://photofiltre.en.softonic.com/

Here's a few others, I have used them all, except pictomio.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/187631/photography_downloads.html?page=2

Some of these listed -like Gimp, take more patience to learn, but Photofiltre and Photoscape do alot and are super easy to learn.

There's also PaintShopProX5, by Corel, ($59.99 til 12/24) which is supposed to be easier and just as good as Photoshop, I've only used the old version, so can't tell you about that one.

So many are free, you can try them all, PaintShopPro can be downloaded for a free trial at corel.com.

HTH

Marja

 

Thanks Marja, but where do I find English Tutorials and a User-Guide for PhotoFiltre Studio?

Wendi

 

If you download it from the site I gave you, you can choose your language.

The last time I used it, you could choose English or French at the begining of the program.
Since I use LInux, I haven't checked but don't know why they would leave off the English manual?

Where did you download it from?

 

Here's ya go, you can download tuts in English or Spanish

http://photofiltre.free.fr/tutorials_en.htm

Downloads are at the bottom of page.

There's also a whole thread about using Photofiltre, forgot about that.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=141853&page=2

Uguel is a wonderful teacher, so you should pick up alot just from the thread.

 

I use Adobe Lightroom and PS Elements. Lightroom handles organizing and about 95% of the editing. PS Elements takes care of the few editing chores not done in Lightroom.

Lightroom has a bit of a learning curve but there are some good free tutorials available from Adobe to help you get started and make the most of the 30 day trial.

 

If you are working mostly with raw files,than i think Adobe Lightroom is one of the best choices . IS not cheap,at least not if u buy it directly from Adobe,also version 4> doesn't run on XP.
Other Good paid alternatives Capture One Pro & onone Perfect Photo Suite..

The above are the most feature rich friendly GUI(well at least lightroom has imo) that i know of..They are not free some quite expensive but you can trial them 1 month see if are worth the money..

As has been mentioned for free Zoner Is a interesting app (just make sure you see the free version using this link http://free.zoner.com/ ) has some nice effects,never used Picassa to see which one is more fearture rich..

The most feature rich freeware that i know for working with raw images is http://rawtherapee.com/ ,(you need 2 GB RAM) ..I used it in the past,but since i got a copy of lightroom 3 from office i use that now..

 

Marja, I haven't downloaded it yet because I want to be sure there's a straight-forward learning path first. It's difficult enough learning the 'ins and outs' of these programs, but when there's a language barrier...

 

Thanks Ed, but I've already tried (and struggled) with PS Elements. I understand that it's very capable, but I found it very awkward to use!

Wendi

 

I understand how you feel about Elements as I don't find it intuitive at all. I have found Lightroom much easier to use and rarely use Elements any more. If you haven't tried Lightroom yet I think it is worth giving it a trial run. There are options other than Elements available to handle anything Lightroom cannot do.

Another approach would be to use Imatch http://www.photools.com/ for your organizing and something like Corel AfterShot Pro for editing. Imatch is very a very robust application that offers tremendous organizing capabilities.

 

Wendi, I use PhotoFiltre 7, it really has a pretty straightforward and easy learning curve. In the help menu, you get a basic tutorial for most of the features, and also a link to its forum, which has an English section. I'm an uber basic user, but I've always been able to accomplish whatever editing I needed to do. Give it a shot, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised!
BTW, I've been using this since V5, it constantly improves.

 

Interesting thread!

Really liking what I see with Sagelight! Lots of effects and good offline and online help. Thanks for that link! (I even like the flexible licensing too (I can load it on any computer I own or control.))

 

Hi Cimmerian,

I've downloaded PF but haven't installed it yet. Are the Help and the working panels all in English?

Wendi

 

HAN,

Sagelight does appear to be a powerful photo-editor, but from what I see it's not much of a photo-organizer; not to mention that there's no user-manual.

Wendi

 

Hornil StylePix
http://hornil.com/en/products/stylepix/

There's a portable version available so give it a try!

 

Wendi,

I'll second that earlier recommendation for Zoner Photo Suite. You can start out with the free version and 'graduate' to the Pro version (which can be had for $60 or less). You will find that Zoner is very well documented (in English!) and there are quite a few tutorials available on the website as well as an English-speaking user forum.

I should mention that Zoner Photo Studio Free is Gizmo's #1 choice in its category! And fwiw, the Pro version is my #1 choice.