Beyond Picasa...

Yes, they are..

 

Cruise,

Thanks for the endorsement. I'll download ZPS and check it out.

Wendi

 

That's good news; I may install PF or PFS later today. Btw Cimmerian, does PF or PFS include an integrated photo-organizer? If not, I don't want to consider them any further!

Thanks,
Wendi

 

Wendi: IMO, for free stuff, I have never seen a better photo organizer than Picasa. If organization is a critical thing that you need, you may be left with using Picasa and one (or more) apps to get what you want for editing.

My earlier comment was based not on Sagelight's direct comparison to Picasa's overall capabilities as it was to just the photo editing portion. Sagelight may be the first program that uses layers that I can actually figure out...

 

I recommended Sagelight Image Editor exactly because of its great usability. Photoscape (mentioned by JRViejo) is a nice handy tool too. For organizing pics, the best option seems to be FastStone Image Viewer, although Windows Photo Gallery does the trick for me. I've been experimenting with all of them (and many others) lately, still have a lot to learn.

 

Using an app that includes photo organization is very important to me as I still need to import a great many images (both digital and film)! However, free is not the paramount issue; as I said in my first post, "I wouldn't have a problem spending up to $100".

As nice an editor as Sagelight may be, I don't want to bounce back and forth between two apps. For my needs it's essential that photo organization be integrated with photo editing in the same app. Besides that, Sagelight simply lacks documentation!

Wendi

 

FastStone Image Viewer can integrate with external editors: http://www.wikihow.com/Add-External-Image-Editors-to-FastStone-Image-Viewer

Dunno if that's enough for you, probably not.

 

Sagelight Image Editor documentation is located here: http://www.sagelighteditor.com/sageweb/

 

WH, thanks for the tip - I'll keep that in mind.

Wendi

 

All that I see there are a few tuts. Where is the Sagelight user-manual?

 

Hi Wendi,

By now your head must be swimming, so I hesitate to mention yet another app, but after reading everything you have said I believe the best fit for your needs is ACDSee Pro. This app integrates an excellent organizer with a very capable editor and can be purchased for under $100 (and you may find some coupon codes by googling).

ACDSee Pro is similar in concept to Photoshop Lightroom but includes a much stronger editor and (from my perspective) a more straight-forward workflow. Documentation consists of an in depth user manual and quite a few excellent tutorials.

You can download a fully functional trial so that you can see if it meets your needs before buying it.

TS

 

http://www.sagelighteditor.com/sageweb/module_1.html

 

You've got that right Shadow, even though I had anticipated receiving a number of diverse opinions, my brain is about to blow up!

Based on what you've described, ACDSee Pro does appear to 'fit the bill'. I'll definitely check it out. Thanks very much.

Wendi

 

Well, I guess you can eliminate Photo Filter...no organizer, just an explorer. I've never used Photo Filtre Studio, so I can't answer for that program.

 

I have not used this one before so I cannot vouch for it, (Ashampoo Photo Commander 10), but I saw it was free today on giveawayoftheday: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

 

Note that the giveaway is version 9, which is already free and can be downloaded here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/Ashampoo-Photo-Commander-Free.shtml

Screenshots here:

http://www.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/Ashampoo-Photo-Commander-Free-Screenshot-123673.html

It looks to be a decent program - most of the Ashampoo stuff is - just be prepared for their "up sell" (to the new and improved version) and be careful to unselect options for toolbars, search and homepage changes during install

 

Dear Shadow,

I wanted to tell you that after spending just a few hours with the ACDSee Pro trial I'm very impressed. Of course I haven't done much with it yet, but so far, so good. I'll probably continue to run the trial for 30-days before buying (just to make sure I don't come across any issues). Thank you very much for recognizing my needs and recommending this wonderful app!

@Cruise: I also downloaded and tried Zoner Photo Suite Pro. I found it to be almost as good a fit as ACDSee Pro (and quite similar), but I prefer ACDSee Pro's workflow. Zoner would be my 2nd choice.

Wendi

 

Quite the giveaway then eh? I missed that it was the older version. I use their burning studio and agree with you Victek123. The software works well, but don't install the toolbars etc... And they send quite a few emails wanting you to upgrade to the most recent version of a given program.

 

Hi Wendi,

I'm glad you are finding ACDSee Pro to your liking. As I suggested earlier, it's targeted market is the same as that of Photoshop Lightroom and even though it hasn't met with anywhere near Lightroom's acceptance/popularity after I compared the two I found ACDSee Pro more capable and offered a more intuitive workflow.

TS