Photo Edit Application

Hm, rather spartan responses.

Yes, Adobe Photoshop is very pricey. Corel has their Christmas specials on now, so X5 is going for $49.00 as an upgrade.

I downloaded Capture NX2, it is very capable, although, some pixel level stuff is not available and the Google purchase is another one of those issues that I didn't know about. Nikon has had a propensity for continuously revising/re-writing their software, which has always been a pain in the ass. Picasa is free, I'll have a look at it as well.

I did some more hunting and found the following, all 64 bit native, multi-core, 16 bit TIFF and NEF,

PhotoFiltre Studio X, 29 Euro, it makes use of an 8BF RAW filter from somewhere

PhotoLine, 59 Euro, possibly using Open Source dcraw, same as GIMP?

DxO Optics Pro, $99 USD, very high end with calibrations for huge number of lenses

GIMP, free, some bugs on upgrades, maybe not on a fresh install

Corel PaintShop Pro X5 is 32 bit native, $49 CAD for upgrade

Serif PhtoPlusX5 is 32 bit native, $90.25 CAD and X6 is supposed to be 64 bit native.

So, there are alternatives to evaluate, before plunging ahead and just upgrading Corel's offering.

Once I've played with the evaluation versions a bit, I'll try to remember to report back.

Thanks for you input folks.