For those who have free photo editing software experience

What do you suggest? Picasa? Or maybe GIMP? I'd love something like Photoshop, but it's not in the cards for me at the moment.

I'm wanting to play around with RAW photos and doing some editing. Just curious as to what you fine men and women suggest.

JWags said:

What do you suggest? Picasa? Or maybe GIMP? I'd love something like Photoshop, but it's not in the cards for me at the moment.

I'm wanting to play around with RAW photos and doing some editing. Just curious as to what you fine men and women suggest.

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Both the programs are pretty good I have tried them in the past. However, my favourite of the freebies is"FastStone Image Viewer " This is genuinely freeware.

As well as being an effective viewer and organiser, it includes a good selection of editing tools and if set up correctly offers Raw conversion.

It's easy to use once one gets used to its flyout menus.

Of the less expensive paid programs Photoshop Elements is a good 'un

For RAW you have RawTherapee. And for photoshoppy stuff GIMP.

Gimp will also be 32bit which means non-destructive editing.

Is that how it usually works? A RAW file processor then touching up with photoshop?

I agree. Fastone is a very good program. It's easy to use and my favorite. Works with raw.

Me, too.

For basic edits I use the software that came with the camera. If I want something more detailed I use raw therapy.

My #1 suggestion would be whatever editor your camera maker provides for your camera. If that is just awful (and a few are) then try Irfanview. I don't know if it is officially free, but dig around in the dark corners of the Internet and you should find ACDSee 14 for very cheap. The user interface for ACDSee is a little better organized than Irfanview. ACDSee 14 and Irfanview are strongest for JPG images. If you are doing much RAW, then take the plunge for ACDSee Pro or Lightroom, neither of which is free.

Kelly Cook

JWags said:

Is that how it usually works? A RAW file processor then touching up with photoshop?

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A raw processor typically does global edits to raw files only, although many or most work with JPEGs too. Be aware that every raw processor will give you unique results when processing a raw file, since raw conversion is more of an art than a science.

Global edits are those things which change all of the pixels of an image. That is most useful for photographic images, and includes stuff like boosting contrast and saturation, brightening and darkening an image.

Photoshop, or pixel editors in general, allow you to change the pixels in a digital image individually. This is important if you want to touch up things like getting rid of power lines in a photo, or get rid of your ex in a party photo, or putting the face of a politician on a cat.