Photo Editing Software

[Ajax]

There's been some talk over this, and this may come to nothing. Personally I use Paint.NET which is a reliable piece of freeware but lacks effects like lighting etc. I know some people use the Gimp or something which I'm wholly confused as of how to install, and others use Photoshop, maromedia fireworks and Paint shop pro, sometimes cracked...

I want really to know/discuss:

- Which is simplest & most effective
- Which has the most frilly effects
- Which is best overall
- Where you get the cracks ?

Oh and I can add a poll once we establish which are worth discussing

[evangilder]

Most pro or semi-pro photographers use photoshop, myself included. It is certainly not the simplest software to use, but that is because of the power of it. You can do things in Photoshop that you can do in other software, but it will take a lot more work.

There are a few others that use Paintshop Pro, which looks pretty nice. My wife uses it and love it, but she is slowly converting to Photoshop because of the features.

My own personal bias says Photoshop is the best, but I know that it is expensive and the latest CS2 sits on 4 CDs!

I don't know if GIMP is ported to Windows, but it does come on the Ubuntu LINUX distribution CDs. I have it here on my secondary machine, running Ubuntu.

Now as far as getting cracked software, I would discourage that behavior for a number of reasons. The primary one is that it is illegal. But cracked software also sometimes comes with viruses, spyware and/or trojan horses. What you may save with the cracked software may cost you more in time to rebuild your system/lost productivity and files, etc.

[Gnomey]

GIMP does work on windows as far as I know. Personally I use Photoshop even though I don't know half the features but it is an amazing software for what it does. There is also CS3 coming out sometime this year which should add even more.

[evangilder]

I was going to wait for CS3 before upgrading, but I was previously running Photoshop 6 and I needed some of the newer features. So I bit the bullet for CS2. I may be upgrading my machine this year as my current has memory issues. If I do, I am leaving the PC world and going Mac, at which time I will get CS3.