Seeking photo editing software

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May 29, 2014
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My ma needs an easy to use photo editor for her eBay business as well as to crop out extra stuff from the pics my sis takes whenever she is at a dog show.

Price in this case is definitely a sticking point.

Could someone recommend a cheap (or relatively so) photo editing program? Just needs to be a simple one.

Thanks.
 
Mac or PC?
On Mac, you have access to Photos, which comes with macOS. It's an evolution of Aperture. The long and the short, it's more than enough.

If you don't mind a little bit of a a longer workflow, you could just use a phone. "Darkroom" which is on iOS (and I think also Android), is $10 and has all the basic adjustments of something like Lightroom.
There are also things like Snapseed that are free.

For more info on that, you can check out this video:



And then also this one:

 
I would say- MS Paint can 'crop'. If you need something more than that level of cropping, you need a real photo editor a la Photoshop or GIMP (free, even harder to use); simplicity and capability and cost all kind of run in opposite directions.

Personally, the $9.99/month for Adobe's photography bundle (various PC and mobile iterations of Lightroom and Photoshop) is easy to stomach.
 
I would say- MS Paint can 'crop'. If you need something more than that level of cropping, you need a real photo editor a la Photoshop or GIMP (free, even harder to use); simplicity and capability and cost all kind of run in opposite directions.

Personally, the $9.99/month for Adobe's photography bundle (various PC and mobile iterations of Lightroom and Photoshop) is easy to stomach.


For PC, and the monthly fee is an absolute no go for her. Photoshop from what I can see on their website is another of those monthly fee nonsense.

I'll take a look at GIMP though and see if that's something she could deal with. Thanks.
 
For PC, and the monthly fee is an absolute no go for her. Photoshop from what I can see on their website is another of those monthly fee nonsense.

I'll take a look at GIMP though and see if that's something she could deal with. Thanks.

Gimp is sort of a Photoshop replacement. And honestly, it's not intuitive if you're never used something with as much depth. Have her give it a go, but I'm guessing it will take a while to even figure out how to do basic things. Lightroom (or equivalents) are what most people will probably understand most easily.
Which is actually why I gave the phone edit suggestion. Not sure if you actually watched the videos, but that method is legitimate. Don't look down on the method. Look at the result.

That said, there are other Lightroom alternatives.
https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/lightroom-alternatives/

I don't have experience with any of them, but I'm sure you could go through the process of looking up reviews to see if any of them are worth it. The first one at least at first glance, looks okay. But of course advertising is supposed to do that.
 
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Gimp is sort of a Photoshop replacement. And honestly, it's not intuitive if you're never used something with as much depth. Have her give it a go, but I'm guessing it will take a while to even figure out how to do basic things. Lightroom (or equivalents) are what most people will probably understand most easily.
Which is actually why I gave the phone edit suggestion. Not sure if you actually watched the videos, but that method is legitimate. Don't look down on the method. Look at the result.

That said, there are other Lightroom alternatives.
https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/lightroom-alternatives/

I don't have experience with any of them, but I'm sure you could go through the process of looking up reviews to see if any of them are worth it. The first one at least at first glance, looks okay. But of course advertising is supposed to do that.

Not looking down on them, just not able to consider them. She's rather 'old school' and still has a flip phone. Not something she could do phone editing with.
 
Luminar - currently on sale for $69
Capture One - $20/m or $299. (you can sometimes find older versions for free on their website)
DxO Labs - currently on sale for $99

There are a lot of alternatives, and many offer free 30 day trial periods. Have your friend try one or two, and have her decide which one she likes best. There's really no single right answer here.
 
Irfanview. Free, easy and idiot proof.
Resize, crop, etc all in there and it integrates to windows well.

If you really need to shoop stuff, Corel PSP 2018 you can pick up for cheap sometimes. I grabbed it recently, worth it but I use it for more advanced stuff (many layers etc). Been using PSP it for years and it was easier for me to pick up than adobe. I use premier pro though for editing video.

if you run the pirated version they sometimes will make special offers and you can get PSP2018 for 1/3rd the price..
 
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