photo editing software

depends on what you want to do. i use photoshop 7

^ exactly. What are your needs for the software? That is, what would you like to do with the photos?

ooooooh! How long I've waited for someone to ask me this. I have used the following software for photo editing:

Photoshop CS
ACDsee 7.0
Paint Shop Pro 8
Micorsoft Digital Image 9.0

Here go's.

Photoshop CS- There is no doubt that this is definitely the most powerful software out there for regualr consumers. There is also no doubt, if you've never used it before, that its the hardest to learn and the most complicated. Not at all user friendly. I've read two huge book on it already and still feel I don't know everything about it that I need to. It also uses up a lot of system resources, but you should be okay with your D800. It is undoubtedly the best when it comes to other graphics applications apart from photo editing.

ACDSee 7.0- This is a great picture viewer and with their new suite, they've also included a photo editor. The editor is much more user friendly than that of Photoshop's and the program itself is enough for most people who want to edit potos only. ACDsee however has a bug, once installed it becomes the default media player and the default photo opener and editor. I found that irritating. Read on for recommendations.

Paint Shop Pro 8- If you learn how to use this program, you could also perform basic functions on Photoshop, so in short, if you have the time and money, just get Photoshop and skip this one. Do understand though that most people use either Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro fofr graphic editing, so some people may be seeing something with this application that I'm not.

Microsoft Digital Image 9- if you like automated tasks, and like to save time by not doing everything manually, this is the app for you. It also has included a plethora of frames you can use for your photos. The application looks good, and for once, I think Microsoft has done a very good job of making editing very very manageable for the newbie. You hardly need anytime to get used to this application.

I use Photoshop CS for editing however to make frames in photoshop can sometimes become tedious. Actually, unless you're very familiar with photoshop, everything can become very tedious. After I edit my photos, I use Microsoft Digital Image 9 to put the photos I need to in frames.

Bottom Line- If you know how to work photoshop, use it. If you like something which is easy to use but not as powerful as Photoshop CS use MS Digital Image 9. You'll be amazed. I have also tried using both programs to edit (very basic editing) the one same photo just to check results, the end product was hardly different, both photos looked nearly the same. If the editing you need to do is basic and don't need to work with layers etc, use the MS software.

Any question? I'll keep a check on the post.

Rao

I have just purchased Photoshop Element 3.0 and so far I'm impressed. I used the trial version from Adobe before making my decision. It cleaned up some 1rst generation digital pics from my old Sony Maciva camera that had terrible resolution. The pics had a lot of noise in them. From what I've read and seen on line there are a lot of books written about using Adobe Photoshop. That was a deciding factor for me.

John

What kind of camera did you buy? I'm currently using an Olympus C-750. Takes very nice pictures. Somewhere down the road I want to get a digital SLR.

I've taken a few thousand pictures with it.

John

Since I went digital, I have not shot but a couple rolls of film and I have a nice Canon SLR camera. A few days ago I purchased a 1.7 Tele conversion lens form my C-750. Iv've take a couple of good shots with it, but can't wait to shot some close ups of the moon.

I have thought about selling by 35mm SLR.

John

I use photoshop CS w/image ready. It's a very nice bundle.

I have a Fuji Finepix F420. It looks very good indeed and shoots very nice and crisp photos. I was hesitant at first to buy it, but the test shots I took with it showed that it had a brilliant lens.