Basic Photo Editor - shareware or freeware? (1 Viewer)

crazyfingers · Mar 30, 2011

I'm wondering if people might have a recommendation on a basic photo editor.

I took a look at Adobe Elements but it's more expensive than I want to pay. About $79US. And I have not been able to tell yet if it does all I am looking for below. Mainly #4.

The main tools that I would want are:

1 Crop
2 Sharpen
3 resize
4 and what I don't have is a way to brighten/contrast a selected part of an image.

Of course windows will do 1 and 3. The Canon software that came with the camera will do 1,2, an 3 but 1 is not convenient for multiple photos and sharpen doesn't seem so good.

I don't have a way to do 4.

I've googled and tried to figure out what the features are but I wonder if someone here just knows?

I have Irfanview and it has 1, 2, and 3 but they are not terribly convenient.

Of course I'd like to be able to do all of those at one time. I understand that JPGs degrade with multiple saves so I'd like to do it all easily with one program and one save.

Does anyone know of a good freeware or inexpensive shareware that's easy to use?

H K · Mar 30, 2011

Buy an old version of elements 4 - 6 it does 70% the higher version . At least your learning a system that will be around in 20 years . Don't sell JPG's short they are fine for most images .

If I had it to do again ... I would buy a cheap camera and a high end CS5 photoshop editing program the first day .

Much more gain with less pain .

Jim M. · Mar 30, 2011

Free programs such as PhotoFiltre (what I use) or Picasa will do all you want.

Best,
Jim

njlarsen · Mar 30, 2011

Photoshop elements will do all that and more. I do not know it, but I believe Picasa will do at least 1, 2, 3, and probably 4.

Niels

Ashley beolens · Mar 30, 2011

Hi crazy fingers there are many free image editors, I currently have loads listed here (not all listed are free)

I've not used that many myself but a few of the online ones such as Pixlr seem quite good.

crazyfingers · Mar 30, 2011

Hey thanks! I attempted to download PhotoFiltre last night but Windows7 kept telling me I had to "escalate" my permissions!?! It's my own computer. Grrr.

So I went and got Picasa. I have not played with it yet. It was still cataloging all my roughly 37,000 photos on the hard drive when I went to bed.

willito · Mar 30, 2011

crazyfingers said:
I have Irfanview and it has 1, 2, and 3 but they are not terribly convenient.

Do you have the last version of it? I use it on a regular basis for such basic photo edition and it works very fine for me. Especially the batch capability allows very time-saving formatting of rather large photo collections when, e.g., you want to reduce and auto-correct them for e-mail.

crazyfingers · Mar 30, 2011

willito said:
Do you have the last version of it? I use it on a regular basis for such basic photo edition and it works very fine for me. Especially the batch capability allows very time-saving formatting of rather large photo collections when, e.g., you want to reduce and auto-correct them for e-mail.

It looks like I have version 4.25.

I have not used it a lot. I might not have given it a fair shake. Near as I can tell it doesn't do item 4 though.

Mono · Mar 30, 2011

It is not for the faint of heart but GIMP will do all that you want and more. The learning curve is a bit steep though!

crazyfingers · Mar 30, 2011

I've had a chance to play with Picasa a bit now and I think I like it a lot. So I think I'm all set for now.

devon.birder · Mar 30, 2011

crazyfingers said:
Hey thanks! I attempted to download PhotoFiltre last night but Windows7 kept telling me I had to "escalate" my permissions!?! It's my own computer. Grrr.

So I went and got Picasa. I have not played with it yet. It was still cataloging all my roughly 37,000 photos on the hard drive when I went to bed.

I got the same problem about escalation with PhotoFiltre although it only took a few seconds to overcome. However when I tried to use it the "Crop" feature was not available so I promptly uninstalled it. Will now try Picasa. Roger

crazyfingers · Apr 1, 2011

Picasa is very amazing. I never expected that it would analyze all of my photos for face recognition and group the same people. Truly amazing. Aside from Google Earth, this is the most amazing freeware I have ever downloaded.

gergrd · Apr 8, 2011

Here is a list of free image editing software programs (for some reason Picasa is not on the list, but it has been mentioned above). Even Adobe offers a free (if limited) version of Photoshop online.

http://weeklyphototips.blogspot.com/2011/04/free-image-editing-software.html#links

devon.birder · Apr 8, 2011

devon.birder said:
I got the same problem about escalation with PhotoFiltre although it only took a few seconds to overcome. However when I tried to use it the "Crop" feature was not available so I promptly uninstalled it. Will now try Picasa. Roger

I am very glad Picasa was mentioned on this thread as I had never heard of it before. I have now had the chance to use it and I think it's great. Thanks. Roger

Musoman · Apr 9, 2011

I use Photofiltre as a quick editor ( when i'm not using Adobe CS4 extended ) and i find it to be an excellent program. There are also plugins available.

Re. the ' missing ' crop option. Its not missing at all. Its greyed out till you put a ' crop rectangle ' round your image with the mouse.

You then go to the IMAGE tab and the drop down box will show the CROP tab ready to click.

Musoman · Apr 9, 2011

Just to prove my point ( bit late now I suppose as Picasa has been chosen ) but for you Devon Birder, in case you'd like Photofiltre again to trial it out...

Load up photo, and go to IMAGE tab, dropdown box shows CROP greyed out. Looks like its unavailable

But you use your mouse to put a crop box round the area, go to IMAGE again, and the dropdown box shoes the CROP option ready to use.

Simple :smoke:

devon.birder · Apr 9, 2011

Musoman said:
Just to prove my point ( bit late now I suppose as Picasa has been chosen ) but for you Devon Birder, in case you'd like Photofiltre again to trial it out...

Load up photo, and go to IMAGE tab, dropdown box shows CROP greyed out. Looks like its unavailable

But you use your mouse to put a crop box round the area, go to IMAGE again, and the dropdown box shoes the CROP option ready to use.

Simple :smoke:

Thanks for that Musoman, much appreciated. I was only looking for a program to crop my photos and I now find Picasa ideal especially as it allows you to not only do a manual crop but also a current ratio crop and several others which you can pick from a drop down menu. Roger

Musoman · Apr 9, 2011

Ya welcome - you never know , you may want to try it in the future.

I had picasa and then dumped it for PhotoFiltre :t:

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