Don't worry, it's very easy to go.
Follow these:
Digital cameras expanded the use of image editing software from the professional domain to the general population. Scores of image editing and viewing software titles exist in the marketplace, and software manufacturers make titles to fit any photographer's capabilities, from novice to professional. The best software fits the demands of the user and offers ease of operation and user-friendly interfacing between camera and computer.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop rules the roost in terms of image editing software packages. Photoshop offers the user the largest number of image enhancement tools of any image editing software. As of December 2009, Photoshop comes in two editions: Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended. Adobe Photoshop has garnered the respect of professional photographers because of its advanced RAW editing abilities. Photoshop's RAW plug-in supports more than 190 camera models, offers Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) and Joint Photographers Expert Group (JPEG) format processing and post-crop vignetting. The extended edition offers everything CS4 offers plus tools for editing 3D models, motion-based content and advanced image analyses. Adobe also offers a consumer-level version of Photoshop titled Photoshop Elements. According to NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service, Photoshop Elements garnered the #1 selling consumer photo editing software spot from April 2002 to March 2009. As of December 2009, Photoshop CS4 and CS4 Extended both retail for $699.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2
From image import to image output, Lightroom's technology fully supports the digital work environment. Lightroom offers 64-bit processing support, multiple monitor support, local adjustments and batch processing. One of Lightroom's greatest features comes in the form of nondestructive editing. Edits are made on a copy of the original RAW file and not the RAW file itself. Photographers can enhance color, tone and exposure on TIFF, JPEG and Photoshop native (PSD) file formats along with more than 190 camera RAW file formats. Lightroom combined with Adobe Photoshop CS4 creates a comprehensive digital workflow. Initial image upload and editing is performed in Lightroom, then the image gets sent to Photoshop CS4 for additional enhancements, and, finally, the image returns back to Lightroom for final showcasing to the Internet or printing. As of December 2009, Lightroom retails for $299.
Picasa 3
Picasa makes this list not because it's free (that doesn't hurt) but because the software works great and offers a number of nice features. Picasa offers anyone the opportunity to upload photos into the software and make a number of image enhancements, including crop, color correction, white balance and red-eye correction--all automatically. Picasa allows the user to resize images to existing print sizes (3 inches x 5 inches, 4 inches x 6 inches, 5 inches x 7 inches and 8 inches x 10 inches), or crop to a custom size. One of the nicer features of Picasa involves the geo-tagging of images. Users designate specific locations to photographs via a built-in tool that assigns longitude and latitude markers to the image. When shared online, anyone can view the photograph's place of origin. Picasa also allows users to create online albums and connect directly to partner retailers for image printing.
Professional or hobbyist, there will come times when a little tweak or a major re-do are needed in order to turn your photographs into masterpieces. Gone are the days of retakes. Photo editing software makes it possible to create whatever effect you desire, right from the comfort of your desktop. Generate marketing material for your company or remove the red from your baby's blue eyes. Enhance your appearance with whiter teeth and a tan, or breathe new life to an old photograph. You can do all this and more with picture editing software.
Adobe PhotoShop Elements 8
This easy to use picture editing software application will deliver professional results. Construct calendars, design greeting cards and put together photo books with the Project Wizard. An exceptional feature of this software is the Recompose Tool. It identifies important objects in the image and scales everything around them. No longer do you need to worry about squatty or overly lengthened people. Everything in the image is correctly proportioned. At around $100 as of 2010, it is compatible with XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Mac.
Serif PhotoPlus X3 Digital Studio
This is an excellent photo editing software application for the beginner. It has a Quick Fix Studio that allows common modifications such as red-eye removal, cropping and blemish removal to be applied in one click. With the Before and After Pane, changes can be viewed in real time. If you are unhappy with the changes, you can fall back to the original by clicking the Cancel button. Macros automate those pesky, repetitive editing tasks that you do over and over again. For about $80 as of 2010, you can use PhotoPlus on any computer running Windows 2000, XP or Vista.
Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 is much cheaper than the alternatives, with features for the novice or the expert. The Express Lab allows standard edits like red-eye removal and cropping to be applied to an entire folder. Makeover Tools make whitening teeth, smoothing wrinkles and adding a tan a breeze. With a feature called Time Machine, pick a point in time between the 1800s and the 1960s to transform your photographs into images from the past. Corel Paint Shop Pro does this and so much more in Windows 2000, XP and Vista for a mere $30 as of 2010.
Google Picasa 3.6
This free alternative is another option for hobbyists and beginners. Geo-tags allow the user to add places to the photos and arrange them on a global map. Name tags is a nice feature that makes it possible to name the people in the pictures. Albums can be shared with the people in the photos or custom slideshows featuring a certain person can be created. The application is compatible with XP, Vista and Windows 7.
To modify pictures, you need photo editing software. Photo editing software allows users to perform tasks such as adding text, changing color and cropping photos. Photo editing software is available for Windows, Mac and Linux platforms and platform-independent on the Internet.
Photoshop Elements
Photoshop Elements is the consumer photo editor by Adobe and is available for Windows and Mac. Elements has basic picture editing capabilities such as cropping and color correction as well as album creation, photo sharing and full screen previews.
GIMP
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is an open-source, cross-platform, picture-editing application. GIMP has similar functions to Photoshop, including layer manipulation, color correction and photo enhancement.
Paint.NET
Paint.NET is an open-source, picture-editing application for Windows. It was originally created as a replacement for the native Microsoft Paint application. Paint.net has a tabbed interface, layer manipulation, special effects tools and more.
Picnik
Picnik is an online photo editor, accessible via popular web browsers like Firefox. Picnik has basic editing features like cropping and includes creative effects like collage creation. Picnik is free to use but has a premium subscription for enhanced features including more filters and storage space.
With the influx in the popularity of photography, many visual artists are looking for effective and professional picture editing software. Options range from free and open-source projects to industry-standard programs.
Features
Photo editing software consists primarily of features that allow photographers to edit color balance, cropping, sharpness and blur, special effects and altering.
Importance
While high-end cameras can help photographers accomplished polished photographs, editing software allows gives photographers more options for adding effects and changes to a picture.
Popular programs
The two most popular photo editing programs on the market are Adobe Photoshop and GIMP. GIMP is an open-source program available for free to the public and offers many options for editing; however, most professional photographers invest in Adobe Photoshop to truly have a complete editing program.
Picture formats such as JPG, BMP, GIF or TIFF store accurate and colorful photographs and artwork. Depending on a file's size and color information, it can often prove too large for convenient storage. Several options exist for compressing image files to smaller archives.
Online
Nippy Zip compresses files online to avoid downloads of compression utilities that take up hard disk room and may harbor viruses. The site limits file sizes to 5,024 KB or less.
7-Zip Utility
The free 7-Zip utility compresses without a website and is useful for areas without an Internet connection. It contains no file size restrictions and its open source allows modification by tech-savvy users.
WinZip
The commercial WinZip program compresses to multiple archive formats, letting you select the most compact one. It can secure files with passwords and automatic shredding after viewing and can make archives self-extracting, so users do not need a separate program to restore the original.
Inexpensive, easy-to-use cameras have made digital picture-taking popular. These images require no processing and can be downloaded to a system, and sent instantly to others through email. However, they do require some software for correct viewing.
Online
Online picture viewing services, like Flickr, let you avoid having to download a space-hogging picture viewer that may contain viruses. In addition, you can view your pictures on any computer with an Internet connection.
Free
Free viewing programs like Inzomia Viewer do not require a Web connection. This makes it useful in locations with no Internet facilities, such as inside an airline cabin. The viewer also lets you zoom, pan and rotate pictures.
Commercial
Commercial software, like Adobe Photoshop, not only lets you view pictures in many formats but allows editing as well. You can crop or resize pics, adjust brightness and hue, apply special effects such as grayscale or pixelation, and overlay descriptive text.
Inexpensive and easy-to-use digital cameras quickly produce pictures to share via e-mail or on web pages. Unfortunately, because newer cameras create images in very high resolution, they are too large for use in many digital applications. Downsize your digital images using one of several software programs created for photo editing.
Online
Shrink Pictures is a free online resizer that lets you upload pictures and process them entirely online. This way you avoid downloading a program that takes up disk space and can contain malware. The utility also allows grayscale and sepia conversions and features three image quality settings.
Free
Windows Paint, a free art program, is built into the Windows operating system. Because it works without a web page, it is useful in areas without Internet connection, such as in an airline cabin. In addition to resizing photos, this utility can edit a picture by adding or deleting colors and stretching or skewing specific sections of it. It also allows for saving in such diverse formats as JPG, GIF and PNG.
Commercial
A commercial product like Adobe Photoshop not only lets you resize several images at once but can combine them into layers and edit them down to the pixel level. You can use its tools and filters to correct any artifacts that appear after the reduction, and adjust brightness, hue and saturation for selected portions of the picture. A free trial is available on the Adobe website.
Picture-framing software are programs that allow you to digitally frame photographs and paintings in order to visualize what they will look like in different types of frames and determine the cost of framing before you print them. These types of programs are used by photographers and portrait framers.
About Picture Framing
Getting your art work and photographs professionally framed is a great way to preserve them and integrate them into the decor of your home. Consulting with a professional who uses framing software will ensure that you find a frame that complements, but does not take away from the piece, and is the right size.
Available Software
Many framing software programs are available for purchase online. These programs, which are mostly geared for professional photographers and framers, include Custom Framer, Finkels Picture Framing Software and Smart Framer. Many framing software programs also offer free trials to download.
Function and Features
Picture framing software programs are equipped with many different functions and features that help photographers, framers and their clients edit, select and view previews of different frames for their photos and artwork. These features include cropping tools, color matching and proportional scaling. Some of the programs also include business tools, such as invoice creators and price calculation.
Picture to text software can have two general kinds of application. One is to reproduce pictures using letters, numbers and other characters. The other is to convert images into text files.
ASCII Art
Some picture-to-text software is designed to translate pictures, logos or other images into American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) characters. These are letters, numbers and symbols such as "@" or "&." ASCII art is used to display pictures where image files are too big or awkward to display.
Scanned Text
Another kind of image-to-text software converts scanned images of pages into text files. This is very useful when entering data that exists only in written or printed form. Examples include older books that do not exist in digital form, handwritten text and images of forms that have been filled in by hand.
Problems
Picture-to-image software can't always help in converting images into digital text. Where handwriting is very poor or where printed material is damaged or faint, the software sometimes cannot cope. Problems also arise when pages are wrinkled or uneven, as the text in the scanned image is also distorted.
Photographers have many options for working with digital pictures. Those who work with raw images have more options for improving photos, but they also have the challenge of finding a software program that is effective and easy to use.
Adobe Lightroom
One of the most complete and efficient software programs for working with raw images, Lightroom makes it possible to open, convert, edit, organize and print your raw images. It does take time to understand the features in Lightroom, but with all of the free tutorials online it is well worth the time.
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop is a professional grade image-editing application. It offers more tools than the average user may need and it also offers many plug-ins that provide additional editing options. There are many free tutorials on the Internet to help users take full advantage of this powerful program. Photoshop does not offer organizing and tagging of images. Photoshop is considered by many in the industry to be the "best" image editing program.
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Photoshop Elements is downgraded version of Photoshop that offers tools to work with raw files in a more user friendly form. There are not as many tools for editing, and the learning curve is not as steep. Ease of work flow and photo manipulation makes this a good choice for the average user who wants to learn how to enhance camera raw images.
GIMP
Free software that has many of the photo-editing tools offered in Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. It does not have the speed offered with the more powerful programs, but many users will not notice the difference. GIMP uses layers similar to Photoshop, but finding all the tools can be difficult.
Picasa
Used for organizing and editing photos, Picasa is free software from Google that offers basic photo-editing, organizing, slideshows and printing. Picasa also offers facial recognition.
A common problem in the security industry is the quality of images captured on security cameras. Poor-quality security camera images often provide insufficient evidence in law. This problem can be remedied with photo editing software.
Expert Insight
The professional's choice will always be Adobe Photoshop. This software allows the user to fix images by resizing and sharpening them, adjusting color and applying filters.
Considerations
Fixing images is also possible with free software such as Microsoft Paint, but it is very limited compared to Photoshop. Gimpshop is an open-source piece of software that offers similar functions to Photoshop but is not as easy to use. Often the security camera comes with its own software, but the quality and user-friendliness of this software vary among brands.
Warning
Users of photo editing software need to be careful of how much editing they do. Overediting could lead to accusations of "doctoring" the image, which may impeach its value as evidence in court.