Any good free editing software out there?

[Crystal]

Just wondering if anyone can recommend free editing software (or very cheap).

Thanks!

[Allie]

Gimp is a quite powerful editor for the price (free version) and there are plenty on tutorials on line. Many cameras and computers also come with at least some basic editing software so it might be worth checking both out.

[dcon]

Since when is there a paid version of gimp??


with gimp, you will be able to do a lot - pretty much all you would ever use photoshop, unless you are a professional photographer. The thing with gimp is that the user interface is a lot harder to learn, and it is less intuitive. But if you persevere with it, you will wonder why you ever wanted to buy photoshop or lightroom. Also, if you shoot in RAW, there are plenty of good programs that will do RAW conversion to Tiff and JPG. The one I use is RAW Therapee, mainly because its batch editing feature is excellent. However, if you want a program which will dramatically reduce noise, ufraw (a gimp addon) is superb.

[I @ M]

Crystal, what sort of specific editing do you want to do?
If you are needing the full blown bells and whistle capabilities of something like photoshop then there really isn't much that comes even close at a cheap price.
Have you mastered to the Nth degree the capabilities of the free software that came with your camera, View NX2 is still quite a good editor in many ways.

[Kym]

Picasa from Google is free and ok as well.

The GIMP now has some support 16bit/channel editing http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/gimp-2-8-new-features

[Allie]

Since when is there a paid version of gimp??

Sorry, I was too brief ..... price of a free version [of an editor].:lol2:

[Mark L]

...
Have you mastered to the Nth degree the capabilities of the free software that came with your camera, View NX2 is still quite a good editor in many ways.

As is Canons DPP, in some ways.
IrfanView is another free one.

[Kaktus]

I have found 'FastStone Image Viewer' to be pretty handy

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

and its free

***FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, retouching and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, PSD, EPS, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF, ARW, SR2, RW2 and DNG).***

[arthurking83]

Also into the mix is Paint.net .. not M$'s Paint that comes with Windows .. THIS version of Paint.net (http://www.getpaint.net/).

Can sometimes feel clumsy, but then again so does Photoshop and Lightroom... as does Nikon ViewNX2 and CaptureNX2 .. they all have their little foibles to annoy the user in some way.

I have/had quite a few programs to work with, and some paid for, some free and others paid for but trial versions.

In my mind(only because it was more intuitive to make edits with) Capture NX2 ended up my preferred editor, and the way it handles Nikon raw files is one of the best, if not the best.
But it's far from perfect .. just the easiest to use and get images looking the way you want them too quickly.
But it has limitations that I recently stumbled upon whilst looking to a new editing workflow.

Before I realised how to effect the edit I wanted in CNX2, I had to open each image using Paint.net to make the edit change I wanted(colour reversal .. or negative to positive).

But as already said, there are a great many freebies available out there and most of them can do some of the things you probably want, but you may end up needing a few of them to get most if not all of the editing you want done to your images.

[I @ M]

As is Canons DPP, in some ways.
IrfanView is another free one.

My reference to Nikon View NX2 was because it appears Crystal owns a Nikon at the moment and View NX is a very capable raw editor for Nikon files. :)

[Crystal]

Sorry it's taken so long to get back in here - Not much time for photos when you have a crazy 13 month old running around.

Thank you to everyone who has made suggestions! i really have no idea what editing i want to do, i just want to have a play really.

I have dowloaded a couple that you have suggested to try out.

Thanks again!

[Eberbachl]

GIMP is extremely good.