New to Photography/What Imaging Software to use

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lindaw

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Hi. I am new to photography and have just bought a Dixon D40 with standard 18-55, plus Signa 700-300 and have an interest in wildlife, landscapes and family portraits. What short of imaging software would you recommend to use that is simple to use and effectively manipulates the images? Any help would be much appreciated.
 
Very simple: Picasa from Google (picasa.google.com)

More indepth - GIMP (www.gimp.org)

Both free. If you want something you have to pay for, you've got a wider choice:

Photoshop Elements, a simplified version of Photoshop - around £60

Photoshop, the best (IMO) money can buy - around £600

Lightroom - Good processing program, but not that good for editing images (like removing distractions etc) although there is a new version being released that can do some basic changes.

There are other options, but those are the ones that I have some experience of :)

Welcome to the forum :)

Also... it's a Nikon D40, and a Sigma lens ;) (y)

EDIT: Forgot to say, you can download free 30 day trails of photoshop and lightroom from the adobe website @ www.adobe.com :)
 
there is also corel paint shop pro as well for bout £80. i dont find it that bad, but im guessing isnt a patch on photoshop
 
sounds like a bargain stevie
 
PSE is also bundled with some Canon scanners in case you are looking at one.

Also the full version is half-price as an upgrade from PSE :)
 
If you think you might want to 'progress' the ultimate is Photoshop, so it would make sense to try Photoshop Elements, then you could upgrade with the minimum of trauma.

However, if you don't think you'll ever get Photoshop then it might be worth trying the others, although Elements is pretty good in its own right.
 
I used the GIMP for a long time. I currently use Lightroom and CS3 Extended, but still go back to the GIMP for stuff I don't yet know how to do in CS3. lol. Lightroom is awesome, but as stated, not very good for the more in depth edits.
 
There are a number of good free packages that you can start with, too. I like both Exif and IrfanView for organising images - Irfanview also allows fast batch processing when you have loads of images to handle/re-size/re-name.
 
I'd go with lightroom personally. I use that in conjunction with Photoshop CS3, but find myself doing more in LR and less in PS as time goes on. Obviously lack of layers in lightroom can be an issue using it without PS though. Why not try the Lightroom 2 Beta 30 day trial?
 
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