Easiest photo editing software for a beginner

task0778

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Mar 10, 2017
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I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T6 and am wondering about trying some photo editing software. I need something simple and understandable cuz God knows I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Seems like a lot of choices out there, what to do, what to do. Any advice?
 
I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T6 and am wondering about trying some photo editing software. I need something simple and understandable cuz God knows I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Seems like a lot of choices out there, what to do, what to do. Any advice?

I always had good results with Paint Shop Pro. It's easier to use and much cheaper than photoshop but it could do every thing I needed and much much more. Don't let the price fool you. It's a lot for 50 bucks or so.
Caution your system needs beaucoup RAM for photo editing.
 
If you bought it new, look in the box, there should be a DVD with software on it. Install it and use it. It'll do all you will want to do.
 
I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T6 and am wondering about trying some photo editing software. I need something simple and understandable cuz God knows I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Seems like a lot of choices out there, what to do, what to do. Any advice?

Gimp sucks. Like a bunch of little fragmented programs. I'm something of an image-processing expert and would recommend you try Olympus MASTER 2. It's free as well. You can try Gimp too, but I use software costing up to thousands of dollars (Corel, MatLAB, LabView, etc.) and unless you have sophisticated needs (and it doesn't sound like you do), I think Olympus MASTER will work great for you. Very easy and intuitive to use.

Olympus Master (Windows)
 
Those give aways are typically worth exactly what you paid for them from my experience.

You don't need Photoshop just to resize, trim, clip, lighten, darken or change hue. He asked for something simple and I imagine, free or cheap.
 
Gimp is not intuitive in the least. And is way, way way to convoluted for anyone other than a committed image manipulator who refuses to buy Adobe software.

Interesting. I have both, but am faster on Gimp.
I have a love hate relationship with Adobe.
I personally believe the forced subscription model should be outlawed. It is a complete rip off. Bit, as with most industries, corporatism leads to only one or two choices and you are stuck with it or you can't be in business.And Adobe has the complete domination of print media software to the point of a monopoly.
Having said that, Photoshop is very good. With add ons/plugins you can do almost anything with an image.
Gimp is powerful. But it is archaic and fragmented. It doesn't flow well. And from what I know, it hasn't changed much in 20 years. And it's inability to work in the CMYK space makes it impossible to use for graphic design. As well as a much poorer ability to proper layering.
Just my 2 cents
 
I use Photoshop Elements for most of my art projects. I would love to use Photoshop CC or better, but I don't want to pay a monthly subscription, so I find other programs that can do similar things.
 
I use Photoshop Elements 2020. It's amazing. I started with version 5 and the difference in 5 and 2020 is amazing. The thing I use the most are the selection tools for when you want to copy something out of one image and place it in another. It now has an automatic function where you just click a button and it selects the object. That said it isn't 100 percent effective because the ease of selecting an object depends largely on the contrast between the object being selected and the rest of the image. But it does work well. Also, to the OP, elements has a guided lessons so that walk you through various tasks you may want to do with an image.
 
I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T6 and am wondering about trying some photo editing software. I need something simple and understandable cuz God knows I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Seems like a lot of choices out there, what to do, what to do. Any advice?

Gimp sucks. Like a bunch of little fragmented programs. I'm something of an image-processing expert and would recommend you try Olympus MASTER 2. It's free as well. You can try Gimp too, but I use software costing up to thousands of dollars (Corel, MatLAB, LabView, etc.) and unless you have sophisticated needs (and it doesn't sound like you do), I think Olympus MASTER will work great for you. Very easy and intuitive to use.

Olympus Master (Windows)
What video software, free and otherwise would you recommend?
I would like something that can do slow motion stuff.
 
I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T6 and am wondering about trying some photo editing software. I need something simple and understandable cuz God knows I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Seems like a lot of choices out there, what to do, what to do. Any advice?

Gimp sucks. Like a bunch of little fragmented programs. I'm something of an image-processing expert and would recommend you try Olympus MASTER 2. It's free as well. You can try Gimp too, but I use software costing up to thousands of dollars (Corel, MatLAB, LabView, etc.) and unless you have sophisticated needs (and it doesn't sound like you do), I think Olympus MASTER will work great for you. Very easy and intuitive to use.

Olympus Master (Windows)
What video software, free and otherwise would you recommend?
I would like something that can do slow motion stuff.
Never got heavy into digital video editing. What experience I had was mainly in the Macintosh platform, stuff like iMovie 9.0.4. If you own a Mac, you can do pro video editing, but you'd have to look at the options. The good stuff isn't free or cheap.





https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZ085E6/?tag=ff0d01-20
 
I use Photoshop Elements 2020. It's amazing. I started with version 5 and the difference in 5 and 2020 is amazing. The thing I use the most are the selection tools for when you want to copy something out of one image and place it in another. It now has an automatic function where you just click a button and it selects the object. That said it isn't 100 percent effective because the ease of selecting an object depends largely on the contrast between the object being selected and the rest of the image. But it does work well. Also, to the OP, elements has a guided lessons so that walk you through various tasks you may want to do with an image.

I use that as well. It does everything I need it to do...
 
I got my first DSLR camera, a Canon EOS Rebel T6 and am wondering about trying some photo editing software. I need something simple and understandable cuz God knows I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Seems like a lot of choices out there, what to do, what to do. Any advice?

I always had good results with Paint Shop Pro. It's easier to use and much cheaper than photoshop but it could do every thing I needed and much much more. Don't let the price fool you. It's a lot for 50 bucks or so.
Caution your system needs beaucoup RAM for photo editing.
I have photoshop, but for basic editing I still use my old copy of PsP 6 that you can downlod from oldapps. I use it for most things. It' still great.

Another great software that I like better than photoshop is Affinity. It's about $50
 
Depends on what kind of editing you're talking about.

I've taken tens of thousands of pictures over the years, mostly the boy's baseball stuff, but never really edited anything aside from maybe a crop.
 

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