Photo Editing

Hi Lehman57,

FastStone doesn't seem like it is really a graphics editing program, that it would not have enough functionality.

I use Gimp, an open source, free graphics editing program, and is available for Windows or Linux systems.

It takes a bit to learn, but it has a lot of functionality _{for the price}

You can download it from here: http://www.gimp.org/.

If you do load it, start using it and have questions, send me a PM and I'll probably be able to help you.

Mike

FastStone Image Viewer, I think it is version 4.5, one person has said it will work for me. I want to verify that from users. I hope the learning curve isn't as long as Photoshop Elements 9 appears to be!

Their site has a tutorial and a free trial version. So why not just give it a shot real quick?

Also, cnet has a free version of it out too.

I haven't ever used FastStone Image Viewer, but like Mikerho said it doesn't seem like a graphics editing program. I would agree just from the name of the software, it is an image viewer, not editor.

And nobody will be able to verify that it will work for you, we don't know your skills/background. Just that you are familiar with PhotoShop Elements 9. As previously stated, gimp is a relatively powerful FREE photo editor. I use it as well.

I am learning to create windows image viewer using some manual tools which can be customized by users. Any suggestion? Thanks in advance.

I'm not familiar at all with "create windows image viewer."

Yes, FastStone is called a viewer, but it will do some simple editing.

But I have found out thru use that FastStone will do what I want it to do. Crop, lightening/darkening, red-eye removal, and other simple operations. I do not want to do the many things that Photo-Shop is capable of, thus do not need its long learning curve. The only thing that FastStone will not do, as far as I have found out, is to smooth edges when attempting to increase the resolution--something that seems to be difficult anyway because it involves "inventing" data by some algorithm.

By the time I downloaded it last night, FastStone was at version 4.6. I haven't actually used it yet, but it is tremendously smaller that Photoshop Elements 9 which I had, but deleted. The FastStone learning curve shouldn't be as long as PSE9. I am told that FastStone's newer versions will handle the problem I had before--dark backgrounds in flash photos. The photo editor I am using now isn't supported anymore.

I have tried some of the other suggestions, but didn't like them for one reason or another.

Thanks for the replies. Does anyone have actual experience with FastStone version 4.5 or 4.6?

Check out Paint.Net. It was intended to replace Paint, but Microsoft hasn't done it yet. It has reasonable editing capabilities and is easy to use.

I'll put in another vote for GIMP. Pretty powerful, fairly easy to use. But, then, I'm not a professional in this area...

Here's another GIMP recommendation. It's free, and doesn't hog your computer's resources. In 2003, when I discovered it, it was somewhat useful but not very powerful. It is now very powerful, and comes with a comprehensive user guide. Since it has many users, there are lots of brief tutorials posted online for things you don't know how to do yet.

I use it almost every day to re-size images and change their format for inline inclusion in e-mails, and that on a ten-year-old computer with a 500 Mhz processor and only 1GB of memory. Less frequently, it gets used for much more complicated chores. My thanks to the developers. It is truly a great application!

picasa

does all the basic stuff & will let you scan through your folders easier than the others

Garthh,

Someone once sent me a slide show of their pictures, ( a few hundred, to share ) using Picasa, another google project at the time?

A few years ago now.

Maybe I did something wrong or my setup was awry at the time but I ended up with yet another application making an inventory of my hard disc(s). ( I already had Google and Msoft fighting over access to my HD!) It took a long, long while to remove!

Did you have the same problem?

I never tried any of its editing capabilities as I was desperately trying to edit it out!

Sleepy

you need to go to

Tools>Folder Manager

you will notice that the default setting is monitor: documents, pictures, music

it will certainly ferret out pics that have been misplaced

I set it for just the pictures folder myself

picasa does a good incremental backup to external Hard drive [or cds]

Picasa 3 free from Google is a very good program and it is still current. You can tell it what to index and how often and it will only create addresses and thumbs of the images, not copies (very economical on hard disk usage). It will take awhile to index the first time, particularly if you choose to index the whole drive. It pays to look at the settings before you click OK to every button you see. If you use another indexing program, like Irfanview or Bridge, you may not want to double-up on indexes, however, Picasa 3 offers functions at a speed that none other can offer, as well as it can read practically any image and movie format, including RAW, PDS, C2R etc

I find it particularly good for emailing sets of images and movies, because it can reduce them to a decent size automatically (see email settings), it integrates with Gmail, offers a Blog and a free site to upload your albums and it's lighting fast adjustments (these are not made to the original and can be undone, a copy can be exported into another folder with the permanent changes).

Don't expect to jump into any software without reading the instructions and a giving some time to a bit of experimenting: Picasa 3 it's great free software, but it's only as Sleepy as the user ..

I like to set the view to:

View>Folder view> sort by > Name

which integrates well with the way my files are arranged

For free I go for The Gimp, although it is slower and with a bit of a learning curb.

Apart from a video editor like Final Cut or Adobe Premier, or Flash and Swish will adjust flash images: you have to adjust the images in a photo editing suite before you render (or save) in flash format.

For simple and quick editing why not use the free Picasa 3 from Google? Sounds to me that it will be plenty for what you need, and it uses non-destructive editing.

Here is the link: http://picasa.google.com.au/intl/en/

Also take a look at and try Irfanview.