Best cheap photo editing software?

[flura]

Hey,

I'm looking to download a decent photo editing app from the store for around £50 - £100 (i think that's like $80 - $150) and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

I have a full copy of Photoshop 7 on my PC, but after recently switching to Mac I can't use that anymore and can't afford to pay the full price again either.

I'm only looking for the basics, and would like to know what anyone could suggest for me. Also, I don't know if international versions of the app store differ from each other at all, but I'm in the UK.

Thanks everyone!

[sindekit]

I like Pixelmator. It's just 30 bucks now.

[maxxaddict]

You could always dual-boot your mac and use photoshop on the windows partition or try gimp. It's free open-source software and not bad at all. http://www.gimp.org/ http://gimp.lisanet.de/Website/News/News.html

[GGJstudios]

Depending on what you want to do, Preview goes a long way as a basic photo editor.

[santaliqueur]

Originally Posted by maxxaddict

You could always dual-boot your mac and use photoshop on the windows partition or try gimp. It's free open-source software and not bad at all. http://www.gimp.org/ http://gimp.lisanet.de/Website/News/News.html

Did you miss the "cheap" part? Photoshop is $600.

Oh, right.

[bcburrows]

Aperture is great

[ECUpirate44]

Pixelmator is worth the 30 bucks. Theres a free trial from their website.

[rwwest7]

Pinta

[thekev]

Originally Posted by santaliqueur

Did you miss the "cheap" part? Photoshop is $600.

Oh, right.

The OP has a copy of Photoshop 7 for Windows. As noted he can't use it on the OSX side, and it's too old to qualify for upgrade pricing. The other poster just suggested using something like bootcamp. You don't have to rage at him for that.

Anyway another vote for pixelmator as long as you don't require cmyk support, so it may be a problem if you're a graphic designer or something like that. Otherwise it's not such a big deal.

[maxxaddict]

Originally Posted by santaliqueur

Did you miss the "cheap" part? Photoshop is $600.

Oh, right.

Thank you thekev, the OP already owns it... it's free. Free seems pretty cheap to me...

Just out of curiosity, I wonder what the OP ended up going with?

[Bending Pixels]

Why not use iPhoto that came with your Mac?

[katt]

take a look at this: http://photo-editing-software-review...ting-software/

[simsaladimbamba]

Originally Posted by katt

take a look at this: http://photo-editing-software-review...ting-software/

I looked at your post history (brief glance, too lazy to look deeper), and you don't seem to be a spammer, but the site you linked to is often used by spammers to link to, as the reviews are not really that thorough and often prefer one product anyway.

[katt]

Originally Posted by simsaladimbamba

I looked at your post history (brief glance, too lazy to look deeper), and you don't seem to be a spammer, but the site you linked to is often used by spammers to link to, as the reviews are not really that thorough and often prefer one product anyway.

ooh! i didn't know that it is often used by spammers. i have no idea.
i'm sorry i linked it. i'm not a spammer. again, i am deeply sorry

hmm.. how about this? http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pix...eephotoedm.htm

[Bear]

Originally Posted by Bending Pixels

Why not use iPhoto that came with your Mac?

This is a good suggestion and if it's missing some feature you need then buy something.

The ones listed above are all things you could try, and the one I'm surprised no one suggested Photoshop Elements, although I'm not happy with their new look and nagging to get an Adobe ID and to be signed on to Adobe when you edit a picture. No you don't need an Adobe ID to use Elements, but it nags every so often. This is from seeing it on a friends system and we found no way to turn off the nagging.

I'm not sure what I'll settle on yet, but I'm trying to live without Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, I don't like being nagged to sign on to an account I won't use. And I don't like where Adobe has gone with pricing with the creative suite products.

[Mak47]

I can get a lot done in Pixelmator and it's cheap. It has some limitations compared to Photoshop, so if you're a professional user you may need to find another alternative.

That said, if you were using it professionally, I'd guess that you'd just bite the bullet and pay up to Adobe.

If you need something to process and organize photos, adjust lighting, exposure, color etc, Aperture is a great application for that.

If you need to create things, like flyers, ads, album covers and so on, then Pixelmator works wonderfully.

[Bobby.e]

I would say Photoshop Elements. You can find it some places for around $80 otherwise I think its $99

[robanga]

We have both Elements and Pixelmator. I think Elements is more simplistic and has an easier learning curve, Pixelmator is more powerful i believe. My wife prefers Elements and she does some pretty cool editing.