For the last few days Ive been experimenting with several different photo editing software programs and Ill tell you it has been educational for sure. Ive tried Microsoft Picture It, Microsoft Digital Image, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 (crashed my computer and I had to do a restore to get it working again!), Pixmantec Rawshooter, Gimp, PhotoPlus 6.0 (free), and a couple of others that I wont even take the time to mention.

Pixmantec Rawshooter Essientials photo editing software, which is free, looked to be the best of the lot except for one major drawback, my camera doesnt take raw photos, only jpeg and tiff. However, Ill keep this one in the back of my mind for that day when I choose to upgrade to a more powerful camera.

Adobe Photoshop Elements looked promising at first then all of a sudden, my computer decides to crash! I dont know, maybe I didnt hold my lip right when I installed it or something.

Gimp is pretty a good photo editing software. Not only because its free but it has a few good features plus plugins. The main thing I dont like about Gimp is that the preview screens are too small. Gimp is more difficult to install, not for the faint of heart or computer newbies.

What I have decided to do at this point is to use a combination of Microsoft Picture It and PhotoPlus. If money were no object I would probably spring for PhotoShop which seems to be the most poplar program out there. I guess Ill just keep an eye out for anything new that comes along.

Steve McArthur

Steve McArthur is businessman who writes about topics that he is interested in.