Photo software stuff help

[skoozi12]

Hey photo gurus,

I need your help with something really quick.  I have an a**load of pics from my digi cam that have to be edited and would look much better with diff backgrounds or what not.  All I have on my comp is the fuji finepix crap and some hp image zone.  Can I use any of these to do this or do I need to get photoshop?  How much IS photoshop...(keep in mind I am poor so don't scare me with big numbers, mmmkay?)?

Thank you for your help,

Anna

(I know there have been threads on similar things, but I did not find what I was looking for...so if you hate me for posting this... )

[calamari]

http://www.gimp.org - you can do the same things as photoshop, but free.
http://www.irfanview.com - basic image editing (cut, crop, effects, convert formats, etc). lots and lots of file formats supported.
http://picasa.google.com/index.html - very basic image editing of most known image formats.
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/PaintNET/1096481993/1 - Paint.NET, excellent free and easy to use image editor.
http://photofiltre.free.fr/utilitaires/photofiltre_en.htm - Photofiltre, simple and easy one-click image adjustments.

there are a bunch more, but i'm a bit lazy to keep looking.  I do recommend Paint.NET and Gimp

[Cal Price]

How much is photoshop? expensive is the answer, I just bought it but like the last poster said there is a lot of stuff out there and you can probably fine a free trail period on photoshop if you trawl around a bit.

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

Check your PM box..

[skoozi12]

Thank you everybody.

[mastrind]

Check your PM box..

...hey....what's so freakin' special that you couldn't share with the rest of us....hrumph..... ...

[skoozi12]

He professed his undying love for peanuts, okay?  Geez nosey!

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

Check your PM box..

...hey....what's so freakin' special that you couldn't share with the rest of us....hrumph..... ...

Haha.. I may or may not have made an offer to share pirated photo editing software of undetermined origin. Why, would you like to partake? 

[sys49152]

like subc mentioned, there are a ton of free products out there for photo editing.  If you're looking or something (nearly) as powerful as Photoshop, I suggest you get the gimp.  It's fantastic, there are a ton of tutorials, and it's free.  It will likely do everything you need, especially as a novice photo editor.

The website :
http://www.gimp.org/

Download site for windows :
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html (remember to get the GTK intaller first)

A some great tutorials :
http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Did I mention that it's  free.. as in not pirated?  Also, before you install..err.. I mean purchase and install a copy of Photoshop, make sure that it's a version compatible with your processor.  If I'm not mistaken, some versions of Photoshop (or maybe it was Premiere?) don't install on AMD machines.

[annguyen1981]

Yes there is free stuff, but once you've used the real thing, you can't go back.

[NiceGuysFinishLast]

If I'm not mistaken, some versions of Photoshop (or maybe it was Premiere?) don't install on AMD machines.

Took me a minute on google to see what you were talking about. Premiere will not run on CERTAIN AMD processors. It'll install, just gives you an error when you run. The only requirement is that your AMD run SSE. Which should be all AMDs from the Athlon on up. So it shouldn't be an issue either way. But thanks for pointing that out, that's me learning something new for today... so I guess I'm skipping class today..don't want to learn TOO many new things!