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The Best Photo Editing Software
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What features should I look for?
Virtually every photo editing software will have the features you need to do basic editing. You have to decide for yourself what features you feel are necessary for your purpose. Don’t buy it just because it’s expensive and so you think it must be the best. There are free programs that might be just what you need.
You want software that is fairly easy to use with enough features to do what you want it to. The program should also have plenty of support and the price should be within your budget. If you choose professional photo editing software, you will very likely need some training.
We will be evaluating several programs to see if we can help you choose the best photo editing software for you. Some of the things we will be looking for are:
- How Easy it is to Use ;
- Importing and Exporting
- Editing
- Sharing
- Output
- Organizing
- Support
Below is the list of programs that we consider some of the best photo editing software available.
Ratings
- **** Excellent
- *** Very Good
- ** Good
- * Fair
- Poor
10. Photo Studio 6 by Arcsoft
Free Trial - 15 Days
Price - $74.99
This software is very easy to use, although somewhat outdated.
There is no importing. The only way to bring your photos into the program is with a scanner or by taking a screen capture.
The editing in this program is pretty ordinary. There are no new features. To repair a scratch, there is a scratch removal tool, which blurs the area with the scratch rather than clone the area to match the surrounding area as in other programs.
You cannot export or share with Photo Studio. You can save in normal file formats.
The customer support is hard to come by.
All in all these are the ratings we would give to Photo Studio6:
- Ease of Use ****
- Importing **
- Editing **
- Sharing *
- Output *
- Support *
The price of this software is pretty high for what you get.
9. Photo Impression by Arcsoft
Free Trial - 15 Days
Price $39.99
Photo Impression is very easy to use. It has an excellent organizer, has the tools to fix most of the common problems in photos, and is in the medium price range.
8. Ulead Photo Impact by CorelFree Trial - 30 Days
Price - $29.99
Photo Impact has some dynamic editing tools. It
helps even beginners to get top-notch results, but
also has enough features for more advanced users.
7. Photo Explosion by Nova Development
Free Trial - ?
Price $39.99
Photo Explosion is a basic photo editing software with easy-to-use retouching tools. QuickFix Studio gets rid
of photo flaws with one click; turn ordinary photographs
into works of art.
6. ACDSee Photo Editor
Free Trial - 30 Days
Price - $34.99
Ease of use is average. It’s the best software for making well-designed photo projects. It has a How-to section that will help you learn the basic features quite easily. It’s perfect if you like to do craft projects.
5. Serif Photo Plus X4
Free Trial - Apparently Not
Price - $52.98
This is a highly recommended program according to
the reviews, a good value for the money. It gives
you more creative control and functionality than
less expensive programs. It also has great support.
4. Xara Photo and Graphic Designer
Free Trial - Yes
Price - $72.18
This program is different than most of the other photo
editing programs. It’s easy to find the tools you want
to use, however, there is no cloning tool. It does have
some unique features though that make up for the lack of more common features.
3. Corel Paint Shop Photo Pro X3
Free Trial - 30 Days
Price - $37.85
This is a midlevel version of Paint Shop. It’s an afford-
able, full featured photo editor. One of the features is
that it is compatible with most of the Photoshop plug-ins
and filters. You can also use filters from Nik Software
or Imagenomic.
2. Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
Free Trial - 30 Days
Price - $99.99
Elements 9 is packed with some really great features. It has a full editing toolbox of which the recompose tool is probably the most impressive. This program is great for beginners and also for the more advanced user. It’s one of the better consumer-level photo editing programs you can choose
1. Adobe Photoshop CS5
Free Trial - 30 Days
Price - 699.99
This is the King of photo editing programs. I’ll give a short review of this program, but because it’s so much more expensive than any of the other software reviewed, it’s not in the budget for most. This one is more for professionals. I just wanted to show you that in comparison, some of the others are really inexpensive.
With the Best Photo Editing Software,
anyone can turn good photos into great pictures.
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