Photo Editing Software & Picassa Help

jenny_f

I'm wanting to download some good photo editing software - to crop photos and alter the brightness, change them to B&W - quite simple stuff until I get more into my photography.

I know Picassa is meant to be good.

I want a software where if I have photo1 and edit it, it doesn't then replace photo1 but will keep the original photo1 but also then save a copy of the edited version if this makes sense.

any advice appreciated

TIA

Willowx

I use paint.net I have certainly used this to do what you have said although for the saving thing you should be able to do this with any software as long as once you open the photo you select save as and then edit it and then any changes will then only be saved to the copy and not the original. If you decide you do not like the copy that you have edited you can always delete it.

frogbottler

Willowx is correct Picassa will save copies

Click File at top left of screen
Click Save a Copy
or you can rename the photo: click File and Save As

Paint.net and/or Gimp (both are free) have more features but Picassa can do everything on your list and more.

hth

jenny_f

do paint.net and gimp store ur photos like picassa does

or are they just for editing?

nowtsquared

You may find IrfanView a nice and easy to use piece of software, does lots of stuff including editing the image tags - so you can find out where you took the photo and who the folks in it are when you come to look at it many years later.
Picasa is great esp if you use it with the Web Albums and use Album mapping to show where the Album snaps where taken and want to share them with family and friends without cluttering up people's Inboxes.
You can of course use both (and more) depending on what it is you need to do with a particular picture.

HTH

Willowx

jenny_f wrote: »

do paint.net and gimp store ur photos like picassa does

or are they just for editing?

I have never used picassa so I do not know what it can or cannot do. However, paint.net and GIMP do not have an inbuilt album if that is what you are referring to? You use file open to find the photos from your documents etc as you would with word or a similar program to find the document that you need.

A word of warning with GIMP is that while it is a powerful program that has a lot of features the interface tends to be quite advanced and less user friendly than other programs.

jenny_f

which is more user friendly - GIMP or paint.net

i've decided picassa is good for web albums to show family but it's already making me annoyed at its limitations!

isofa

^ Paint.Net by a million miles, far more user friendly than the GIMP, well discussed on this forum, do a search.

Or use the Photoshop online for free.

Picasa is an album system which can organise your photos on your PC and with online albums, plus it has a fair few editing and enhancement features nowadays too.