Advice on photo editing software

TC77

Hi, going through my dads stuff and know we will find photos we want to edit/ touch up and useful to
A) know best easy to use editing software and if free
are the cds of Adobe photoshop  5
Adobe photodeluxe 4
Adobe photoshop 5
Paintshops pro7
And no doubt will find others 
Advise what to do with these along with 
Serif artillery
Serif pageplus5
Many thanks 

Cornucopia

Photoshop is a very comprehensive tool, but consequently has a substantial learning curve unless you've used similar products before.   

If you want something more than MS Paint/3D, but free and relatively easy to get the hang of, I'd suggest Paint.Net (free, optional donation).

TC77

Hi, thanks so much. Would the CDs I have be of use to anyone or are they probably out of date and everyone uses online tools/ software? Thanks again.

Cornucopia

I checked Adobe Photodeluxe and that stopped support in 2002, so I'd guess the others maybe of a similar vintage.   I can't see them being useful to anyone except on a historical interest basis.

TC77

Thanks so much!

Neil_Jones

TC77 said:

Hi, going through my dads stuff and know we will find photos we want to edit/ touch up and useful to
A) know best easy to use editing software and if free
are the cds of Adobe photoshop  5
Adobe photodeluxe 4
Adobe photoshop 5
Paintshops pro7
And no doubt will find others 
Advise what to do with these along with 
Serif artillery
Serif pageplus5
Many thanks 

Paint.net, Gimp,Krita to name but three

.

CDs  - well Paintshop Pro 7 was released in 2000.  The Serif stuff - well Artillery appears to be a font, and PagePlus 5 was released in 1997 and fixed and re-released again in 2002 (it says here).

You might do as well to hang the CDs in the garden as bird scarers, since they're wise to scarecrows apparently:

https://www.hunker.com/12585911/does-putting-cds-in-a-tree-scare-off-birds

mart44

I think any of the free ones mentioned would do the job pretty well. Gimp is a comprehensive free photo editor that many people speak well of. Also look into PhotoScape.

Although free editing programs are good and probably OK for your requirements, they aren't the best in my experience. Even with the paid-for programs, no single one seems best at everything.

The programs I use are not free and not necessarily the best. It's a wide field where everyone has their own opinions and preferences.

For photos that need brightening/cleaning up in general, Corel PaintShop Pro is good. Topaz DeNoise AI is very good for taking the grain out of old photos. Then take it into PaintShop Pro for further work. Corel Photo-Paint is good for patching in scratches or replacing missing bits in photos (I use X7 Home & Student version). This program does have quite a learning curve though.

There are online services that do a fair job of adding colour to B/W photos (upload the photo for processing, download the result) but if one is required for installing on the computer, Pixbm ColorSurprise AI works well.

TC77

Thank you, really useful for when I get to the old photographs. We have some actual photographs and some on external drives but can't find the password for his pc so that may be another post if I dont come across it.

Keep_pedalling

Gimp is good, but probably not the best option for beginners. Although it is primarily an image viewer (which  is worth having as well as a photo editor) for basic functions like cropping and adjusting colours and lighting you can’t go wrong with Faststone Image Viewer.  It is free for personal use and regularly updated. I use it alongside Photoshop (the subscription version).

https://www.faststone.org/

Farway

The CDs of Photoshop & Paintshop 7 will do the job just fine, but as others have said there is a learning curve

If you find the password to his PC you may well find he has already used some of the programs for photo work and have been saved in the proprietary format, PSP [Photoshop] for instance, which may save you time, or give more work

SurferDan

IrfanView:- https://www.irfanview.com/

Very powerful photo editing software plus its free and regularly updated