Best Photo Editing Software

Ever fancied putting the head of your ex on the body of Shrek? Or putting yourself in a picture of your favourite holiday destination instead of actually going there? Whatever your reason for wanting to tinker with your digital photos, you will need special editing software to do this. We look at the best photo editing software available and give you the low down.

Photo editing software has unlimited applications. Whether you use it to tweak and print family photos, create digital art for a company website or design marketing materials and presentations, photo editing software brings the photo lab to your desktop at a fraction of the price. One of the biggest advantages to photo editing software is the manipulation, the ability to colour correct, crop and fiddle with an image on your computer. The photo editing software you receive with your new digital camera is improving all the time, but still has a long way to go before it competes with the top dogs! If you want the most flexibility, you will need to supply your own photo editing software.

When evaluating photo editing software look for the following:

• Ease of use (how intuitive is the interface)
• Importing (Can you import images from your digital camera easily?)
• Sharing Photos Online – (Does it enable easy file uploading to photo sharing sites?)
• Organising – (Some packages will auto-archive and organise your photos into folders)
• Output Capabilities – (It should export the most common file formats and be able to balance size and quality for web or print output)
• Help/Support – (Does it have a thorough tutorial/help section)
• Editing (Does it include tools such as colour correction, cropping, contrast, saturation, resizing, removing unwanted items, colour changing etc … )

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Elements is the most popular and top rated photo editing software currently available. It is more expensive then other rivals, but it’s definitely worth the extra cash! It is jam packed with powerful editing tools and features. It comes with a photo organiser plus fun and flexible photo sharing projects. Photoshop is the perfect all in one solution for the majority or digital camera users, including amateur photographers, digital imaging enthusiasts and small business users.

Coral Paint Shop Pro Photo

Whether you are new to photo editing or and advanced user, Corel Paint Shop Pro is a feature rich tool that offers a great of flexibility and it comes with tools that rival much pricier photo editors. The latest edition has added new features which help new users get started much easier, and to expand the digital photography capabilities of the software.

Serif Photo Plus

If you have ever tried to take photographs of a sweeping landscape or a sunset, you will know that being able to join them together quickly and easily is a must! Photo Plus comes with Panorama Plus 3, which gives you an easy way to stitch multiple photos together. It’s extremely easy, but if you do get stuck, Panorama Plus has a set of examples to browse and learn from. One of the best things about Photo Plus is the help and tutorial section; it is packed with very well written tutorials, clearly detailing things like cropping, resizing, layers, exporting and saving etc…

Corel Ulead PhotoImpact

Corel PhotoImpact is jam packed with loads of one click presets, making it extremely easy to use even for the complete novice. Yet it still has enough advanced features that users won’t feel limited as they gain experience. The toolset is well rounded enough to meet the needs of users looking to create original graphics, enhance photos, design web pages or even special effects.

The above photo editing tools offer core image editing features with the emphasis on ease of use. They all include helpful wizards to walk new users through common tasks and include tutorials or handy on screen tips for getting started. Many also come pre-loaded with one-click presets or professionally designed templates to assist new users in achieving polished results immediately.

Photo Editing Tips

Here are some tips to help you prepare your photos before you send them to others or share them on the net!

• Always save the original image. When you begin to edit your photo, you should save the original copy to another file and work on a copy. This way you can experiment with the software without permanently altering the image.
• Remember to rotate the image. If you took a photo vertically, when you transfer it to your computer, rotate it before you do anything else, unless you like tilting your head to look at photos.
• Use the cropping tool. This tool allows you to trim a photo down to a smaller size, so you can cut out unwanted objects or backgrounds.
• Use the automatic level adjuster. Most photo editing software has multiple preset filters, such as brightness, red eye and balance etc. These are novice friendly and makes your photos look great!