...what are your recommendations for image manipulation software? Photoshop and similar products would be way beyond what I want to do. I'll mostly be doing simple things such as cropping, blanking out certain parts of the photograph, and reducing the pixel count for e-mail or posting on websites. I may occasionally want to make adjustments to color balance and contrast. Also, it must be free and easy to use for an Ol' Fart who grew up in an analog world.

I've looked at Picasa and it seems to do what I want. Any caveats with it? I'm not a big fan of Google. I trust them about as far as I could toss Cris Christie.

Thanks in advance for your help.

73,
Frank

My day job is in the photo industry so I see the results.  I recommend Adobe Lightroom.  Avoid Picasa.  Its an ok program but it has its limits.  When I see someone claiming to be a pro and in the same sentence say they use Picasa I want to slap them.  I process most of my photos through Lightroom.  If I need detailed edits, then I drop into Photoshop.

Best bang for the buck is Adobe Lightroom.  I've never personally used it (I use Photoshop), but everyone, including many, many professionals, seem to love it.  I think it's about $135 right now, but I've seen it on sale for around $100.  

I use gimp. At first it took a little learning and getting use to what things are called, but it really has made my life easier.

Here are a couple of my gimp pictures. I am by no means an expert, but happy with them.

+1 to Lightroom.
I use Photoshop because it's what I've always used and I need it for my job, but Lightroom should serve you well.

Picasa is great for organizing and searching your pictures, but it's not very good at manipulation.

Lightroom and shoot RAW.

This.

Lightroom is really for photo processing and asset management whereas Photoshop is really about image manipulation.

Can't beat it for $9.99/mo:
https://creative.adobe.com/plans/photography

Gimp for editing anymore, my CS2 license (from like 2006) doesn't install in wine, and I run linux now.

But, since the invention of the smartphone, I rarely use my SLR anymore, and when I do, it takes such great photos that I don't need to retouch. That's probably a side-effect of having to work so hard to get good photos with a cell phone camera.

You forgot the

Not all of us can shoot raw.......

Then your camera is broken

Or someone keeps forgetting it.

For blanking out you'll need something like Photoshop.

You could actually do that in MS Paint.

Perhaps the MS photo programs, plus Paint, will tide you over.

one of the best things my Dad ever did was buy me an SLR

He got me a PENTAX K-1000 (35mm)when I joined the Army

"you're gonna see the world, take some pics"

He gave me a book on running an SLR too.

All these years later, I still run PENTAX

I have a K-110D and a K-r

nothing special,  but I really like them.


years ago,  I had photoshop, and later used (linux) GIMP
but I'm kinda outa the loop

Are you saying you just forget to set the camera to shoot in RAW?  Just set it and forget it.  

There's no reason someone shouldn't shoot in RAW unless they are NEVER EVER going to do any post processing.  In that case, just buy a point and shoot.

I've been doing some digging around and so far GIMP looks pretty good. I've been impressed by Gnu products anyway.

I'm looking for free software that I can load and it just sits there waiting for me to use it. I want to call it up, browse my folders for the file I want, then use the appropriate parts of the software to modify it, and finally send the altered file back to a folder of my choosing for storage. From that folder I will select the file to upload to whatever blog, e-mail, or social media I select. I want it to leave the original file unaltered.

From what I've read about Picasa, as soon as it is loaded, it storms into the computer like a bunch of JBTs in full SWAT regalia kicking down doors, shooting the dog, and plundering through the computer looking for images, then jams them into files of its own choosing. Any files I choose to modify will be put into a file Picasa selects and to send it anywhere except to Google sites is very difficult, if not impossible. It's also constantly trying to switch the default web browser to Chrome and otherwise alter my OS.

I have (actually, its my wife's) an old Kodak Easyshare camera and its software sucks.

I've been dabbling in digital photography ever since the photofinishers started offering CDs with film processing and this is the first time I've ever had a need for image manipulation software, so you see how seldom my useage will be. Thus the desire for something free.

Will GIMP do what I'm looking for?

I still have my K-1000. It was my first SLR. Though now I have a Canon dSLR.

I have a Pentax H1v that I bought in '66. It still works great.

It didn't even have a exposure meter. There's a clip-on model that sits atop the viewfinder and is linked the the shutter speed selector..

My dad could run a camera without the lightmeter

he could look at something and just dope out the shutter speed and aperture

he usually was right on the money

He was old school


I just noticed GIMP for WINDOWS....I've only used it in Ubuntu Linux....how does it run in Windows 7 ?

Lightroom FTW.