I've taken pictures for years but never used editing software. I've looked at Gimp. Is this a reasonable place to start?



Thanks for your input.



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I've never been a fan of Gimp but others swear by it. For basic editing, Photoshop Express is good. I also posted a thread on a discount for Creative Cloud which gives you PS and Lightroom. I actually spend very little time in PS these days.

For RAW processing, Lightroom (and the free LightZone) are hard to beat.

General image editing, photoshop is the standard and gimp is a respectable alternative.

I use Lightroom.  

Considering doing the deal through Amazon for PS at $10 a month.  I feel like I have so much to learn with Lightroom that the thought of trying to figure out PS is overwhelming.

I use lightroom.  I bought a copy of LR6 so I do not have a monthly subscription.  LR6 is a great place to start with built in HDR and Panoramic editing.

Lightroom 5 user here.

It took me a while to warm up to Lightroom, but now that I have, the Lightroom + Photoshop bundle for $10/month is hard to beat.
Along with those two, I have
Corel's Paintshop Pro (long time user, long before Corel bought it)
Nikon's Capture NX2
The Nik plug-ins for LR and PS, now by Google.

Thanks for the input. I may be accused of being cheap (not the 1st time) put I won't be using it enough for $10/month. Perhaps in the future but not right now.




 

A few years ago, I wanted to learn about photo editing, so I took a several-week night-school course in Photoshop at a local high school.  We all downloaded the trial version of Photoshop CS 5 for the purposes of the class.  I liked it a lot, but my trial expired and I was really reluctant to buy a full version because of the cost.  When it became available,  I got the 'free' version of Photoshop CS2.  I really, really like it.  Like it's already been said: Photoshop is the standard by which everything else is judged.  To be honest, though, I don't use it often enough to remember how it works.  Lots of things to remember when it comes to masking off areas, adjusting levels, etc.  Every time I crank it up, I have to Google up some brief tutorials to refresh my memory on how to do stuff.

Of course, I have a crappy memory, too.  

If you're going to use it often enough, and if you have a decent memory for processes, seek out a class so you can learn the basics on how it works.  Then make an effort to use it often enough that you stay fresh on things.  Otherwise, go with something more user-friendly.  I don't know what that "something" is, I'll have to rely on those more experienced than myself to offer suggestions.

Back in the day I used to do some teaching with the local PS user's group. I think stuff like that has been replaced with Meetup. It's a good way to meet folks that are probably curious about similar tasks.