Novice digital photo editor.

[youngster]

Hello everybody. I am fairly new to digital photography and editing. I am looking for advice on a program that is fairly reasonably priced, user friendly and has some advanced features. Basically I am looking at editing my own work as well as some minor graphic work (ie. sports trading cards)

Thanks in advance

John

[Mr. Pickles]

I'd say Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro. Both under $100 I believe. Elements is good is case you want to move up to PhotoShop someday, but a LOT of people stay with Elements anyway.

Elements is typically bundled with certain cameras and printers, so if you don't have it that way, perhaps someone you know got the CD and you can have it (might be unethical, so check on that).

Both will do editing and layers, and you'd need that for your card work.

[dc2]

Welcome .
Agree . Elements is probably your best choice.

[etaf]

yep - agree elements is best as you can also follow a lot of photoshop tutorials.

THE GIMP is a free editor and has an interface set out like photoshop here

http://plasticbugs.com/index.php?p=241

[Paul Shields]

I'd also recommend Photoshop Elements. It's probably not the easiest to use compared to some, but will put you in good stead if you wish to expand into the heavyweight Photoshop world. As etaf said you could try the Gimp - completely free and extremely powerful, though again the learning curve is quite high. It's also not the fastest out there I feel.

[youngster]

Thanks to everyone so far for your input. I notice a few names from the wedding forums and enjoy your posts very much. I am a newly converted film photographer and am actually quite excited about learning new techniques and look forward to sharing some of my work with you in the future.

Regards,

John