Best photo edidting software...

Yep, it's the easiest and does a great job.. Great for emailing and editing.

Explore it's functions and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

It's a good image library too - very much like iPhoto on the Mac.

cant go past it !
Very well set up program.

I found Picasa the best for straightening photos; an excellent method compared to other programmes i have tried. I tend to get sloping horizons, so love the easy method, but although they are straight when i look at them in Picasa, they are still crooked in any other programme. What am i doing wrong? I like the way it finds all the photos too, whereever they have become lost, but it sorts them in so-called years, and gets that all very wrong.

Easythumb great for thumbnails, as you can adjust the size.

I use microsoft paint for cutting bad bits out (eg finger over corner of picture) and pasting something similar to patch. I used something else to do this once (my old film camera must have a loose bit of plastic floating around, as i sometimes get a "squiggle" in the corner) - it may have been Microsoft PictureIT, but paint does as well.

A lot more suggestions to try in this thread. Thanks guys.

Motherhen,
Simple. Picasa doesn't actually do anything to the image itself. Any corrections you make are stored in another file which Picasa interprets in conjunction with the image file.
If you want to make the change permanent you need to "export" the image to another location.

As for sorting files in chronological order, I find it very good. As long as you digital images have the original camera metadata then it works fine. Doesn't work well with scanned imaged though because there creation is when you scanned them, not when they were taken.

Thanks for the advice MrBitchi - i will try it. Strangley enough, last night i noticed just some of the photos had a "straight" version as well, and it had added 1 after the photo name/number - so it has done it by itself somehow occasionally. When i first downloaded Picasa, i spend darn near all night straightening my photos - so simple compared with what i had used before where you needed to crop afterwards. Then my laptop died and lost all those hours straightening. I just love digital photos - i can fix up all my mistakes, like the horizon on the sea at an aweful angle, or remove spots left from marks on the lens. Motherhen

Picasa - I have worked out why some were saved nice and straight with a 1 after the photo number - if i straighten, then "save a copy" that does it.

You can't beat Photoshop at that price :-) but for simple image editing the learning curve is a bit steep.

From someone who designs software for a living and depends on its saleability - you two can go jump. Kazaa's thievery!

;)

Then again.... Adobe have always been too expensive in my view.

Chill Chrispy. I'm on your side here.

I'm in the pre-press game and know all about highway robbery when it comes to software prices though. Ever priced a Quark upgrade???