Picture editing program for Rebel T3i

[jazzman1]

I have a Rebel T3i and am looking for a software program to edit my pictures with.  I've heard of some highly reccomended ones but my funds are short right now.  I want to ask if "GIMP 2", a free open source program.....will do a fair job  editing pictures, and does anyone reccomend it?  Wil it do a decent job comparing it to Adobe Elements and other popular editing software many here use?

[Peter]

I always use GIMP, but I fix almost everything in Darktable before I import the pictures to GIMP. I use 2.9.1.

The worst thing about GIMP is the lack of good tutorials.

[jazzman1]

thanks.  what's darktable?  I have'nt heard of it.

[cicopo · Accepted solution]

Depending on the type of editing you want to do Picasa is very handy (& free) but if you shoot RAW I recommend using one of the Adobe products that includes Camera Raw.

[jazzman1]

I'll try picasa, i'm not using raw at the moment. I need to tweak my skills with jpeg 1st before i step up to raw.  I'm a newbie with DSLR's and not quite ready for raw just yet.  Thanks much cicopo.

[RobertTheFat]

---

@jazzman1 wrote:

I'll try picasa, i'm not using raw at the moment. I need to tweak my skills with jpeg 1st before i step up to raw.  I'm a newbie with DSLR's and not quite ready for raw just yet.  Thanks much cicopo.

---

You probably don't want to hear this, but my advice is to switch to RAW now and adopt Digital Photo Professional (the Canon freebie) as your editor. The newbie mistake is the belief that RAW is a step up in difficulty from JPEG. The truth is that with an editor designed for it, it's considerably easier to edit a RAW image than a JPEG. The different parameters that you can tweak are less dependent on each other than in a JPEG, so making a given change tends to have fewer unintended side effects.

The one feature that I frequently need that DPP doesn't do is redeye correction. FWIW, I use Irfanview (on the converted JPEG) for that.

[jazzman1]

You're right Bob, I did'nt want to hear this, but.....I'll give it a try.  I do have DPP already installed.  You know more than I do so i will take your suggestion.  Just did'nt want to move so fast, don't want to put the cart before the horse if you know what I mean.  Thanks again Bob, wondered where you went off to.