Nov 27, 2006, 05:15
I'm not familiar with MS Picture Viewer.
For anything that is going to be posted on the web I run my photos through Photoshop 7, or the free IrfanView I mentioned earlier when I'm in a hurry.
Paintshop Pro is an inexpensive alternative to Photoshop ($40-ish), and The Gimp is a free editing and organizing program that many people use. It's a freeware download, too.
Photoshop Elements 5 is probably the best value for beginners, and it can be had for $79 at most stores. It's optimized for photographers, and is easier to use than the full-featured and more expensive ($650 CS2) versions. It also has good organizing tools.
Editing for prints is a whole other story compared to web uploads, as you want to retain maximum size both in pixel dimensions and file size/quality, while making the best possible quality edits. PS Elements 5 is perfect for this, too.
I view and organize my image files with ACDSee, an old version (3.2) without the photo editing features of the new editions.
It's a great file-management system that works much like Windows Explorer but adds viewing controls and slideshow and thumbnail features.
IrfanView is also a good viewing and organizing application that will open nearly every file type there is, including the many video ones.
I store my photos, both originals and edits, on an external 100 gb Maxtor harddrive for easy retrieval and I burn them all to CDs every few weeks for safe backup and storage.
Photo management and editing are critically important parts of the digital photography workflow, and there are many different ways to do it.
The main thing to remember is to always backup your photos so they don't get destroyed when (not if) your computer crashes.
And you should get the best editing program you can afford, because you can't trust the person behind the counter at WalMart or wherever to 'see' what you intended the finished product to look like.
For anything that is going to be posted on the web I run my photos through Photoshop 7, or the free IrfanView I mentioned earlier when I'm in a hurry.
Paintshop Pro is an inexpensive alternative to Photoshop ($40-ish), and The Gimp is a free editing and organizing program that many people use. It's a freeware download, too.
Photoshop Elements 5 is probably the best value for beginners, and it can be had for $79 at most stores. It's optimized for photographers, and is easier to use than the full-featured and more expensive ($650 CS2) versions. It also has good organizing tools.
Editing for prints is a whole other story compared to web uploads, as you want to retain maximum size both in pixel dimensions and file size/quality, while making the best possible quality edits. PS Elements 5 is perfect for this, too.
I view and organize my image files with ACDSee, an old version (3.2) without the photo editing features of the new editions.
It's a great file-management system that works much like Windows Explorer but adds viewing controls and slideshow and thumbnail features.
IrfanView is also a good viewing and organizing application that will open nearly every file type there is, including the many video ones.
I store my photos, both originals and edits, on an external 100 gb Maxtor harddrive for easy retrieval and I burn them all to CDs every few weeks for safe backup and storage.
Photo management and editing are critically important parts of the digital photography workflow, and there are many different ways to do it.
The main thing to remember is to always backup your photos so they don't get destroyed when (not if) your computer crashes.
And you should get the best editing program you can afford, because you can't trust the person behind the counter at WalMart or wherever to 'see' what you intended the finished product to look like.