Photo editor for Win7 SP1.

[Rob]

(Wolf, Peter didn't mean "GIMP is for someone with low computer skills",
but his _requirement_ was/is.)

I'd use Irfan for even those now!
[]

XnView is looking good, and though there is a
facility to crop at fixed ratios this ratio cannot
be locked in for a session.

Do give Irfan a look: shift-G to get at the colours menu, (draw a box
and) Ctrl-T for the text one. (Ctrl-Z to undo and try again, as is
common for many Windows softwares.) It's small and (thus?) fast.

I'll second the recommendation for Irfanview. The batch facility is
fantastic, too. I've used a single batch operation to resize (with
crop), adjust gamma and convert format, to several hundred images
in one go.
Wouldn't be without it.

 

[KCB]

Tried this, but it doesn't seem to gave a crop
function, and definitely no fixed-ratio crop.

It does do cropping, plus a whole lot more...
https://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93403

 

[XS11E]

All I need is a Microsoft product that will allow
basic color correction of photos AND the facility
to put permanent text ON the image.

Like others, I recommend Irfanview but if you must have a Microsoft
product I don't know if there is one that'll do what you want?

 

[Char Jackson]

Like others, I recommend Irfanview but if you must have a Microsoft
product I don't know if there is one that'll do what you want?

Microsoft Digital Image Suite works just fine under Win 7, if a
Microsoft product is desired.

 

[XS11E]

Microsoft Digital Image Suite works just fine under Win 7, if a
Microsoft product is desired.

"Microsoft has discontinued its line of Digital Image Suite products.
Many of the digital imaging features and tools that have been enjoyed
for years now can be found in new Microsoft titles and services
including Windows Vista."

It's not free, I'd stick with a free product but that's just me, a
known cheapskate! <G>

 

[Char Jackson]

"Microsoft has discontinued its line of Digital Image Suite products.
Many of the digital imaging features and tools that have been enjoyed
for years now can be found in new Microsoft titles and services
including Windows Vista."

It's not free, I'd stick with a free product but that's just me, a
known cheapskate! <G>

I know what you mean, but I need a business expense now and then. It
helps my tax status. ;-)

 

[Peter Jason]

Meant manipulation. It does work with 7 and it's dead easy to learn. J

Photofiltre Studio X
Yes, this one is the closest to Photoshop in its
menus etc.


I can put the text anywhere now (one draws a
rectangle first), and the cropping can be done at
some fixed ratio (i use the 2:3 as standard for
cropping, to produce 6x4 color prints). The
color adjustments have the usual slider bars and
the sharpening has PS-type selections.

 

[XS11E]

I know what you mean, but I need a business expense now and then.
It helps my tax status. ;-)

You can adopt me, that'll do wonders for your personal tax status! <G>

 

[Char Jackson]

You can adopt me, that'll do wonders for your personal tax status! <G>

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for the offer.

 

[Stan Brown]

All I need is a Microsoft product that will allow
basic color correction of photos AND the facility
to put permanent text ON the image.

The "Windows Live Photo Gallery" cannot put text
on to a photo!

Does it have to be a Microsoft product?

I strongly recommend the free Irfanview, which can do the above and
quite a lot more, but is not so feature-bloated that it's hard to
use. Shift-U does color and contrast; Ctrl-T lets you write text
into the box you outlined with your mouse.

 

[Stan Brown]

I recommend XnView and IrfanView, both free. I use XnView for
almost
everything, and Irfanview for the rest. Both are very simple to use
compared to GIMP.

If I have Irfanview, why would I need XnView too? I looked at
XnView's feature list and everything there seems to be in Irfanview.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Stan Brown

I strongly recommend the free Irfanview, which can do the above and
quite a lot more, but is not so feature-bloated that it's hard to
use. Shift-U does color and contrast; Ctrl-T lets you write text
into the box you outlined with your mouse.

Shift-U does something automatic; Shift-G allows manual.

 

[Peter Jason]

Irfan can do that. Its what I use for
work related photo editing.

Thanks. The thing is for my sister to adjust the
countless photos she takes on her phone.

The "Photofiltre Studio X" seems best from all
those I tried because it's fast (GIMP has very
slow cropping), because it has easy-access 2:3
cropping (for 6 x 4 prints), and because it's a
knock-off photoshop regarding menus layout so that
any upgrade to PS will be easier.

Peter

 

[Wolf K]

If I have Irfanview, why would I need XnView too? I looked at
XnView's feature list and everything there seems to be in Irfanview.

Their auto-adjust features uses different algorithms, so the results are
different. Usually, I prefer XnView's version. But I prefer Irfanview's
slide-show feature.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Their auto-adjust features uses different algorithms, so the results are
different. Usually, I prefer XnView's version. But I prefer Irfanview's
slide-show feature.

Why, that's almost an argument for using non-Microsoft products...

Oh dear - I'm close to heresy

 

[Paul]

Thanks. The thing is for my sister to adjust the
countless photos she takes on her phone.

The "Photofiltre Studio X" seems best from all
those I tried because it's fast (GIMP has very
slow cropping), because it has easy-access 2:3
cropping (for 6 x 4 prints), and because it's a
knock-off photoshop regarding menus layout so that
any upgrade to PS will be easier.

Peter

GIMP is suitably fast, if you have enough RAM for the
thing. Early versions used a tiling method, that
was slow as molasses. But my machine with 4GB of RAM,
doesn't have a problem with modern versions of GIMP.
Even running GIMP in a VM is fast.

Now, if I was running GIMP on a Pentium III 1GHz,
I might not be saying that...

I've also noticed, that in terms of graphics format
changes (read in JPG, convert to GIF), GIMP seems to be
a little slow doing that. But I don't have anything
to benchmark against, for good comparison purposes.
For the size of images I've processed, it just
seemed slow for the amount of work it should be
doing.

Paul

 

[Good Guy]

Have you tried Google's Picasa? It might just do what you want to do:

<http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=93773>
<http://support.google.com/picasa/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156342>

Good luck.

Another alternative is to create a free account on Adobe's photoshop.com
and edit your pictures online.

<http://www.photoshop.com/home>

You have to use tried and tested software which has good online support
if you get into any trouble.

Good luck.


--
Good Guy
Website: http://mytaxsite.co.uk
Website: http://html-css.co.uk
Forums: http://mytaxsite.boardhost.com
Email: http://mytaxsite.co.uk/contact-us

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

Thanks. The thing is for my sister to adjust the
countless photos she takes on her phone.

The "Photofiltre Studio X" seems best from all
those I tried because it's fast (GIMP has very
slow cropping), because it has easy-access 2:3
cropping (for 6 x 4 prints), and because it's a
knock-off photoshop regarding menus layout so that
any upgrade to PS will be easier.

Peter

I use GIMP for major editing, but that is not often
and usually only for photo contests.

 

[Peter Jason]

GIMP is suitably fast, if you have enough RAM for the
thing. Early versions used a tiling method, that
was slow as molasses. But my machine with 4GB of RAM,
doesn't have a problem with modern versions of GIMP.
Even running GIMP in a VM is fast.

Now, if I was running GIMP on a Pentium III 1GHz,
I might not be saying that...

I've also noticed, that in terms of graphics format
changes (read in JPG, convert to GIF), GIMP seems to be
a little slow doing that. But I don't have anything
to benchmark against, for good comparison purposes.
For the size of images I've processed, it just
seemed slow for the amount of work it should be
doing.

Paul

I'm loading up the "Photofiltre Studio X" on her
machine this weekend so I'll do more testing
there. I might have to use one of the others if
the above fails.

 

[Stan Brown]

Their auto-adjust features uses different algorithms, so the results are
different. Usually, I prefer XnView's version. But I prefer Irfanview's
slide-show feature.

Thanks. I have seen a few cases where Irfanview didn't do a very
good job adjusting a picture. I assumed that it was the picture's
fault, but next time I'll try XnView to see if it does a better job
on that picture.