Anybody good with photo editing?? Off topic

[Barb, Murphy, Emmet, & Hudson]

I would like to buy a program so I can edit my own pictures. Remove things from the pictures that should not be there. Any ideas what to get? Thanks

[Penny, Comiskey & Beemer]

I have been using PhotoShop Elements for years (started with 2.0)...it has a very short learning curve and there are a ton of addon's (brushes, actions, textures...etc.) on the internet for free....there are also a lot of turtorials that help you.... you can check my photos on my page....very few have not been retouched....good luck...p.s. the clone tool is my favorite...you can remove almost anything with that tool...

[Nancie & Gracie Doodle]

You definitely want to use some version of Photoshop. I started with Photoshop 5.5 and currently use 7.0. I took some Adult Education classes to learn how to use the program. It is a very professional program and after two semesters of "beginning" I only maybe know 50% of it if at all. But, I know enough to be able to do all the fun things. In a group shot I can remove a head in one picture and put it on the subject in another picture. As you know, there is always one dog or person who messes up the shot for everyone!!!! My kids and husband say that has become my trademark. Try getting a group shot for Christmas of 9 people and a dog!!!! I also remove backgrounds or things I don't like in the photos.

Photoshop Elements 6.0 or 7.0 will do all that you need as well. I bought it and took a class but my brain is stuck on Photoshop 7.0 (the older program). The visual screen is totally different and my brain was not willing to change. Plus I already knew how to do the same thing using the old program. From what I learned from my instructor is that after they made Photoshop 7.0 or 8.0, they then started naming it Photoshop CS (creative suite) and started with numbers like 2.0 and I think they are currently at 3.0 or possibly 4.0. That is the hard core professional program. Photoshop Elements is for home users like us. I was taking my class at the time Elements 7.0 was coming out and my instructor said to stick with the 6.0. Cheaper and there were possibly bugs or quarks in the new program that would have to be ironed out. Basically they do the exact same thing. So...bottom line...Photoshop is the way to go. I have been using it for over 6 years now!!

[Barb, Murphy, Emmet, & Hudson]

Thanks, everyone for the comments. Last night i ordered the Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate since i couldn't wait. My husband read a lot of things that said the Photoshop Elements 7.0 was not really user friendly to start with and he didn't want to read a book to learn how to make it work so we are going with Paint Shop Pro. I will let you know how this experiment turns out.