What is the main difference between these photo editing programs?

Question

PhotoFiltre
http://www.download.com/PhotoFiltre/3000-2192_4-10515464.html?tag=lst-0-1

Adobe Photo Shop
http://www.download.com/Adobe-Photoshop-Elements/3640-2192_4-10511144.html?sb=3&v=0

IrfanView
http://www.download.com/IrfanView/3000-2192_4-10491149.html?tag=lst-0-1

Paint.Net
http://www.download.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10527710.html?tag=lst-0-1

GIMP
http://www.download.com/The-GIMP/3000-2192_4-10526419.html?tag=lst-0-1

FastStone
http://www.download.com/FastStone-Photo-Resizer/3000-2192_4-10349167.html?tag=lst-0-2

Besides that Adoboe PhotoShop cost 100 bucks

I meant Adobe Photo Shop Elements sorry also I tried to download GIMP and I got:
http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/781/gimpku7.jpg

Answer 1

They all focus into a same goal: Editing pictures. To be honest, from all the list, there are only two of them that are famous. Photoshop and GIMP.

First off, Photoshop does not cost 99. The product you presented is Adobe Elements, which is another product. Photoshop is a Professional photo editing software. Any professional photographer must have it because it is very very complete. Because of that , it is very very expensive. Is about 649 dolars if you download it.

The Gimp in the other hand is the open source version of Photoshop. It is still not as complete as Photoshop, but is very good. Best of all, it is free of cost.

There are many open source options to all the products out there. Many of them are just as good or better than the commercial software.

Hope it was useful

Answer 2

...photoshop only costs 100 bucks? I find that hard to believe.

Oh wait. You didn't link to photoshop. That's photoshop elements. It's different than photoshop, and has less features, that's why it's cheaper.

I don't know anything about those other programs, but I am familiar with Photoshop (not elements, but the full photoshop), and as far as I'm concerned that's the design/photo-editing industry's top-used product. The REAL Photoshop CS2 (not elements) is US $649.00. It's a lot of money precisely because it is a highly professional program and is very capable. Sorry I can't comment on the others.. I haven't even heard of them. Let's just say if you want professionality, go for FULL photoshop CS2... and not elements.

Answer 3

I bought into the mac hype a few years back. I got myself a mac to do music publishing. at the time "only mac's could do such a thing" which turned out to be complete bull ****. my mac crashed as much as any pc ever did, and in fact most crashes were more severe. as far as photo editing and publishing, adobe, corel, photoshop and all the other editing packages are written to the pc, not just mac. fact is except for some user interface things you'll not now the difference if your on a pc or mac. used to be that the mac's had the advantage of using the motorola chipset which was better for certain things, but since the deployment of the latest intel chip sets the advantages have been diminished to being insignificant. the thing about mac's is that they are basically a unix box, which is a good thing. but for the premium you pay this advantage may not be worth the price, especially when you learn that not as many applications are written for mac's as pc's. from my own experienced it seemed that i was always doing some sort of crappy work around just to get my mac to do what the pc did naturally. the world is written for pc's. don't buy into the mac hype unless you are tryiing to be aloof, hip, trendy and "better" than anybody else. that is after all, mac's biggest claim to fame. appealing to elitist.

Answer 4

Hey, don't forget Paint Shop Pro!

The full commercial version of Photoshop costs like $500 and is used by professionals designers, photographers etc. Photoshop Elements is around $100.

Most of them perform the same functions, I suggest you try GIMP for free.