What is best Programme to help me restore old photo's

[petesdragon]

Hi there I have a number of old pictures of relatives. What is best Programme to help me restore or improve please... I am not a computer whizz so simple is middle name!
Also is there a member support to assist in a trial to improve see attachment... Thanks

[Mike in Cumbria]

Hi there I have a number of old pictures of relatives. What is best Programme to help me restore or improve please... I am not a computer whizz so simple is middle name!
Also is there a member support to assist in a trial to improve see attachment... Thanks

Opinions will differ, but Adobe Photoshop Elements is very good. A similar free downloadable programme is Gimp, but it takes a lot of getting used to - I don't find it easy at all. Alternatively, you could post them on the Photo Restoration board here, and I guarantee you'll get lots of good restores to choose from.

Mike

[Treetotal]

Good advice from Mike...I don't use Gimp so can't comment but I do agree that Adobe Photoshop Elements photo editing software is a good option, I use Elements V. 14 but you can buy earlier versions quite cheaply online. Download the Gimp version first to see how you get on. There are Youtube tutorials online to help.

https://www.gimp.org/

Good luck!

Carol

[McGroger]

Hi, Peter.

I have to agree with Mike and Carol. Photoshop Elements is a very good combination of comprehensiveness, cost and usability. GIMP is free and it's capability is probably somewhere between Elements and the full-blown Photoshop (very expensive) but GIMP is not as easy to learn and use.

I've sampled a couple of the others but - for me anyway - either they don't do what Elements can do or they're harder to learn. Even Elements has a learning curve, but it's one of the easier ones. For the cost of a tank or so of fuel it can give years of fun.

Cheers,
Peter   

[arthurk]

Some years ago I bought Photoshop Elements 12 and ran it on my old computer, but I was rather unhappy at the way it seemed to be sucking you into the Adobe universe. I can't remember all the details now, but it might have been things like continually nagging you to set up an account with them and use their cloud services, neither of which is of interest to me. There might have been one or two unnecessary extra programs too, but I can't check that now.

Consequently I haven't installed it on my current PC, but do you know if there's a way to avoid all that kind of thing - basically to install it, use it when required, end of?

[Ian Nelson]

getpaint.net and paint.net  and GIMP are FREE and have no ads or prompts to buy anything ... you may donate if you wish, but no pressure. Much of the EXTRAS such as Plug-ins to extend the capabilities are developed by enthusiasts loosely connected to the Forums much like Rootschatters.
Some of the more prolific producers of plug-ins like Boltbait solicit donations but only if you have downloaded and tried their plugins and are using them.
paint.net is simpler than GIMP, and it's just like an improved version of Microsoft Paint which they shipped with every version of Windows.  However, there is a steeper learning curve with GIMP but the Help is all there, for free.  I'm practising more with GIMP and am finding the extra power of their Clone Stamp tool is excellent for restoring old and damaged photos. I export the repaired photo as a .png file and use paint.net to colourise them using a Single Layer.  GIMP may well have a shortcut I haven't yet discovered.
They are free to download and install without unwanted options, and easy to Uninstall.
Cheers, Ian

[Treetotal]

Some years ago I bought Photoshop Elements 12 and ran it on my old computer, but I was rather unhappy at the way it seemed to be sucking you into the Adobe universe. I can't remember all the details now, but it might have been things like continually nagging you to set up an account with them and use their cloud services, neither of which is of interest to me. There might have been one or two unnecessary extra programs too, but I can't check that now.

Consequently I haven't installed it on my current PC, but do you know if there's a way to avoid all that kind of thing - basically to install it, use it when required, end of?

I think when you install it Arthur that there is a question about whether you want to receive info on related products...or something like that, and you have to decline. I have used a few Elements versions over the years but never had any advertising.
You can always uninstall if you still get annoying Ads.
Carol

[arthurk]

Thanks - I don't think I would have explicitly agreed to advertising-type things, but I now wonder if as a newcomer I might have gone for a default 'typical installation' setting which included them, whereas I would probably have preferred an 'expert' option which lets you pick and choose - if it was offered.

The things I found particularly unnecessary were anything to do with Adobe cloud services, and the Organizer - do you know if there's any way to avoid these?

[guest189040]

Without a doubt the best Photo Editing software is Adobe Photoshop.

It is Photoshop that is used throughout the Pro Industry as the de facto go to default software.

The caveat is that it costs, Adobe do a monthly subscription of Photoshop and Lightroom for about £10.

As posted Gimp is also good and best of all it is free.

There are also some pretty good apps for an iPad if you have one, cone back if you want more infirmation on those to check out.

Whatever you decide upon expect a steep learning curve the angle of the curve is directly related to the complexity of the chosen software.