Which is the best photo editing software?

MS Paint is the best 

ther is "PHOTO!". I use it for cleaning noise from pics taken in low light conditions.It is free!!

(For the layman, when u take photos with mobile cam in low light, the pic obtained contains many little red and green dots. that is noise.)

I don't know about the easiest, but the best is photoshop.

Btw, how may of us actually pay for an original copy?

It's not correct to assume things.

not assuming, just asking.

Ah..ok my apologies!! I misunderstood.

It is a genuine question. There are people who buy it, but then there are those who don't. That's why open source FTW!! That's why Gimp is loved by a lot of people because its free and very useful tool with all the stuff you need for a lot of people. The problem when removing digital noise on the photo @somesh is that you tend to loose details. The more you do it, the more it does. Either get some lights, balance the ISO (well atleast I can manually set ISO on a 4k worth basic camera like canon a800 so yeah) and if the loss of detail during removing noise isn't bad enough, its all good.

I love photoshop for all that it is capable of doing... however, I am able use only a fraction of it's talent.

So far as cameras and photography are concerned... yes, it is the ability to capture the fleeting moment that creates a wonderful picture... the camera may not necessarily be a DSLR. This said, the camera does matter... for the ease with which you can prime yourself and shoot with a DSLR will never happen if you try with any point-and-shoot... I know how different it is to capture moments when I have my Sony DSC H2 or a Nikon 5000 in my hands. The results are vastly different. With the Sony, i miss more than I capture... always.

I cannot think beyond Lightroom. I do not photoshop images, just Post production, and for that Lightroom is perfect :)

Yep. Love lightroom.

For tech-challenged people like me, Picasa works best, since it intuits the most common fixes that I might want. For holiday pics and family occasions, I find Picasa fixes more than sufficient for putting snaps out in the public.

For the slightly more demanding and adventurous user in me, with slightly greater "RAW" intelligence, I prefer Irfanview with all plug-ins. My liking for irfanview is primarily for the range of control it gives over all aspect of image processing while being VERY FAST and LIGHT on the processor (even on a secondgen i5 with 4 MB RAM, Lightroom or GIMP can drag).

For the super intelligent and hard to satisfy "prosumer" in me, nothing but the full monty - CS5 - will do, not even GIMP unless you are ideologically so inclined.

Subhorup, what a wonderful way to explain? Unforgettable. I wish, I could ever have such teacher. Thanks 

Why are we forgetting CorelDraw, arguably Photoshop's best competitor?

yes, we forgot corel draw. I haven't tried yet. 

1)Winows Photo Manager

2)Picasa

3) Adobe CS3 

Oh Great, something new for me...Thanks Deepak.

For effects - Picassa. For basic cropping - Microsoft photo editor. For batch watermarking - Fastone Image viewer. Personally, I like to put up most of my photos un-edited, as and how they were seen by me.

 We too like your photos unedited .........

I don't think photos by you need any editing. They are naturally too good! I haven't forgotten that of Char Dham Yatra especially.  exceptionally beautiful. divine.

How sweet of both of you... I am no photographer and dont know much about photo editing, thats probably also the reason I dont touch my photos and just put them the way they are.. I am really fortuante to have myself surrounded by friends like you, thank you

I use Photoscape, Photoshop and Dreamlight Editor.

But personally I think PAINT is the bestand also Photoshop

There's CorelDraw too.

Dear Sweetie, how many editors do you use?  . You are so talented. (I am stil trying to remember balance sheet : )

Best photo editing software is Adobe Lightroom. Hands down. Every single photographer relative/friend uses it...so do I...absolutely wonderful!

lightroom is absolutely professional. I use CS5 now.

Antara, Lighroom is new for me, will try. Thanks. 

@Rohit true. but if you are working with RAW or you want really good photos, Lightroom is perfect

@Mohinee do :) It might take some getting used to...but it is wonderful

When you buy a camera you get software along with Sony, Nikon and other cameras original software for edits.  I found interstudio a good software for video editing

Thanks Umeshji. I haven't done video editing yet. So didn't know about it. Though I have some videos and they need editing too.

Gimp is good and free software  ....... and has most of the feature of Photoshop .  Easy to use tool kit .

Can you share the link from where I can download Gimp. And, what software you use for watermarking.. Dhiraj?

yeah and it's light too.

www.gimp.org   .   For Water marking i use Kigo image converter ........

Thanks Dhiraj, I have heard about Gimp too, I was doing search on this issue few days back. and I found good reviews for gimp, then I thought Indi experts' opinion, is more practical, so again started thread here. 

I felt photoshop confusing. :(

Thanks Dhiraj, I dont know much abt photo editing and all and like Mohini, find it very confusing too.. will surely download this software.. Will have a look at Kigo too... thanks for sharing..

@ gimp is relative very easy to use ........  One don't have to use all the features .

I personally feel that Google Picassa is best for those naive and PS requires knowledge and Google Picassa provides readymade options to edit the photos...and Photoscape is too good...

I agree, TSW, Picassa, is just great, but nowadays, I felt it insufficient, or thought to grow some knowledge. I found photoscape as good.