HI,

I want to get Photoshop to edit my photo's with, as I've always used Photoimpact, but everyone raves about photoshop....

Which is the latest edition?

and which is the best (not always the same thing :D )

CS2 is te latest (version 9 by numbers i think) and by far the best app on the market. Elements is a simpler and cheaper version that offers some of the functionality, but its missing things I just cant do without! You can download a demo form adobe website for both im sure, so go for it and fins out for yourself :D

If you only want to do photo editing you can probably get away with photoshop elements - a cut down version aimed mainly as digital photographers. Unless you are doing REALLY heavy manipulation photoshop is probably overkill and the chances are you would never use 90+ percent of it's facilities!

You could always try the gimp (http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/) which is free and should do pretty much anything you require :)

Adobe Photshop CS/CS2 are pretty much unique in that they have native support for a number of different RAW file formats.

Neither Elements nor GIMP have this facility, particularly the ability to edit in RAW format.

Another thing about CS2 which I have yet to use, is that it supports 32bit HDR images. I don't know of a single other raster editor that can do that.

If you were, with your digital SLR, to take multiple shots of the same still life subject under natural light, at steadily decreasing apertures, you could combine the resulting images into a single HDR image. HDR means High Dynamic Range, and effectively combines all the exposures, from dark to burnt out, in a single image.

Don't get Elements, it's really poor in comparison to CS.

Why not go with something like Paint Shop Pro? I've been using it since Windows 3.1 and I've found that I can load up, edit and re-save a photo in the same time it's taken Photoshop to get beyond the splash screen and start!

I agree Paint shop pro. I have used it for years, it's free to download and it will do everything that you need for managing and touching up photos.

You only really need Photoshop CS if you do a lot of professional print work and need to produce colour separations. Otherwise Paintshop Pro will do everything you need.

Vic.