An image editor is the tool you need for working with photographs and bitmap graphics. In addition to strong photo-editing features your image editor should easily import and export common graphics formats including TIFF, GIF, JPG, and EPS. For professional design work, Photoshop is the industry standard but it's not your only option.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop CS5 box; © Adobe
The most widely-used professional image editing program has a hefty price tag but it's packed with features. Photoshop is almost a prerequisite for most professional design employment. Photoshop comes in Standard and Extended editions with the Extended version adding 3D and motion-based features. Photoshop is available as a standalone product and comes in all editions of the Adobe Creative Suite. Except for Design Standard, the CS5 suites contain Photoshop Extended.
Available as of 2010: Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Windows and Mac
- Photoshop CS5 Standard (Compare Prices) Full (Buy Direct) | Upgrade (Buy Direct)
- Photoshop CS5 Extended (Compare Prices) Full (Buy Direct) | Upgrade (Buy Direct)
- Various editions of Adobe Photoshop (Compare Prices)
- See the Adobe Education Store (Buy Direct) for Student editions of Photoshop.
Similar to but less expensive is Photoshop Elements
GIMP (gimp.org)
About.com / gimp.org
The GNU Image Management Program (The GIMP) is a popular, free, open source alternative to Photoshop and other photo editing software. The GIMP was the 2010 About.com Reader's Choice Winner in the Free Desktop Publishing Software category.
Available as of 2011: GIMP 2.6.1 for Linux, Windows, Mac, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris
Pixelmator
Pixelmator box; image courtesy of PriceGrabber
If Photoshop is out of your price range, consider this feature-rich image editor that offers all your usual painting and retouching tools, selection tools, layers, and color correction. It can open and save many file formats including PSD (including Photoshop files with layers), TIFF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, EPS. It was also the About.com Reader's Choice Awards winner for Mac Consumer Image Editor.
Available as of 2010: Pixelmator v. 1.6 for Mac OS 10.6 or higher
- Pixelmator (Compare Prices)
