Photoshop (or equivelent) for blog??? Photographers. . . Question!!

[waldorfknitmama]

I have a little blog going on, I am hoping to eventually gain sponsership from it.  I'm considering moving to typepad soon, I just got a new camera to use for my blog however I'm looking for something that can edit my my pictures and I'm wondering what type of proigram to use.  I have a pc, and am looking at photoshop programs to use on my computer.  I need nothing super elaberate basically I want to:

~Crop photos in different shapes (like into hexagons actually)

~Blur backgrounds '

~Enhance colors

~Maybe erase things like a tag showing or hair in the eyes type stuff

I don't really want to spend a ton of money (I've seen programs run for nearly a $1000)

Can anyone give me rec's??

Thanks for ther advice!

TIA!

Samantha

[Kristine233]

Psst, try WordPress for the blog.

As far as photo editing the standard is Photoshop (on PCs at least, I prefer Aperture 3 on my Mac) but Photoshop is highly expensive unless you can find a older version. You can try Gimp, I've heard its another option and free. I haven't played around with it myself but I think it would be worth a try. http://www.gimp.org/

Photoshop Elements is a basic photo editing program as well, although, again, I don't have any hands on experience: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/

[AnnaNova]

i have Photoshop but only because i was able to get it for free from a friend. i heard that Lightroom is a lot more affordable (made by adobe, too), it also has a lot of wonderful pre-sets that will save you time, and you dont have to be a pro to use it.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/

[StacieM]

hmmm not sure if GIMP can do all that, but it's free and can be used on a PC

I second the WP suggestion.

Though I have seen some pretty popular blogs on typepad as well.

[Pariah]

Lightroom is a great program, but it is more for batch editing rather than graphic design or detailed photo editing. When I worked at a photography studio, we used Lightroom to make changes in lighting, levels, etc. over hundreds of photos at a time so they all had the same basic look. Then we used Photoshop to go into individual photos to crop, edit, etc.

[Kristine233]

Originally Posted by Pariah 

Lightroom is a great program, but it is more for batch editing rather than graphic design or detailed photo editing. When I worked at a photography studio, we used Lightroom to make changes in lighting, levels, etc. over hundreds of photos at a time so they all had the same basic look. Then we used Photoshop to go into individual photos to crop, edit, etc.

I'd agree. We tried lightroom here and I just wasn't impressed with it for editing. When I do editing I want to do more than what lightroom had to offer. I'm on a mac though, so when I want to do batch editing such as lighting I set up a work flow in Automator to run them for me, thus no reason to use ligthroom when I can use Aperture or even Pixelmator.