Hi everyone,
Perhaps this has been asked, but when I searched I couldn't find what I was looking for.

What photo editing software/programs do you use to edit your photos? I often see these beautiful pictures of cakes that show several views of the cake that are fogged around the edges, and have a background of a faded image of the cake, with the logo/name of the creator. How the heck do you achieve this? I get so frustrated with the editing programs I have (Arcsoft, and tried FotoFlex online) and am wondering what the most stressfree way is to create a clean, professional looking photo layout of my cakes!

Thanks!

I usually use one of my graphic art programs such as Printmaster or Print Shop. They have photo editing capabilities in which you can soften the edges of the image. HTH

Hi, you can also use publisher to arrange photos and do backgrounds.

Sometimes I just use Word or Powerpoint. Sometimes Elements.

I have MicroSoft Digital Image Pro.

Please do not refer to any of my photos for an example, though, because I did not enhance them. Just now I tried editing one of my photos (i.e., softening the borders, adding photos to create a "collage", etc.) and it looks real nice. Easy, too! I had no idea what I was doing, and in about 5 minutes I created a photo with multiple images.

Hope you find something that works for you!

I use Watermark Factory 2 to watermark my photographs that I put online. Easiest software that I've ever used. And it allows you to save the watermark that you create and apply it whenever you need. And it is capable of doing batches of photos.

And I use Photoshop CS3 for the basic photo editing that I do. There are things that I STILL don't understand about Photoshop, but then again, I haven't had those classes yet.

Aha! Collage! That was the word I was searching for in this dazed brain of mine (baby brain... sucking the intelligence right out of me!)

It sounds like there are lots of different programs that people use, I'm really looking for something simple so I can wrap my non-technilogical brain around it.
Keep your faves coming! I'm writing up a list so I can compare and get something that works for me.
Thanks for the input so far!

I use paint shop pro.

I can't say enough good things about www.picnik.com, an online editor that I discovered through Flickr. (I did vote in your poll). You do not have to have a Flickr account to use it, though. It is very intuitive and FUN! You can use for things as simple as lightening up your exposure or cropping your photos. But it also has things like collages, special effects, frames and borders, and too many other things to list. I do not know how to use Photoshop and I don't have time to try to learn.

I would be happy to help anyone who needs assistance using this wonderful application. Feel free to ask - there are no stupid questions.

Here are some examples of what I have done.







You can click here to see larger images and more images that I have edited using the Picnik application...and they aren't all cakes!

Another vote for picnik.com
I just love it!! And my daughter too!!

Fab! Thanks for adding pics too that show what you can do with it! That is exactly what I'm looking to do with pics! I'll be trying piknic out tonight.

wow those picnik pictures are beautiful. I might try that as well!

I use Adobe (Macromedia) Fireworks, mainly because that is what I use for web graphics for work. (and I get it for free)

To me, it is a lot easier to use than Photoshop, and it does everything I need it to. I can even make those annoying animated gif's. My son just discovered this feature and made me a winking smiley face constellation that I could use for my avatar, if I actually thought about it at a time when I could do anything about it.

I downloaded Picasa 3 a few days ago and my daughters are having a blast with making collages, you can fix blemishes and even switch facial features on the pictures to make funny looking characters! It's completely free! We just did this a few days ago so we don't know much about it and are learning, it seems to work fine for what we need. I was just looking for something easy to use that we could make collages for my cakes, unfortunately I haven't been able to uplaod pics of my cakes for a while because of my computer but my cake collages will be ready when my computer is.

After a great deal of trial and error, I have finally gotten a handle on Adobe Photoshop CS3 and now I can't live without it. A sample of a couple ways I have used it are shown below. Don't believe anyone that tells you, though, that Photoshop is easy . . . it's not! If you try it, don't give up right away. With trial and effort, it can become a very useful tool.