My advice

One of my Spanish readers, Alejandro, tells me that his wife has bought a Nikon D3100 digital single reflex camera. That is a great choice. It is a camera that offers a lot of quality for the price and a very good auto focus system.

Now, of course they want a program that will enable them to edit the photos. The Nikon comes with ViewNX 2 software which will enable them to perform basic edits but for something more sophisticated they may need to look elsewhere.

Alejandro mentions Adobe Photoshop CS4 (the current version is CS6) and point out that it is expensive. Not only that but it is over the top for what most people need.

I’ve told him that I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 (the current version is 10) which is much more affordable and will do most of what its more expensive sibling can do. It is also a lot easier to understand and work with.

There are other packages that I know work well like Coral Paint Shop Pro. Not being familiar with these, I can’t comment on how useful or how easy they are to use compared to Elements.

One thing I would advise, is that Alejandro’s wife learns how to use the camera in its more advanced modes rather than just stick with program (point and shoot). That way she will get the most out of the camera and start to create pictures rather than snapshots.