Originally posted by ElJamoquio In about 1995 or so, Paint Shop Pro was a decent alternative to Photoshop.
I haven't used it in the past ten years, but it seems to have fallen out of favor.
If I was starting from scratch and didn't want to spend money I'd use gimp. If I wanted to spend money every month I'd use Photoshop.
You could also use PhotoShop Elements. You can have the software default to the 'Expert' view which gives you the same style layout of the full Photoshop software... same layers, effects, plugins support, histogram, most tools, etc.
It is really very robust these days.. even includes the panorama and masking abilities..
---------- Post added 08-21-14 at 08:56 PM ----------
Originally posted by Kayaker-J Question: In a nutshell... this would do what for me after Lightroom, several Topaz plug-ins, and pos-s-s-sibly a Nik Suite somewhere in my future...? I'm a neophyte at THIS part of the game, so thanks, all!
PSP or PSE will give you layers and allow you to do more creative editing of your images.. or add more Text or collages.. that sort of thing.
Plus, if you get really good at it, you can paint in PSP or PSE an entire image or do photographic composites and such.
I typically use it though for layers.. using the Topaz Remask, I can cut a portion of the image (say the sky) from a shot, do my edits on that layer only while keeping the rest of the image free from those edits. I also do some Noise Reduction handling this way.. a bit unorthodox but it is nice (I think) to smooth out the noise in more obvious parts of the image more so than in the less obvious where I'd use a less aggressive noise filtering.
Not sure you really need that at this point though. LR and some LR capable plugins like the Topaz and Nik Suite will get you 80-90% of the way.. perhaps even 100% depending on your workflow.