Photo editing question

[Alison55]

I have been using Microsoft Windows 10 photo editing to do simple fixing of family photos--red eye, clarity, some color correction.  Now they have replaced that with a new program? software? that is useless.  It does none of those things.  Can anyone recommend something simple, even if it's not free?  I'm not in a league with many people here in terms of restoration but this has left me--and a lot of others--very frustrated.  I'd really appreciate some advice.

[Raybistre]

you could try GIMP.
GIMP
Software
GNU Image Manipulation Program, commonly known by its acronym GIMP, is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks. It is extensible by means of plugins, and scriptable. Wikipedia.
Ray

[Treetotal]

I agree with Ray, it's a good introduction to repairing photos at a basic level.
Carol

[arthurk]

For something more basic I'm a fan of FastStone Image Viewer (free) - which in spite of its name is actually an editor. It has a good range of tools and effects, though admittedly not as many as more sophisticated programs. It's quick and easy, and in many cases it does what I consider a perfectly adequate job.

[waynenort]

I use Photoshop, but it's not worth the ongoing subscription cost unless you're regularly using it and for other things.

Affinity Photo is like an imitation of Photoshop, but not as many features
Photo restoration tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwRVtGedxyg
It has a one-off cost of around $100.
Not super cheap, but at least it's not an ongoing subscription

[Alison55]

Thank you so much for your replies.  Could I ask if any of these do red eye correction?  That's a big problem for me.  And it has to be simple to fit my abilities! Thanks again.

[McGroger]

Just like buying cars or computers, we'll all advise you to get what we have.
 
Read some of the many "Best of" articles online, preferably ones where the writer seems to know what their talking about, then try free tests of ones that appeal to you.

Now, my biased turn:

I've tried GIMP a few times but don't find it very user-friendly. It's very powerful, but with a steep learning curve.

I use Photoshop Elements, a cut down version of Photoshop, for 99% of the restores I do. Of the apps I've tried I find it to have the best combination of features and user-friendliness. And, yes, it has a redeye removal function.

Peter

 

[waynenort]

Wasn't sure about Affinity Photo for red eye correction, but turns out it does
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FqDyGeQcWQ

Youtube should have plenty of tutorials on the above software suggestions to make it easier to learn quickly and hopefully help with your decision on what to try.

[Alison55]

Thanks again for these suggestions. I will go thru them and hope one is simple enough for my skills. I did watch the YouTube video and it was quite a process to get rid of the red eye.  I guess I should have added that my family are all blue-eyed so the eyes have to turn blue.  I don't know if that's possible altho the Windows 10 photo editing did it pretty well.  Thank you again!