Photo editing software: any recommendations?

[bunn]

I've agreed to teach a photo preparation course for beginners, and I'm trying to decide what software to show them.

It needs to be freeware, or at least start out as freeware with reasonable functionality, I don't mind a paid upgrade path. I've looked at Sumopaint, Pixlr, PicMonkey and Befunky, and am probably keenest on Sumopaint. No, Pixlr. No, Sumopaint.

I'm planning to take a look also at paint.net, Photopos, and Photoplus, but all of those have to be installed locally, which may cause my beginners some agony, and are also windows-only, whereas the web-based tools are more cross-platformy.

They all have their downsides! Any recommendations, thoughts, ideas? What functions do you think would be most useful/entertaining/fun for a mixed bunch of people, most of them old enough to have had no computer skills training?

Comments

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

I use Gimp, but I don't find it very intuitive. Has the merit of being free though. Let us know what you end up using!
-N.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

This will be a one-morning workshop for people with (I suspect) few computer skills, so I've tentatively ruled out Gimp - although it is certainly very powerful, I am worried my beginners would spend the whole time struggling with the interface (and asking me nightmarish questions about obscure options that I've never actually used... :-D )

Pixlr seems to use mostly 'proper' image editor terminology in common with Photoshop and Gimp, which seems like a better option than the tools that just present a bunch of buttons to apply custom filters, so would be good from that view point.

My tentative list of content goes something like:


Filesize basics, compression and formats
Composition & cropping
Using unsharp mask, saturation & histogram adjustment to improve light, colour and sharpness.
How and when to use black and white, sepia, and other effects

That seems like more than enough for a morning with a coffee break!