Personality Imaging wrote:
My view is that premiere is for video editing and you don't need it for still photo editing

Thank you, sir. That is most helpful.

Justin wrote:
And, holy crap! Photoshop is now a subscription service for 10 bucks a months, $120/year. Which is a bargain if you use it all the time. But I don't. And not to the depth that it promises. Photoshop Elements is fine for me.

I am neither an amateur, nor a semi-pro shooter... so, I hope I can post in here nevertheless...     

Check out ACDSee Pro 7 it is an awesome product, that I am using since almost 10 years... extremely powerful, much faster than PS, much smaller footprint on the computer and a fraction of the money... they have a special right now for $64.95 until September 4th and you can download it as a free trial.

It is definitely worth it... the only... ONLY feature I am missing is a cut and paste and photo-assembly (collage) function, but I understand they have an extra program for that.

I can only recommend this software... I love it!!!

Justin wrote:
cropping and tweaking contrast and brightness and playing with color channels, and now and then getting a wild hair about trying a few filters...

For what you're suggesting I don't see why Elements wouldn't work for you.  Or even Lightroom.

T-D-L wrote:

For what you're suggesting I don't see why Elements wouldn't work for you.  Or even Lightroom.

everyone seems to be offering alternatives. The advantage to Adobe products is they are pretty much standard.  So you get not only support but can ask friends questions "where do i find this in dere?" 'how do I do this in...".
This benefit cannot be overlooked.
I have GIMP. I still use it for some things.
I have paint.net. It's still the most human-looking sharpening.
But 90% of the time or more photoshop or lightroom does the job just fine.
As suggested, go with elements or lightroom. I have CS5 on one of the laptops but I never use it.

Justin wrote:
(Disclaimer: Yes, I know I describe myself as "semi-professional." That's because I've been paid for photography, which takes me out of amateur status. But I'm obviously not a professional photographer.)

I switched computers recently and am going through the tiresome routine of familiarization, restoring, reuploading, and reacquiring software.

And, holy crap! Photoshop is now a subscription service for 10 bucks a months, $120/year. Which is a bargain if you use it all the time. But I don't. And not to the depth that it promises. Photoshop Elements is fine for me.

Past Elements, for an additional 50 bucks, Adobe wants to sell me "Premiere." For a guy like me, or us, cropping and tweaking contrast and brightness and playing with color channels, and now and then getting a wild hair about trying a few filters... is "Premiere" worth it?

Do you shoot RAW,DNG or just Jpeg?

Jerry Nemeth wrote:
Photoshop Elements 12 is a good program to use.

+1

Personality Imaging wrote:
My view is that premiere is for video editing and you don't need it for still photo editing

+1

Justin wrote:
(Disclaimer: Yes, I know I describe myself as "semi-professional." That's because I've been paid for photography, which takes me out of amateur status. But I'm obviously not a professional photographer.)

I switched computers recently and am going through the tiresome routine of familiarization, restoring, reuploading, and reacquiring software.

And, holy crap! Photoshop is now a subscription service for 10 bucks a months, $120/year. Which is a bargain if you use it all the time. But I don't. And not to the depth that it promises. Photoshop Elements is fine for me.

Past Elements, for an additional 50 bucks, Adobe wants to sell me "Premiere."  For a guy like me, or us, cropping and tweaking contrast and brightness and playing with color channels, every now and then getting a wild hair about trying a few filters... is "Premiere" worth it?

That is exactly like what I use my http://www.fxfoto.com/ software for ... cropping, adjusting color & densities and an occasional filter or two ... I have been using FxFoto for years.   I don't even know how to use PhotoShop.  Never had it!

Justin wrote:
In answer to another question: I have shot in RAW, and a great photographer friend of mine highly recommends it for the flexibility, but the space it takes up makes it a losing proposition for me. For my austere needs, .jpg works fine for now.

With 2 Terabyte drives often available for $60 or less it doesn't seem like space should be much of a concern anymore.

Justin wrote:
In answer to another question: I have shot in RAW, and a great photographer friend of mine highly recommends it for the flexibility, but the space it takes up makes it a losing proposition for me. For my austere needs, .jpg works fine for now.

Eye of the World wrote:
With 2 Terabyte drives often available for $60 or less it doesn't seem like space should be much of a concern anymore.

I understand. Obviously, it's all about how one wishes to allocate one's resources. I just got finished spending five+ K on technology, but it's for stuff that helps me make money.

If I'm going to spend a few hundred on hobby technology, I'll upgrade my glass first, since my current storage and .jpg meets my artistic fulfillment needs, but my current glass doesn't. Likewise and obviously, I need photo editing to meet them as well.

AVD AlphaDuctions wrote:

everyone seems to be offering alternatives. The advantage to Adobe products is they are pretty much standard.  So you get not only support but can ask friends questions "where do i find this in dere?" 'how do I do this in...".
This benefit cannot be overlooked.
I have GIMP. I still use it for some things.
I have paint.net. It's still the most human-looking sharpening.
But 90% of the time or more photoshop or lightroom does the job just fine.
As suggested, go with elements or lightroom. I have CS5 on one of the laptops but I never use it.

I don't think there is any true "standard", Photoshop and GIMP are about the top two dreadnaughts of 2D image composting, the problem the OP was having was having to re-install, type in serial numbers, and all the commercial hassles.

I don't think people are suggesting alternatives "just because", but rather to avoid a repeating problem that is not going away (having to waste time with register and licensing issues with commercial software.