I use Irfanview more than anything, especially to size wallpaper. I found the instructions lacking for some things like cropping. I still have Roxio and will continue with it for "fixing" photos until it is no longer supported. Then I will go with Irfanview for everything. I don't do a lot of pictures anymore, there is no one who shows an interest in them besides me. I don't even take a camera with me on trips anymore.

Owbist - you articulated the decision factors beautifully. And that is what makes it difficult. Presently, all I do is load it on the camera and crop. I know I would like to be able to do some color/contrast/tone/brightening adjustments, be able to edit out troublesome aspects. Eventually, I would like to be able to clean older photos and change colors (I know I would have loved to have been able to change the colors of the walls in my house to assist with paint color choices). Whether I'd ever get to something like swapping heads or filters, I don't know (I don't even know what filters are). Another aspect that is important to me is good photo organizing tool. I've been reading reviews of software editing programs (many free), and the reviews don't even mention organizing photos. I'm not sure if that's bc. they all do it, so it's not the feature worth reviewing, or bc. they don't do it. By the way, this review site is very useful - for all kinds of digital photograph questions. I'll post the link here in case others are interested: http://www.brighthub.com/multimedia/photography/articles/4488.aspx. Now if I knew how to make a tiny url of this, I would have done that. I think I even have that firefox addon, but don't know how to use it yet. I think I'm going to try Photofiltre first. Paintnet also looked good, as did photoscape. All are free. Does anyone here know photoscape? A couple of more questions, if that's okay. 1) why would someone want to resize a picture? 2) what's the advantage to having a card reader get the photos on the computer, rather than just connecting the camera to the computer via USB? Thanks everyone. Lynn.

I use photoshop. I don't know if photoshop elements has this option. I recommend making a copy of your file, then working off the copy. First, convert the copy of your photo to grayscale: Open the copy of the image, then select IMAGE, then MODE, then GRAYSCALE Doing that will then activate the DUOTONE option. Re-select IMAGE, then MODE again, but this time choose DUOTONE. When the window opens up, it'll have two basic selections: PRESET which will have "Custom" in the window, and TYPE which will have "monotone" in the window. You can select "Monotone", "Duotone", "Tritone", or "Quadtone" as your type. That controls how many levels of additional color (1, 2, 3, or 4) you want to add to your grayscale photo. Under "preset" you can select from numerous types of preloaded toning combinations. The name implies the type of tone it will impart to your grayscale photo. For a "chocolate" look, you might want to take a look at "brown 464 bl 1" or something in that group. You can also tweak the tones to your liking. Best, Mongo

Hi slim, I am going through the same dilema in that the laptop I want is a Vista 64 Bit system and am worried my photo programs will not work on it. Looks like we are getting shoved into 64 bit OS now whether we want it or not? Wished the one I want would be a 32 bit or at least a choice like the Toshiba ones offer. Hope you have good luck in finding a program to use.