I use Photoshop CS2, but there is probably a learning curve to it. At work, I used to use Photoshop II, which is a pared down version that cost about $100 and was easy to use. It also did most of what I wanted.

It depends what you want to accomplish with your editing. For iPhone photos, say, quick cropping and maybe slight level adjustment, I use Photos in edit mode on my Mac. If I really want to do my best job and clean it up (e.g., an old photo), I use Photoshop (CC 2019). I only use a fraction of its features, but you can't beat it.

How deep do you want to go with your editing? I had Photoshop Elements years ago (a slightly less ambitious version of regular Photoshop) and still found myself in over my head a lot even after a 6 week class. I'm not looking to do restoration or extreme editing so for most needs I find google photos adequate. From time to time I would like a bit more depth but I don't know of anything in that middle ground.

As DLM2000 said, it depends on what you want to do. If you have a mac, Preview has a nice set of basic editing tools that you can fool around with without understanding much about what you're trying to do.

If you're looking for something on the level of Photoshop, I strongly recommend Affinity Photo these days rather than anything from Adobe. No subscription, reasonable price, does everything.

What I'm looking for is simplicity.

Just basic editing. Picasa was pretty simple and easy to work. The older I get the less willing I am to learn a new trick. LOL

I have a Mac. I'll give preview a second chance.

Any other suggestions, I'm interested!!

Thank you!

I still use my old Adobe Lightroom 5, but I think they have now gone to a subscription based model.

In Preview you can crop, rotate, adjust levels, contrast, exposure, saturation, shadows/highlights, temperature, tint, saturation, and sharpness, and apply a sepia tint. It won't do red eye, blurring, or the filters that are in Photos, but if you don't normally put your pics there, it's really handy if you don't want to import them into Photos.

I use Cyberlink Photodirector (10 I believe.) I was able to try a and keep a free version years ago and later bought a newer version.

It has all the basic features plus advances ones like Photoshop. You can layer and it supports raw files.

My favorite thing is the people beautification tools and the background object removal. The people feature a brush for the whites if the eyes and dark brush for lashes. You can adjust the intensity and size of the brushes. I also like the skin smoother feature. Again, adjustable so can still look natural and not plastic.

The object removal is one I use often for everything to background adjustments to a face blemish.

There’s also a feature that allows you to select/mask an area and you can adjust the contrast etc. I use this in faces or other areas normally to brighten a little.

It does has preset filters but I don’t use them. You can also create your own presets.

You used to be able to do a month free trial not sure if that’s still an option.

https://www.cyberlink.com/products/photodirector-photo-editing-software/features_en_US.html

About two years ago before I went to a Mac I loved Windows quick photo editor right from the viewer. I had Cyberlink then but not every photo I take needs all the extra adjustments. It was great for basic quick, full control if the brightness, contrast, shadows, highlights, etc. adjustments. Then they went and made changes and dumbed it way down! You had limited control but oh they added filters! Eye roll. A bunch of horrific filters.

I mostly use the editing mode in the Mac Photos app too. I've downloaded a good number of photo editing apps from Apple's app store, but none are as simple, or work as well for me as Photos does. One nice thing about using Photos is that you can revert to the original at any time.

If I want to add text, I use Paint S, which is in the app store as well.

If I want to add text, I use Paint S, which is in the app store as well.

That you can also do in Preview, including with a talk bubble.

ETA I believe that Photos in the next OS version coming out this fall gets a whole big bunch of extra controls and adjustments, FWIW.

I'll have to explore Preview, writersblock. About all I do with it now is preview, rotate and crop images.

Preview has other non-photo tools that a lot of people don't know about, like filling in PDF forms, or you can sign a piece of paper, hold it up to the camera and Preview will save it as a signature for signing PDFs, so you don't have to print them to do that.