What is the best Photoshop or similar program to get for an iMac? Another Mac question. Sorry.

It’s Adobe Photoshop, CS5 is the best as it’s the newest, probably.
But you have to look for a mac version.
I have Adobe Photoshop from CS4 on my MacBook. :)

For basic stuff with no training, she’ll be happy with iPhoto. It comes with the Mac.

I’m not a big fan of Adobe Photoshop, but the two clear alternatives here are Pixelmator ($60) and Apple Aperture ($200). Both have free trials, so I would recommend checking both of them out before shelling out $600 or so for Photoshop.

IMO, Aperture would do your wife more good than Photoshop and Pixelmator.

If you need a free image editor, don’t overlook Apple’s iPhoto. It has enough editing features to make basic modifications on a library of photos.

@pupntaco, I have tried to tell her that, butbwe have a good friend who has promised to teach her. I could ask him, but he is out of town, and only one opinion, versus the many on here. Thanks, though.

Have you tried iPhoto? It comes with your mac and can do a lot of great stuff, and even some advanced stuff like raw editing etc. The user interface is great too!

If you want to go the free route you can use Gimp. I use it all the time. You can’t beat free.

Pixelmator is the best if she doesn’t want to use iPhoto, in my opinion. Fairly affordable as well.

I agree with @dverhey. It’s great for photo retouching for a good price

Here’s the link.

If it’s just phot retouching, then I don’t see the need to spend any money whatsoever.

GIMP all the way.

@the100thmonkey Problem with Gimp on OSX is that it has to run through X11, making the menus very very confusing to some people because they don’t mix with the native OSX style. So for a beginner it may not be the best.

I didn’t know that – Interesting.

Thanks for enlightening me!

Sounds like it’s probably not the best solution at all.

Photoshop is everything and the kitchen sink. Check out http://www.photoshopuser.com/. The things they can show you how to do are astonishing. But you aren’t making a thousand-layer ad poster for the next star wars movie.
All of the fraction of photoshop that you will find most useful as a photographer is all also in Adobe Lightroom for way less $$. Get Lightroom, if your friend has mastery of Photoshop they will find their way around Lightroom easily… and might even use it over Photoshop themselves eventually because it is relatively uncluttered and has some good workflow. organization to it.

Thanks everyone!!