As a technology guy, I'm often asked about the software I use for various applications. The most recently asked for application is "How do I edit my pictures after I take them with this neat new digital camera?" The simplest, best program I have found is one called Picasa offered free by Google. Why Picasa? Ease of use is the first reason, as it's just double click on an image and you can crop, reduce red eye, or brighten a picture in just a few easy clicks. My favorite reason for using Picasa is one that has nothing to do with editing pictures, and everything to do with finding my pictures on my hard drive. When you first launch Picasa, it asks you if you want to search your whole hard drive for images. Definitely say yes, and you'll be surprised at where some of your pictures might be hiding, as not everyone is as disciplined as me and puts all their photos in their My Photos folder on their hard drive.

Just as important as image editing is image re-sizing. Just because you have a shiny new digital camera does not mean that you should e-mail full MB shots to everyone in your address book. Instead, take the time to re-size your pictures before you send them so they don't take hours for your friends with dial up to download, and so it doesn't clog up your and your friend's families inboxes. The easiest way to do this is with a neat little program called PicSizer. PicSizer allows you to re-size complete folders of images with just a few clicks. This is also a free piece of software, and one that is quite simple to use. Simply select the folder with the big pictures, select a new folder to put the smaller pictures in, select the size of the pictures you wish to re-size too (I recommend 25% or smaller of the original size) and away you go. Simple as that.

The last piece of software is one that is a little more advanced, but one that you can easily learn to use and love, and it's called GIMPShop, a take-off on the $599 Adobe Photoshop product used by image editing professionals. You can do some cool editing with GIMPShop, things you can't do with many other free applications. Oh yeah, did I mention, GIMPShop is free, just like all the other software I mentioned?

To find these great resources, it's easiest to just go to http://www.google.com and insert the name of the software you're looking for (Picasa, PicSizer, or GIMPShop) and you should be transported to the site you need to get the software to make it great!