Software to edit digital pics

I am wondering if anyone has ideas on good but in-expensive software that would allow me to edit digital pics I took my camera?

On a recent trip I took pictures that suffer from "shaky camera syndrome". I cannot go back and retake the pictures so I am looking for a software solution. PC or ipad2 platforms.

Any thoughts?

Not sure that any software will fix 'shaky camera syndrome'. What is dark may be made lighter, with finer distinctions, but what is blurred will remain blurred... Curious to see what others will suggest.

Without knowing more about what you need to do it is very difficult to say. However I will through out some stuff. I assume the first one is too obvious to mention, but again without knowing more I have to cover the bases.

The G.I.M.P.

http://www.gimp.org

The GIMP will be all you need if you are doing entirely digital work, might lack a bit when you go to print if you need professional printing services. More and more extensions for photo specific functions are being made all the time. Being completely free is always a great feature. A little searching on the web for GIMP + whatever you need (eg sharpening features) usually gets what you need.

Lightzone

http://www.lightcrafts.com

Not free in any sense but for $200 you can get Lightzone which is an image editing programme dedicate to just photo work. It does minor miracles on photographic images in terms of image qualities -colour, light, etc.

They have a $50 mini programme for basic photo improvements called Aurora. Windows only, so never used it.

RawTherapee

http://rawtherapee.com

I think with version 3 there is now a Windows version of Rawtherape. It has RAW in its name for a reason -it is meant for manipulating photos taken from a camera in RAW format. Lot sof tools for tweaking every aspect of the shot. Now completely free.

Off the top of my head that is all I can suggest for Windows. No problem to provide follow up advice if you need it or would like to elaborate on the type of work you will be doing or if you pleasantly surprise me with the news that you are not on Windows.

Remember Toine's point, though. Blurry is blurry. Sharpening tools can sharpen things, but they cannot make up a whole new photo from an all blurry old one.

If you want free and reasonable priced software might want to go to Tucows, quick search and found gimp there.

The most basic editing software that you can use is going to be Adobe's Photoshop. You won't want to work with any of the other products as Illustrator is for the creation of images and After Effects will not resolve any of the issues you may have. But then again, your problems may be more severe. Without a small image to see what is wrong, it is difficult to suggest an appropriate software package, though if it is only small blurring, I would suggest Photoshop as it is what I use with all of my photo editing.

Adobe will let you try Photoshop and/or Lightroom for free for 30 days. It's a great way to try them out.

Although, I think you're S.O.L. in resolving your "shaky" style photos.

Thanks for the ideas.

The correct term for my trouble is motion blur, not shaky camera.

Various tools can correct ( maybe not fully ) motion blur so I am off to explore these tools

Cheers

Since you asked for inexpensive I am not going to even consider discussing Adobe products, but if it is a one time only thing perhaps the 30 day trial ones will suit.

Now that I know more I can suggest three things.

Unshaken, free as in price, Java based programme just for this purpose.

http://www.zen147963.zen.co.uk/Unshake/

Never used it, hear it is brutal on resources.

Two GIMP plugins that are totally free that do this sort of thing are

ReFocus

http://refocus.sourceforge.net/

and

Iterative Refocus

http://refocus-it.sourceforge.net/

Astronomers are very big into this sort of thing apparently. SImg is one programme they use. Unshaken's author though mentions that his programme is not good for astronomy work so it is possible that the reverse is also true.

SImg

http://www.simg.de/index.e.html

Good luck, again do not expect miracles. Linear slight blur can be slightly improved upon. Really messed up photos are messed up. Please just ask for more info on the subject though if you need it.