Good and economical

[mannypr]

Can anybody advise me of a good economical Post proccesing program .I'am new to this part of digital photography.I already have picasa 3 on my computer but  being it free I know I'am missing out on a lot of features.I've got a Nikon D90 and was considering getting the Nikon alternative which I believe to be Nikon NX2.Would this be a good alternative  or is there better economical programs out there.Thanks guys for your advice in advance.

[DigitalScape]

The "gold standard" is Photoshop - current version is CS4, however Adobe's Photoshop Elements (latest version is has many of the Photoshop features and is significantly cheaper.  Another possibility is Corel's PaintShop Pro (X3 is the latest version).

[motleypixel]

Agree with John, but if you have to stay free I'd use FastStone to edit RAW and then export 16bit tiff:  http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm  Then import the tiff into "The GIMP" if you want to perform "Photoshop-Like" adjustments...The GIMP is free too.

[MikeHarris7]

I use the Gimp as well - to be honest I've never used Photoshop because I've never encountered something I couldn't get done with the Gimp.