Section 7.39. Paint Shop Pro

7.39. Paint Shop Pro

If your goal is to retouch and edit digital photos, the closest you can come to Paint Shop on the Mac is probably Photoshop Elements, a sensational Mac OS X program (about $100) that belongs on the hard drive of any serious digital camera owner. (Any digital camera owner who doesn't also own the full-blown Photoshop program, that is.)

If your goal is to organize and use your photos, rather than paint on them, remember that the newest version of iPhoto is either already on your hard drive or available as part of Apple's iLife suite ($80).

Finally, if opening and converting graphics to other formats is your main concern, try Preview (Section 11.1), whose exporting feature is surprisingly powerful. You may also want to investigate the beloved shareware program GraphicConverter (find and download it at www. versiontracker .com), which may be the last graphics editing/converting program you'll ever need.