Thanks to technology, taking great photos is getting easier every day. You can even take great photos with your smartphone. And with photography editing software you can make adjustments to your images by brightening dark areas, changing contrast or influencing saturation. Choosing the best photo editing software for you often comes down to what editing capabilities you want, what kind of system you’ll be editing on and what your budget is.

While searching, you might start off by identifying the operating system you’ll be using. For instance, you might need to narrow your search to Mac photo editing software or Windows photo editing software to ensure compatibility.

Then, you’ll want to decide how much complexity you want when editing. More advanced picture editor programs give you the ability to apply masks and work in layers so that you can enhance and adjust only certain parts of the image before you send it to your photo printer. But expect a steeper learning curve and a bigger price tag with more advanced image editing software.

Have you ever taken a photo of a sweeping vista only to find that the image is not nearly as stunning as the real thing? Well, picture editor software can make your image clearer, more vibrant and closer to what you experienced in the moment you took it. You can also use it to touch up older film photos when you use a flatbed scanner or photo negative scanner to import the images into the program.

You can easily improve any photo with image editor tools, but if you want the greatest flexibility when editing your photos, you’ll want to start by shooting your images in a RAW file format. These files are quite large, so you will need extra memory cards on hand, and you may want a portable hard drive or USB flash drives for additional storage capacity. When editing high-quality photos, you will also benefit from a 4K Ultra HD monitor, which will show you your photos in fine detail.

Even the best image editor cannot fix everything. So, when taking your photos, learn about the effects of different camera lenses and settings. If you’re a beginning photographer, start by looking over these 10 tips for taking great photos.