VERY Basic Editing software? (MIL Proof!)

[etherial]

I ask this with a great element of fear for where it might land me! My mother in law, who has trouble doing anything other than absolute basic P&S camera and computer operation wants to do some photo editing. She saw the other day (when my wife was going through her photos in Lightroom) how much a couple of simple crops improved some of her happy snaps and now she's inspired.

I'm scared because when it comes to anything tech in our family, I'm the 24 hour helpline! So, I wonder does anyone know of a cheap program that is so simple it is MIL proof?

Remember most of my calls from the MIL are PICNIC errors (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer) so I need simple! Any thoughts?

[SnowA]

Picasa perhaps? The interface is pretty friendly.

[I @ M]

Turn your phone off?

[AndreaB]

phot0scape is pretty simple.

[ricktas]

The microsoft photo programme, can't recall its name, but it had a lot a automatic adjustment options and was fairly much designed for beginners the last time I got a bit of a hands on with it.

AND..dare I say it...no matter what software you get, also get one of the "Dummy" books to go along with it.

[Avalon]

I would highly recommend the Picasa program which is a free download from Google.
It is easy and user friendly and I still use it today for simple tasks which don't require expensive and complicated editing programs.

[ameerat42]

Mic. Almost anything should do, just don't go into it very much. She could learn a few basic procedures in even, say Adobe PSx, or CSx. Am.

[DJT]

Go Picassa for sure, it's extremely easy to use & it's free

[Bails55]

I got my tech-challenged friend to use Picasa and she's never had to call me once.

[peterb666]

Picasa is very easy to use. The only thing is that it doesn't have any noise reduction features. The price is great.

[annainoz]

I ask this with a great element of fear for where it might land me! My mother in law, who has trouble doing anything other than absolute basic P&S camera and computer operation wants to do some photo editing. She saw the other day (when my wife was going through her photos in Lightroom) how much a couple of simple crops improved some of her happy snaps and now she's inspired.

I'm scared because when it comes to anything tech in our family, I'm the 24 hour helpline! So, I wonder does anyone know of a cheap program that is so simple it is MIL proof?

Remember most of my calls from the MIL are PICNIC errors (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer) so I need simple! Any thoughts?

It's the same in our house.. hubby is the 24hr help line for his mum so what he did was get his mum to d/l a particular program (which he also had on his pc), she would then open it up, give him the password so he can remotely access his mums pc. We are in WA and she's in FNQ. He can then fiddle around on his mums screen .. works like a charm.

As for software editing .. hmmm picasa

[ricktas]

It's the same in our house.. hubby is the 24hr help line for his mum so what he did was get his mum to d/l a particular program (which he also had on his pc), she would then open it up, give him the password so he can remotely access his mums pc. We are in WA and she's in FNQ. He can then fiddle around on his mums screen .. works like a charm.

As for software editing .. hmmm picasa

Remote access is fairly easy to implement from any PC as long as people at both PC's agree to it, when it starts.

[ving]

irfanview is cheap (reads free) and is as basic as it gets.

[etherial]

Remote access is fairly easy to implement from any PC as long as people at both PC's agree to it, when it starts.

Don't you need a static IP to do that?

[Kym]

http://paint.net/ Free and very easy to use.

[etherial]

Thanks everyone for the input. I'll have another look at Picasa (I tried it out a long time ago but for a different purpose).

PC's for non PC minded people can be very frustrating. Luckily she has a laptop, so she can just bring it over when it plays up she stuffs it up.