First up, I'm a devoted Photoshop7 fan, so this query isn't for me. It's for my 75yr/old dad who just got a new Dell with Vista. Sadly, while Vista will run his alltime favorite photo editor (Sierra's Snapshot Express), the computer simply HATES doing so! 

So, before I go a-googlin' the net, I figured maybe some of youse guys in here might have some good ideas of what to check out. Basically, what my dad needs is a Vista compatible photo editor that offers photo album collections with SIMPLE editing features, none of the fancy layering/plugin/filter stuff. Remember, he's 75 and he "aint too keen on the idea of learning a bunch of artsy-fartsy stuff just to clean up some digital camera pictures". He actually said that!
Seriously, when I showed him Photoshop, the layering system nearly blew the poor guys mind. And you really don't wanna know what he said when I told him how much I paid for it!

Again, something simple and preferrably free. He just spent $1500 on this new machine and really doesn't want to spend any more $$$ on it if he can help it.

Big thanks ahead of time for any advice here!

Later
C

Irfanview is a very nice and basic and can make use of PS plugins and filters.  So you could share those with him.  I love that little progy!  There's also another very nice and very fun to use Faststone Viewer (which does a hell of a lot more than that).  It's got a very interesting interface.  If your in Full Screen view putting the cursor in any of the sides of the view area brings out nice big menus with LOTS of fun stuff to do to your images. 

Irfanview is definitely the first choice.  It includes a number of built-in effects
like oil paint, sepia, red eye reduction, and the usual color adjustments,
and also lets you install those FilterFactory things for more complicated
actions.   Every part of Irfan is designed for minimum keystrokes; most
things can be done by hitting one letter.

There is a freeware called Picasso that my brother Russ recommends highly.  It's put out by Google.
DPH

Picasa from Google ( http://picasa.google.com/ ) for simple tools
Paint.net ( http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html ) for more control

Attached Link: http://www.thegimp.org

Go by Sourceforge, nonags, or any other shareware site, and there's boatloads of free packages out there.

btw...75 is as old as ya feel (I've got a ways to get there, but I'm not as far as I used to be from there). There's 70-year-olds at 'rosity, we did a thread once, and you'd be surprised..;)

Go to snapfiles.com their 'freeware' section has lots of freeware graphic programs and other free goodies to download for Vista and other Window Platforms. This site is loaded with useful software. I highly recommend it. The last time I was there I saw some Vista freeware programs on their downloads page but you have to look/read to see what platforms the freeware offers before you download it.

I vote for Infranview. Very simple and great prog. Even plays music and videos.

Infranview, yeah.... I forgot about that one. An old roommate used to have that on their computer and if I remember right, it was fairly easy to learn. I'll check some of these others out as well. Thanks for the advice!! 

I used to use GIMP back before I bought Photoshop and decided that my dad probably wouldn't like it. It's not that he's slow or anything of the sort but, he is VERY stubborn/impatient when it comes to learning new things on the computer.

"btw...75 is as old as ya feel (I've got a ways to get there, but I'm not as far as I used to be from there). There's 70-year-olds at 'rosity, we did a thread once, and you'd be surprised..;)"

Yep... I remember seeing some of those threads and thinking at 37, I'm pratically an infant around here! Sheeshh... didn't all you old folks put up with enough crap from your own kids already? Now you've got Victoria and all her bratty cousins to deal with...WILLINGLY, no less!

Thanks again!

Pakled. That GIMP link does not seem to work.

Attached Link: Gimp for Windows

On the theory that you can never have to many good tools, here is a little but very cool photo handeling program.

http://photofiltre.free.fr/frames_en.htm

Free and easy, plus some of the built in filters are VERY good.

Even for us with higher end apps this definatly has it's uses. Like the ink outlines function easiely makes our poser renders to look like comic books.

Dont get me wrong, I LOVE the gimp too.  But I honestly can't see a 75 yr old figuring out how to use it..  - and trying to get help with it when stuff goes fubar is not gunna happen either.  I really wouldn't recommend that to someone who isn't up for a learning challenge.

ok..ok...I'm more worried about the link not working...stubborn I understand..;) have a Dad (79) that was an electrical engineer..just bought a G5..so you never know..;) sorry bout the link. I'll update the database...