I was looking for an app like Gimp for (1) altering contrast, sharpness, etc. on photos before printing them, & (2) adding captions to photos & Gifs easily. So far I haven't had time to see if Gimp will do that easily. Like Photoshop it takes time to figure out without someone showing you. Any other free Apps that would be better at doing 1 & 2 above?
It sounds like you aren't looking for a Photoshop replacement at all (Photoshop being a very complex program designed for, and mostly used by, professionals), but rather a low-end photo editing utility for ordinary users.
If you are running a recent version of OS X, Preview, included with OS X, can do both of the tasks that you want to do quite easily. Within Preview, click on the button in the toolbar that looks like a toolbox to disclose a number of tools. The tool whose icon looks like a prism will open a window with sliders to quickly allow you to adjust things like contrast, sharpness, saturation, etc. The tool whose icon looks like the letter "A" will allow you to add styled text to photos.
If you want something with more features, but which is still free and easy to use, check out:
ImageTricks (free)
http://www.belightsoft.com/products/imagetricks/overview.php
PhotoScape X (free)
http://x.photoscape.org/mac/
"Pages" is a free App like MS Word! It works fine on the newest OS! Cool! I bet MicroSoft doesn't like "Pages".
Pages isn't exactly free. It is included with new Macs, but otherwise it is a commercial application. However it is very reasonably priced at $20. It's a nice word processor with built-in page layout functionality, but Apple recently completely overhauled it, which brought with it a decrease in features. It isn't nearly as full featured as Word, and Pages' native file format is Mac-only. Conversely, Word has just about any feature you might ever need, and it is designed to work perfectly across platforms. (Word is sort of the Photoshop of word processors.)
I don't think that Microsoft is too worried about Pages. Word is the de facto standard for word processing in businesses around the world, even on the Macintosh. I'm sure that Pages' sales are tiny compared to Word's.
I sent some color pictures to Walmart over the internet & they came back as good as I can print at home. Even with shipping it's cheaper than buying printing supplies & cussing at the printer. 4x6 prints were 9¢ a piece.... the postage was more than the pictures! LOL! Not pushing Walmart which I'm not fond of, but just say'n for those tired of printing common pictures!
We've had conversations about this in other Mac discussion forums. For someone who prints infrequently, Walmart is indeed cheaper, if not as convenient. However, if you use third party (non-OEM, usually from China) ink cartridges and print multiple prints to reasonably priced glossy inkjet photo paper, the cost of printing at home can be fairly competitive. But the main advantage of having an inkjet color printer at home (or even in your office) isn't cost, it's the flexibility that you have in making sure that your prints come out exactly as you want them to.
