software question

What actually is photoshop EXPRESS... comes included with windows 10 updates and well it wants a user login, and when i try to search it online all roads lead to it being adobe photoshop standard version with the 20$ monthly usage fee..

yet windows tells me this

Adobe Photoshop Express

version 3.6.385.0

App 47.7 MB

definitely NOT the full version

It's basically rubbish unless you just want to make a couple simple changes to your image file. To access more features, one pays for them.

If someone is really serious about editing and creation features--pony up and get the photography package from Adobe. That runs a little over $10 a month and includes Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Bridge. See here: Photo and image editing software for photographers | Adobe

There are many less costly, and even free alternatives available. Google is your friend!

Google Search Results for Photoshop Alternatives

IHMO the features that Adobe PhotoshopExpress offers for free are impressive. It's designed for mobile devices and it has typical easy-to-apply effects and filters that give photos a certain 'look'. Photos can easily be cropped to 'social media formats' for sharing. But the app can be downloaded and used as a W10/11 desktop app too. It's easy to use and includes basic photo-editing features including adjusting the color, contrast, cropping to fixed and custom formats and exporting with a custom size and .jpg quality. The only difference I see between the free and premium versions is that the premium version includes more advanced features like selection, layers, noise reduction, HSL editing, and many more themes, overlays, and 'looks'.

I use Lightroom and Photoshop on a desktop and occasionally PS Express on my phone. But I once recommended trying the W10 PS Express app to someone who was unfamiliar with Post-processing and (then) on a very tight budget. He wanted to start learning the basics of PP and PS Express was a free and easy to use editing tool. I'm sure there are now many (perhaps better) free alternatives. I've used a couple of online editors in the past.

all roads lead to it being adobe photoshop standard version with the 20$ monthly usage fee..

The full Adobe plan costs $10 / month, not $20. $20 buys that plus1 TB of storage (Compare pricing & plans | Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan) which is completely unneccessary for use of the software.

@tommyfilmist has not replied yet to our tender ministrations and comments!

What we can glean from the OP's text is that he is wanting to work his imaging on an M$ desktop. As @mikemorrell wrote, the real advantage of PS Essentials (freemium) is on a mobile smartphone or tablet. I suppose that one could run it on a desktop,

Let's clear it up a bit more as @paddler4 began. With tax (checked my bank account) it's $10.79 a month. It comes with 20Gb of included cloud storage. A crap-ton of free stock graphics, elements, and fonts. Plus there is a whole lot of other stuff--including Photoshop Express for mobile. Not to seem like a shill for them ( :p ) but I have learned to rely on this platform for over 20 years... Here is a screenshot of my Adobe account to validate:

DxO Labs makes a compelling alternative. Their schema is to license a current local machine install (such as DxO Photolab 5), and if you want to eventually move to version 6--pay an upgrade fee. There are lots of regular current version updates to be had so one doesn't really get left behind. I use their Nik Collection v4 quite regularly--IMHO it's one of the best-paid add-ons to PS.

Totally off-topic, but because it was mentioned--the cheapest 'deep' storage of files can be had via creating an Amazon S3 account. Then, using an FTP app like Filezilla upload a whole bunch of stuff. This doesn't mean that one should not have a local NAS RAID storage to make doubly sure! :cool: