Deb ..

FYI ... There was very little to learn ... I was surprised about how easy it was to make the change.

Linux is a lot more user friendly than it used to be but there's still a lot of "geek ware " involved. I run Mint on a couple older laptops that MS no longer supports. I like it, but prefer the Mac for everyday usage. I haven't touched MS since XP.

I would recommend Irfanview as well, it's very simple and user friendly. I upgraded to Windows 10 recently and just don't use the photo uploader. I upload my photos from my card and organise them myself in Windows Explorer.

I really like digiKam.
It is free on Linux and on Windows.
I originally tried it because the UI and documentation for other Linux photo programs for basic tasks like cropping and recompressing made what should be trivial hard, and digiKam was reported to be easier.

Making and adjusting the selection for cropping in digiKam works exactly the way that makes sense. I was always stunned that so many other photo programs make that so much harder than it ought to be. Recompressing isn't a bad feature in digiKam but has a typically confusing UI and incorrect documentation.

digiKam is primarily a photo organization tool, not an editing tool. I didn't think I would want a photo organization tool. I like managing my own folders. But having used it, I'm now a believer. A lot of the value is in undoing the damage Apple software does in being a super vicious non optional photo organization tool. Working with multiple devices including my wife's iphone and an ipad we share, and trying to back up photos through various software, the intrusive Apple software renames files, hides file names, recompresses files and generally takes away any practical way of knowing whether two similar photos were originally the same or different shots. digiKam's duplicate detection works very well to sort all that out.

Also, tagging photos and viewing by tag is very useful.

It has only basic photo editing tools, not the extreme power of something like Gimp. But I never figured out how to use the advanced features in Gimp. Cropping and recompressing are all I know how to use in digiKam. It has the basic tools to adjust brightness and color balance and similar things. Those are so confusing to me in most photo editing tools, so I could never get acceptable results. In digiKam, those are even more confusing so I could only randomly get either no effect, or trash the photo.

I really don't want to do much editing of my photos. My old camera, an Olympus D-460Zoom, is really an primitive digital camera. It doesn't have enough pixils for untouched photos to be uploaded. So, I don't think a little tweaking of the photos as "cheating" ...

I do have a newer camera, but by today's standards, it is still obsolete, but I like it and the quality of the photos. They often only need a bit of cropping and maybe some resizing.

I don't want to use the advanced features of a photo editing software. I want to learn how to make the camera do the work.

I'll look into digiKam. For now, I've just been using my XP for my photos and then transferring them over to the Linux computer.

I should point out digiKam is supposed to be able to understand many things about the camera when connected to it via USB. I tried and failed to get it to see the camera at all via USB in Linux and never tried in Windows 10.
Linux itself does a reasonable job of seeing the camera as a removable usb flash drive, so I can upload photos to Linux and delete them from the camera that way. But I also have a USB adapter so I can pop the memory card out of the camera and into the adapter. Done that way, Linux is much faster and more flexible about operations on the photos on that memory card. So I usually move photos to Linux that way. Either of those methods is outside of DigiKam. DigiKam instantly and cooperatively recognizes any such changes you make using other tools to the directories that it thinks it is managing.

I have always used a card reader with both cameras. It just seemed easier to me ..

gasrocks said:World's most popular free photo program = Irfanview. User friendly. The GIMP is way too complicated. Gene

So easy, Irfanview is my go-to. GIMP and more on my menu. It's great program. Too easy but I use it 90%

Bonehead,
did you find a app that works for you?
GIMP is very powerful, but too much for my needs.

Paint.net is simple but has more than enough bells & whistles for me.
I can show you how to use it, if you haven't tried yet......piece of cake.

I'm so far just using whatever is on my computer, likely some Windows program. It seems to do fine. I don't do much editing to photos other than cropping and slightly adjusting lighting (if need be). I finally figured out how to NOT have it automatically upload, which is nice - I do my initial editing/deleting, then drag the files to the appropriate direction, then delete my whole card so I start fresh again. I used to have some version of Paint and it was too much for me. My son is a Photoshop guy, but he also does CAD so he's just way beyond me... My needs are pretty basic.

I have an iMac which I originally used with my RAZR flip phone. About the same time that I got a 5s iPhone (a gift from a sister-in-law who was getting a newer iPhone and was tired of my indecisiveness), Apple added Photos. I hate Photos. The organization is horrendous. I try to use iPhoto when possible but it seems to be migrating my photos , in no specific order, to the newer 'shinier' Photos. Photos than makes these sleek little 'memories' that (a) I don't want and (b) make no sense. It will combine family pics from the 60s with garden pictures from 2016 and call that a memory. I need to figure out how to disable it. Plus I suspect that the memories increase the amount of storage needed. I guess if it's not one thing it's another.