Thread: editing software

I love lightroom 5 cost 175 bux and worth every penny if you ask me....

you can use it just a little or a lot what ever takes your fancy.

If you look in the anything goes picture thread on the last page you will see two shots that I took and then played with gives you a small idea of some of the things you can do..if you want to.

and apart from that it has a really good easy workflow and makes life easy for cataloguing your photos

Plus one for lightroom.

But be aware that it is a RAW converter and image management program with some nice colour adjustment tools. It's perfect if you are working on one image at a time.

If down the track you start to need to do more heavy duty manipulation such as combining images and extensive retouching, that is where programs like photoshop are necessary. There is an open source program called gimp (gimp.org) but at the moment it only does bits per channel images. To maintain all the image quality your camera is recording, 16bits per channel is better, people seem to be happy with photoline PhotoLine: Image Processing ( I use photoshop but work pays for that ).

One really good thing about lightroom is that it does non-desctuctive editing. If at any stage you don't like the changes you have made to an image you can return to the state where you imported it. You can even take snapshots showing different processing for the same image.

Bernie

Is lightroom able to do HDR?

At the moment I think you need to merge the images in something else. Process Your HDR Images in Lightroom | Lightroom Secrets

B

Try the GIMP

No not that one, this one: GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program

Introduction to GIMP

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.
GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

Depends on what you want to do with the photos.

GIMP (above) is like photoshop, extremely powerful but takes a lot of learning to get the best out of it. GIMP can "do HDR" but it is more of a manual process like it was in photoshop a few versions back.

IrfanView is also freeware but much more basic. It can do colour adjustments, brightness, contrast, etc, but not merging images together or adjusting one part of the photo while leaving the rest unchanged.

Lightroom is a partner program to photoshop, it is designed for making the same changes to lots of images quickly but it lacks the advanced features of photoshop.

Adobe's product for 'amateur' use is Photoshop Elements, it will do everything 99% of photographers want. And it is very user friendly, ie common tasks are automated and simplified. It is often bundled with new cameras and sometimes it has been cheaper to buy a cheap point and shoot camera with it than buy it directly.

HDR is difficult to do well, if you are interested "Stuck in Customs" is a good website to get you started.

Actually all photo editing is hard to do well, ie not look like it has been edited. Whichever program you choose, expect to spend a while learning the fine line between sharp and little halos start to appear. But it is very satisfying when you get it right and have your pictures on the wall.

Dan

There is also PhotoShop Elements which is pretty good value. It will do most things a hobby photographer wants.

And another Vote for LightRoom but you will still need another package like PhotoShop

I have Nikon cameras including the 300s and I am very happy with Nikon Capture NX2.