Software opinions please

[SheffSean]

I hope this is in the right place, in short I could just do with some opinions on which software to buy, there seems to be so many to chose from, thanks in advance.

Sean.

[Cyberman]

Re: Software opinions please

Really depends on budget.
I have subscribed to Adobe's photographers bundle which is £8.78 a month, you get Photoshop and Lightroom with the bonus of keeping up to date.
Other than that there are many one of purchase options such as Photoshop Elements, or you could stick with the free Canon software.

Lots to consider, happy choosing!

[Dave_S]

Re: Software opinions please

For something that is easy to get your head around, and yet quite comprehensive, then Adobe Photoshop Elements 12, is a good starting point. Its also not expensive, especially compared with the 'full blown' later variants of CS.

Lightroom 5 is also another good option.


I have both, but make more use of Elements 12, than I do LR5.

I also have CS, but tend only to use this for processing my astro-images. which is somewhat more involved than processing terrestrial images.

Dave

[ST-EOS]

Re: Software opinions please

My advice would be try before you buy any software for post processing of your images (Adobe and Phase One both do trial versions of their products) Also don't overlook the Canon. Software that came with your camera.

[Stan]

Re: Software opinions please

I'm guessing you are quite new to photography and processing so you need to keep things quite simple and a good starting point would be Photoshop Elements which gives you options for either a "quick fix", a "guided" workflow and as you get to grips "expert"

You can download a 30 day trial from the Adobe website to give it a testing before commiting to buy

stan

[Tigger]

Re: Software opinions please

another vote for Lightroom 5 its a good basic editor and a great database for your images - I've not used Elements 12 yet, but I'm downloading it this week as theres a few features it offers that I want and LR doesn't offer them i

[DrJon]

Re: Software opinions please

There are a bunch of types of software out there, many have free alternatives. It depends on what you want to do and what is your budget. Also what computer you have (PC/Mac, 32/64 bit). Most of the non-free software has a free trial.

Raw processing:
If you want to work with raw files (assuming you have a camera that shoots raw) to improve pictures then the easiest place to start is Canon's free DPP software. There are a lot of paid alternatives but Lightroom 5 is a good choice, provided you spend some time to watch tutorials on using it, as otherwise it can be confusing. Canon has a series of video tutorials. You can do some very simple editing in Lightroom too.

Photo editing:
There's a LOT of stuff out there. Personally I suggest people look at Photoshop Elements as it's pretty cheap and there is a lot of online help available in using it. Note Photoshop Elements can do raw conversions, but not in bulk like Lightroom, so I wouldn't get it for Raw unless you think you'll just do the odd image from time-to-time.

You can stop reading now as that's covered the basics, the rest of the post is in case you are looking for other ideas.

Video editing:
Lots of choices, I won't list go into this unless you do video.

Others:
Image viewers (I like Irfanview, free)
Panorama stitchers (e.g. PtGui Pro, although there are free ones too like Hugin and Microsoft ICE)
Noise reducers (Neat Image, or just get DXO Optics Pro as your Raw converter instead of Lightroom)
Special effects (Endless choices, e.g. DXO FilmPack, CollageIt, a zillion others - a lot of the effects can be done in Photoshop Elements if you just have a look around online).
Plugins for Photoshop: Many, including some of the above have plugin versions (I have neat image, fisheye hemi, focus magic, XRite, DXO)

Utilities like:
Exifer
ExifTool Gui
ExposurePlot
Focus and Exposure stackers like Registax6

Utilities for hardware:
E.g. XRite Colour Checker software, etc. etc.

Software for phones:
I like - Expositor, SnapSeed, TrueHDR, Waterlogue, plus others like panorama display software and software to show where the Sun will be at locations/times.

[SheffSean]

Re: Software opinions please

Excellent replies gents, thank you so much for your opinions and In depth advice too, it's not so much I'm a newbie to digital photography, it's more like ignorance on my part.

Sean.

[2Beers]

Re: Software opinions please

If your gonna go with lightroom 5 then consider going with the adobe photographers package at £8.78/month and for that you get lightroom 5 and adobe photoshop cc for not much more than the cost of lightroom 5

[SheffSean]

Re: Software opinions please

Thanks for the help and advice, I've looked at the canon disc that came with my camera but it seems very limited in its ability to make any great changes with the photos I've got, this could be my fault or our out of date computer so I'm thinking seriously about buying Lightroom 5, what I'd really like to know is can I buy the software in disc form, the reason for this is because I'm going to buy my sons laptop and don't want to buy the software as a download and install it on our main computer, the laptop I can take on holiday with me and process stuff in my caravan, the problem at the moment is I can't afford to buy both so a disc would be more practical for me, bet you lot are getting sick of my questions.

Sean.

[Opifex]

Re: Software opinions please

Can I put in a plug for GIMP2? It has lots of features, there are plenty of online tutorials to get you started, and it's free.

It can be downloaded from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ so you can give it a try and simply delete it if you don't like it.

[Tigger]

Re: Software opinions please

Thanks for the help and advice, I've looked at the canon disc that came with my camera but it seems very limited in its ability to make any great changes with the photos I've got, this could be my fault or our out of date computer so I'm thinking seriously about buying Lightroom 5, what I'd really like to know is can I buy the software in disc form, the reason for this is because I'm going to buy my sons laptop and don't want to buy the software as a download and install it on our main computer, the laptop I can take on holiday with me and process stuff in my caravan, the problem at the moment is I can't afford to buy both so a disc would be more practical for me, bet you lot are getting sick of my questions.

Sean.

if you want to buy it in disk form just head over to Amazon - but you can download it from Adobe and install it onto multiple pcs, I did when buying it and installed it onto a couple of machines, in fact I don't think theres a restriction on the amount of times you can download it once you have the product code - but, you said "old pc" you need to to the mini operating system for LR as its very labour intensive and your PC may not run it, or if t does could be very jumpy

[DrJon]

Re: Software opinions please

System requirements | Lightroom

http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/system-requirements.html

"64-bit Installation Notes
Windows: The Lightroom installer contains both a 32-bit and 64-bit version of the application. By default, the 64-bit version will be installed only on Windows 7 and Windows 8 64-bit operating systems. All other operating systems will install the 32-bit version by default."

[SheffSean]

Re: Software opinions please

Thanks fellas, sorry but some of that is Greek to me, I'm afraid I'm one of your classic techno phobes, I think the best thing to do is wait until my son comes home from work and have a look at the laptop he's selling me and maybe take a pic of the info and ask you guys if will be ok for LR if that's ok please.

Sean.

[Tigger]

Re: Software opinions please

I do find LR to be a real hog when it comes to the resources of a PC and my rule of thumb is the faster and the more memory the better, otherwise it will be jerky and will soon drive you mad - But why not download the trial version and fire it up and see how it performs - its a 30 day free offer