Beginner Editing Software Recommendations

W

Witterings

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Edit My Images
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Can anyone give me any pointers / comparisons for Editing Software as there are so many to choose from (Lightroom, Elements, Coral Paintshop Pro), I'm relatively new to this and currently using Gimp, I'd be particularly interested in anything that does the job quicker / saves time.
I'm using it for most the normal things like removing unwanted objects from pictures / touching up a an area I'd like it to be strong and would decide one software against another is being able to "Brighten" dull images and make them look sunnier / nicer days than it may actually be.
Any help much appreciated.
 
I use lightroom and it does all I need it to do.
 
Paul-H said:
Hi
if you are just getting started and want a low cost option, GIMP is well worth a look.
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He stated that he's USING Gimp!
drounding said:
Another vote for Lightroom, great bit of software.
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Have I missed something? He said in effect that he wants a clone tool ("removing unwanted objects from pictures / touching up").

Look at Photoshop Elements. Download a trial.
 
droj said:
He stated that he's USING Gimp!

Have I missed something? He said in effect that he wants a clone tool ("removing unwanted objects from pictures / touching up").

Look at Photoshop Elements. Download a trial.
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Lightroom can do this and the other things he wishes.
 
ightroom will do all that you've said you want, and is an easy, quick & logical tool to use. GIMP is very powerful (and also has a clone/heal tool, layers etc like Photoshop) but is less intuitive to use and lacks tools for cataloguing, preparing images for printing etc.
 
I use Lightroom for processing as it's much more intuitive and easier to use than GIMP for saturation, brightness and other tonal/colour alterations etc. Whenever I feel like 'cheating' :D by cloning things out or working with layers I export from Lightroom and do that using GIMP. If you do a lot of 'cheating' then Photoshop is probably a better bet than Lightroom. IMO.
 
I suggest you take the free trial of LR and see how you feel about it.

Personally, I opted for the photographer's cc bundle, which includes LR, photoshop and extras, e.g. lightroom mobile, behance, etc. Not for everyone, perhaps, but I find it an excellent solution to my editing needs.
 
Thanks for all the replies, I do end up doing a lot of cloning things out but I also end up having to lighten a lot of picttues as well, I'll certainly download the free Lightroom trail and see how I get on with ot as I#d heard it recommended else where but may end up as Ed Sutton says using a combination of both!!
 
perhaps just try the recommendations on here and see how it fits for you. Personally Lightroom does eveything i need.
 
Witterings said:
Thanks for all the replies, I do end up doing a lot of cloning things out but I also end up having to lighten a lot of picttues as well, I'll certainly download the free Lightroom trail and see how I get on with ot as I#d heard it recommended else where but may end up as Ed Sutton says using a combination of both!!
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I've used Elements and Lightroom and Canon's own software previously.

I think if you download and try LR and possibly elements, you'll get a feeling of what works for you...
 
CS2 were not doing a free giveaway. Read the licence terms.

If you're just starting, Gimp is very powerful for retouching and Lightzone for Raw developing.

I'd spend some money on a howto guide for Gimp 2.8
 
Whilst LR seems to be very popular I have to say that when I tried it I hated it. C'est la vie.

I've seen good results from Rawtherapee, it's free too.
 
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I have both Lightroom and Elements. I use Lightroom for the vast majority of my editing such as adjusting levels, cropping, straightening, perspective and removal of small objects or blemishes as well as cataloguing and publishing to Flickr

For more significant adjustments such as removing or moving a person in a scene I find the content aware removal tool in Elements 12 much better. The first time I used the content aware tool was one of those 'Wow, how the...?' moments for me.

The trials are a good idea
 
Lightroom for 99% photoshop elements for the 1% where I have something horrible to clone out or need layers. Lightroom is by far the best program I have used to date.
 
Lightroom 4 and up amazing! you can get everything for free if you know where and how to look!
 
OK, so I've downloaded the Lightroom trial, I want to open ONE photo and NOTHING else, I DO NOT want to open and create catalogues / libraries and I don't see a way to open just one photo, edit it and the save the edited photo, if I can't do that I have absolutely no interest what so ever in using it.
Sorry this may come across as me being a bit arsy (is that how you spell it) and it's REALLY not meant to be but even if I know what I'd like it to be able to do I completely and emphatically know what I don't want it to do. If there is no option ............... there should be one!!
 
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Lightroom needs a catalogue to know where your images are. If you want to edit you need to import into the application. This is the same for all editing software. Simply open the import dialogue select the photo you want. There is an uncheck all option. Click the tick box on the image you wish to import and edit away! Why would you not want to organise your images?
 
Muzzieman said:
Lightroom needs a catalogue to know where your images are. If you want to edit you need to import into the application. This is the same for all editing software. Simply open the import dialogue select the photo you want. There is an uncheck all option. Click the tick box on the image you wish to import and edit away! Why would you not want to organise your images?
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Because I've already organised / catalogue'd all of them on a separate storage drive, from what I see this then organises them a 2nd time onto my computer, the reason i bought an external drive is I literally store thousands of photos and don't want them stored on my computer which would kill it's disk space in 3 seconds flat.
Why can't it just offer open a file edit it save it like gimp does, if people then want to use it create libraries fine press on I don't, i want an editing tool not an organisational tool, if I wanted that I'd buy a diary!
Sorry just my take and I don't think it's unreasonable to have the option to opt in or opt out of you don't want it!!!

I did try importing just one by the way and all of a sudden there were 148 photos in the strip below ... I didn't ask for that!!!!
 
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You're completely missing the point of what Lightroom does. It is 100% non destructive editing. Your original images stay the way they were but Lightroom applys the edits over them. I suggest you do some research on how to tell Lightroom where your images are stored. Or import all your images into Lightroom keeping the catalogue on your external drive then if you have duplicates delete them, you can access the images from the Lr catalogue in other apps. All my images are on external drives simply tell it where you want them to be imported to. It's on the right hand side of the app when you are importing. As for saving you can save an image wherever you want just choose the location on export. Simple.
 
If you just want to edit one picture then go for PS Elements.

In addition to the above do you have your photos that are on the external drive backed up on another drive? If not I would suggest you do that first.
 
You obviously didn't click 'uncheck all' then did you if you imported 148 photo's...

Click uncheck all then select the one you want and make sure ONLY that photo is ticked then click import. Edit it how you want then click FILE and select EXPORT and you will have edited and saved ONE file as you wished.

You can delete your catalogues if you wish.
 
1st up I'm quite new to this myself but as far as I understand it the catalogue and the physical location of your photos are two different things. The catalogue is a database\list which amongst other things indicates the location of your pictures.

When I import into my catalogue I also copy the files to a location on my HDD from my camera, this is with the Copy option selected at the top of the Import Screen. Howvever if you just want to add the images to your catalogue but leave them where they are eg on your external drive, then select the Add option.

I've no experience of doing this and I assume you'd need to make sure your external drive is mapped to the same Drive letter every time it is connected.

If you really don't want to get involved with cataloguing then maybe stick to Elements but cataloguing doesn't necessarily mean you have to have an extra copy of all your photos if storage space is your only issue.
 
Also in future you could also use Lightroom to copy the files to your external drive from your camera whilst adding them to the catalogue at the same time if you wanted to. You'd just need to set the right destination and structure for the import when using the Copy option.

The cataloguing and proofing options are really useful for sorting through photo's and clearing out the rubbish. I didn't think they would be when I started so I bought Elements first but now Lightroom is my preferred option.
 
I don't know why, maybe I'm having a brain fart but I'm struggling to get my head round what it actually does with the photos when you import them and if it creates a 2nd copy of the original in a different folder.
i understand you have to import or another way of putting it, open them into the application to be able to edit them but is there a way I can do that, then export the adjusted image into a folder I chose and then just close the image without it retaining where I've been in a list of folders on the left hand side.
I#m guessing this is what you mean by deleting your catalogues ????? If I do that will it just delete the 2nd copy and leave the original exactly as it was????
 
Whether it creates a 2nd copy depends on whether you select the Copy (Creates a 2nd copy) or Add options in Import. If you select Add Lightroom will just Add a reference for the photo to the catalogue (at a very basic level a reference list of the photos as opposed to actual photos) and the catalogue will point to the file in your original file location.

You can then make edits and export creating a new modified file with your changes (You also have the option to add a reference to this exported file to the catalogue but I guess you don't want to do this)

When in Lightroom if you right click on the original image in the catalogue and select remove it will ask if you want to just remove the photo from the catalogue (the reference list) or delete the actual file from the HDD as well.
 
MFlip said:
Whether it creates a 2nd copy depends on whether you select the Copy (Creates a 2nd copy) or Add options in Import. If you select Add Lightroom will just Add a reference for the photo to the catalogue (at a very basic level a reference list of the photos as opposed to actual photos) and the catalogue will point to the file in your original file location.

You can then make edits and export creating a new modified file with your changes (You also have the option to add a reference to this exported file to the catalogue but I guess you don't want to do this)

When in Lightroom if you right click on the original image in the catalogue and select remove it will ask if you want to just remove the photo from the catalogue (the reference list) or delete the actual file from the HDD as well.
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Thanks for that, exactly what I was looking for !!!
 
I've pretty much got my head round most of this thanks to people's input, I'm tempted to use it for 1 reason only, it's auto colour correction whilst maybe slightly lighter than it should be is a useful tool and more accurate than others but the clone tool is awful compared to gimp and no option for full screen to frame pictures and being able to use tools at the same time. If it wasn't for it's better colour correction I wouldn't go near this in a million years!!! Not surprising how many threads there are from people who don't like it / the supposed upgrades there are some very user unfriendly functions in there compared to their competitors systems .................. just me 2p's worth!!!
 
I think that view is probably fair enough. When I was looking I think the general consensus was that Lightroom's strengths were cataloguing, comparing and sorting along with adjusting levels. For more advanced editing using layers, cloning out etc Elements or full Photoshop were the prefered options for many.

That's why I started with Elements, but I find I rarely need or want to alter the content of the image (not sure that's the right expression) and Lightroom allows me to do the rest. It made sorting through a 1000+ images after a recent trip to Goodwood so much easier.
 
MFlip said:
It made sorting through a 1000+ images after a recent trip to Goodwood so much easier.
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Whereabouts are you based, Goodwood's literally just down the road from me or were you there for the festival of speed or something??
 
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