Beginner Editing Software Recommendations

Just to throw something else into the processing mix, I know everyone on here is wedded to Adobe but PaintShop Pro X6 is pretty impressive for £60 (you can also get a free trial period). I've just upgraded from an old version that was about 12 years old. It does everything I want to do and more, does all the things I used to use PSE for, is very easy to use & doesn't mess with your filing system. Might be worth a look?
 
MFlip said:
I'm in the Midlands, camped over for FoS. Amazing weekend. If I lived just down the road I think I'd be there every year!
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That's the sad part every year I keep saying I'll go and I've never been and I've lived down here for 10 years now.

I've been messing around with the clone tool for hours now and I still don't like it, it's great if you've got a large area you can clone from but when you haven't it's a complete nightmare, gimp is much better for that BUT every time I use auto it bring up better colours than anything else especially if they're shot on a bad day with poor light and it brings the detail right back instead of it just being in shadows. I might get a copy just for that, import all the pictures I'm going to work on, colour adjust them all at the same time on auto knowing the starting point for colour is pretty good and then do everything else in gimp.

I wish you could crop full screen as well, I like to see what the finished crop will look like when you open it up.

I will have a look at Paintshop as well and I'm going to try the other 2 freebies people have mentioned, I've got some time at the moment so I may as well invest that in finding the best / quickest for tool for when I'm busier.

Thanks for everybody's input by the way it's much appreciated!!!
 
Witterings said:
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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As Andrew has already explained, Lightroom does not change whatever file structure you already have. The term "import" is misleading, as Lightroom does not physically move the position of the file within your existing file structure, it only "refers" to it, which is why Lightroom should never corrupt your original file. That is also why you are confused by the term "catalogue", which is there for the purpose of Lightroom organising the edits and data keywords etc, done to the referred image in your file structure. Lightroom only creates a new image file when you choose to export a file with your edits. It doesn't change the original of the file but applies your edits to the new exported file.
You should really study the tutorials of Julie Ann Kost on the Adobe website or the many others elsewhere, or buy Martin Evenings excellent book on LR, or I fear you you will continue to misunderstand the huge benefits of using LR. :)
 
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DerekL said:
You may also want to look at Lightzone. This is a free open source Lightroom clone, it may do what you want.

http://lightzoneproject.org/
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Another fan of Lightzone here. I was using GIMP but its not that intuitive compared to Lightzone. I sometimes mix it up and do work on my photos on both Lightzone and Pixlr if I am after a specific effect.
 
Having spent ages with Lightroom and Corel paintshop over the weekend, it's funny how 1 picture can be automatically improved better in one than the other, Corel does tend to keep skies bluer than Lightroom, and sea scenes are a lot "warmer" as well, they alsmost look sunnier in Lightroom but all the blue disappears. Lightroom though will make a better recover of a disastrous photo (ie really bad light) and is better with greens ie grass, this is just using the auto colours with no manual correction.
 
See if you can mix and match like I do to get the both of best worlds. It may not be possible but if the programs can compliment each other so you can get bluer blues and greener greens use both to your advantage :)
 
I use a combo of Lightroom and PS Elements although recently have been using Photo Ninja for RAW conversion (latter wouldn't do what you want though)
 
I tried PS a few years ago and could not get on with it... not really doing any course/looking on the web for help probably didn't aid me.

I tried LR at the beginning of this year and it just clicked with me. I think that's the key thing - it works in a very structured way and if you don't want to work in "its way" then you're always going to be fighting against it. If you don't want to use its cataloguing feature then you're going to be constantly working around its whole M.O.

I find its non-destructive editing and cataloguing to be fantastic. I now use PS much more effectively too, as I found LR was a good intro to some things. PS is hundreds of times more powerful though if that's what you need/want.

My advice would be to try everything (that you can for free, i.e. GIMP, PS and LR) and see what works best. Understand what each actually does and see how it fits with your own workflow. If LR doesn't feel right after a week then move on to something else.

Just because others find it works for them does mean it will work for you. Be honest about how flexible you want to be in working style, flow etc. Don't be afraid to go against the consensus because the only thing which matters is your own satisfaction!
 
I'm currently using GIMP too. I'd like to give Photoshop and Lightroom a go soon, but both are rather pricey. Hopefully Adobe still offer some sort of trial.
 
last time i looked Adobe offered a 1 month trial. Is Faststone worth a mention, although I recently converteed some RAF to JPEG and to go from a 12.5mb RAF to 350ish kb JPEG is too low a resolution for me. the output quality was set to 90%

S7raw is a free RAF converter giving some basic editing tools and today a similar sized file came out at 1.87mb, despite approx 30% crop, PSEedit resulted in a 9mb file. I also loke the drag and drop menu to execute batch conversions
 
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