Beginner Beginner question,...& editing software?

Marc1548

Marc1548

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Edit My Images
Yes
Hi all, I rekindled my photography interest only about a years ago after a considerable layoff, so class me in the beginner section! But did a photography A level at school about 1000 yeas ago[emoji15], well before digital.
So far Iv been muddling through with an old Nikon d90 & a couple of zooms, but have some great images. I don’t have a pc or laptop, only an iPad at the moment, & any editing has been limited using the Affinity Photo app.
I want to make things a little easier, than using a small iPad
& play around a bit more with creative editing,
For reasons of lack of space & the need for portability I really need to go the laptop route & as far as computer platforms go I’m very much an apple person....”boo hiss”, so am thinking “Mac Book” open to suggestions though?
As you can see my practical knowledge of editing softwares is limited so which way to go?
Photoshop seems to be the top choice, but I don’t like the idea of a subscription, & would probably take another year to get my head round it, seems expensive & would I use everything it provides? & what’s lightroom all about?
Would it be better to go for the cheaper PS Elements? With no subscription, stick to Affinity, or bite the bullet with full PS.
Some considerations,... I need to store & manage my images in an orderly logical manner on computer,
& need to edit RAW files. Lots of tutorials would be good also Affinity is a bit limited.
Sorry for all the numpty questions that have probably been asked a million times already but I would appreciate some advice here.
Thanks. Marc
 
Hi Marc, as you seem to be finding out, digital photography is part camera for taking, part software for developing.

Most laptop operating systems come with basic photo editing software to do a fair amount of what we call ‘post processing’, or try using Google photos which has editing s/w available and is in the cloud.
Read about basic editing on eg YouTube or sites like Cambridge in Colour. Then read & view again, there are loads of tutorials out there.
Once you are moving up the learning curve, you may want to try other software and for cataloguing your images, look at Skylum Luminar 2018, which is now (Dec) shipping with a catalogue facility and is a one off payment after trial.(MAC and PC versions).
Photoshop and Lightroom (known as PS and LR) are very advanced s/w and have a long learning curve for beginners, so resist them until you know you really need their tools, save your money.
For organising your photos in the meantime, use eg Dropbox or Google Drive which are cross platform and can be accessed on a future PC or Mac purchase. Save your photos into a folder with the name YearMonthDateShoot (eg 2018Dec12Zoo] make it easier to find down the road on you Mac or Windows laptop.
 
johnty52 said:
Photoshop and Lightroom (known as PS and LR) are very advanced s/w and have a long learning curve for beginners, so resist them until you know you really need their tools, save your money.
Click to expand...

I would agree with the Photoshop part, but Lightroom is much easier to get your head around and because so many people use it, there are LOADS of YouTube tutorials available.

Essentially it is 'complete' Photography workflow tool, whereas Photoshop gets into more creative editing and digital design. With Lightroom you get catalog & image management, powerful tools for tagging images, a very capable image editing ("development") tool, as well as a bunch of export or printing options. This is not to say that other tools cannot do the job just as well, however I wouldn't describe Lightroom as very advanced, unless you're going to consider ANY software tool very advanced. I wouldn't bother with Photoshop for now until you really need it.

Of course there is the question of the subscription model and the fact that you can't split it from Photoshop, but you can still buy standalone "old" versions of Lightroom which will do the trick.

It might be worth waiting for someone to suggest a free tool for now, just to learn the ropes of RAW conversion and editing, which is largely comparible across software.
 
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Reading your post it sounds like Lightroom is perfect for what you require. You can organise and edit your photos all in one place. Lightroom has grown into a pretty powerful photo editor now, I never feel the need to bring an image into Photoshop for further work anymore.
 
Hiya Marc.

There is nothing wrong with using Apple. I have Windows based PC and Apple iPad. I have a Minolta film camera and a Nikon digital camera. I like Star Trek and Star Wars! It is your right to want to go for an Apple Mac if you want to.

I know nothing about Mac laptops, but want to point out one important suggestion, don't think too much about specs that are too close in the field. What I mean is don't think which is better 1.5GHz or 1.7GHz? Which is better 4GB RAM or 8GB RAM? Which is better 22" screen or 24" screen. Usually they're too similar and most of them can do the job anyway.

Think about the size and weight of the Mac laptop itself. Think about if you want to go for the smaller one with something like a 60% layout or a larger one with a full size layout. (60% is like the main keyboard but without the number pad on the right side of the keyboard. Full size is one of those models with the keyboard and the number pad on the right size.) It can make a difference to the width of the laptop.

Think of Lightroom (often abbreviated as LR) as a mug shot catalogue the police used to have in the old days. LR's main role is to act like a database of all your photos, for you to look at. Like a museum using a catalogue to keep records of what they have in the museum. Think of it as similar to your Apple iPad's Photos app. This is LR's main and primary role. LR's secondary role is editing, you can do some editing like adjusting light levels, removing spots, etc., but you can select a photo and open it in Photoshop.

You can stay with your Affinity application software, nobody is forcing you to upgrade to Photoshop. You are free to carry on using Affinity for as long as you like, until you feel yourself no longer a beginner and feel ready enough to have a go changing software to Photoshop. Not much different from the old days of when we all used to use Windows's own basic word processor until we feel we've mastered it enough to go for a more complex word processor like Microsoft Word. Take your time, decide when you feel like you are ready to move on to the bigger players. Not much different from using iPad's own iCal, until you feel you had enough of its limited functionary or feel confidence enough to go for something more, then when you're ready, you opt to install a 3rd party but more complex calendar app.

I would suggest that you focus on the laptop first. Get yourself an MacBook then spend time familiar yourself with it. Build up enough experience with it. Use Affinity for a while, until you feel you can master the laptop, then opt to go for something more. I would also suggest if it alarms and worries you too much, why not go for PS Elements first, then spend time with it, familiar yourself with it, build up experience. When the time comes you feel that it too is somewhat limited for your needs, then you can opt for Photoshop. One step at a time, like the RAF pilots start with a propeller training aircraft, master it, move on to single engine Hawk trainer jet, master it, finally move on to a more complex Typhoo or Lightning II.
 
Hi Marc, there's lots of options.

First things first - photo-editing software generally doesn't care whether you run it on a Mac or PC - performance will be the same on the same spec hardware, and the user interface is normally identical. Feel free to use the hardware fromthe supplier of your choice.

Lightroom has been recommended - it's very good for image deveopment and offers some deeper editing with coloning tools to remove dust and unwanted objects, plus a lot more stuff for managing your work. Buy a stand-alone copy if you don't want to subscribe.

Also consider:

On1 PhotoRaw - just released a new version. Offers most of the tools of Lightroom plus makes some of the more useful bits of photoshop in a single package, with non-destructive image editing.

DXO Photolabs - a little more automated than other packages, but offers a very professional image development package as a stand alone.

I have experience of all the above and recommend them.

Affinity - never used it, but AFAIK that's not an image development package, and is more suited to making deep edits.
 
Marc1548 said:
For reasons of lack of space & the need for portability I really need to go the laptop route & as far as computer platforms go I’m very much an apple person....”boo hiss”, so am thinking “Mac Book” open to suggestions though?
As you can see my practical knowledge of editing softwares is limited so which way to go?
Click to expand...
I have a MacBook, but not sure I would recomend it as a main editing machine, it does run Lightroom/Photoshop OK, but the screen is small the processor isn't very powerful. It is very portable though. My choice for an only laptop for editing would be a MacBook Pro, ideally the 15" version if you will not be using an external monitor. However if your budget doesn't stretch that far I would go for the new MacBook Air, rather than the MacBook. It has a slightly bigger screen and better processor etc.

​
Marc1548 said:
What’s lightroom all about?
Click to expand...
Lightroom is about the part in bold below!
​
Marc1548 said:
Would it be better to go for the cheaper PS Elements? With no subscription, stick to Affinity, or bite the bullet with full PS.
Some considerations,... I need to store & manage my images in an orderly logical manner on computer,
& need to edit RAW files. Lots of tutorials would be good also Affinity is a bit limited.
Sorry for all the numpty questions that have probably been asked a million times already but I would appreciate some advice here.
Thanks. Marc
Click to expand...
 
I would stick with Affinity over PS Elements, and forget about full Photoshop.

You can organise images yourself, without an app, by thinking up a sensible folder structure that seems logical to you going forward.

Something like Lightroom does have extensive image library management capabilties, but these might not be necessary to you.

But also it is an advanced raw processing engine, which these days for most serious digital image makers is a must. It might be possible to find a legitimate copy of version 5 or 6 that's been pre-owned, and with the complicity of the seller its licence can be transfered to you under the oversight of Adobe. This procedure is fairly painless.

The two apps that Toni mentions above - On1 PhotoRaw and DxO Photolab - are worthy alternatives for raw processing, and can be bought outright.
 
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A few suggestions (I'm excluding CC as I'm also not keen on rentals - I haven't used Photoshop more recently than CS6):

The desktop/laptop version of Affinity Photo is more capable than the iPad version you have, and is often rated higher than Photoshop Elements. Photo is a flagship product for Affinity and is as good as they can make it, whereas Adobe hold things back from Elements for the full version of PS (though these might not be things you care about). You can download demos for both Affinity Photo and PS Elements and see which you prefer. Raw processing isn't the strongest point of Affinity Photo, and it doesn't do image organisation, but it's an excellent editor that rivals Photoshop in some areas and has a few nice tricks of its own.

You can still buy standalone Lightroom 6 from Amazon as a download for a one-off payment of about £104. The only problem is it will no longer receive updates for new camera raw formats (or security issues). It's a nice piece of software that will work with your existing camera, but is a bit of a dead end at this point. Lightroom has a good combination of basic editing, raw processing and image browsing and image organisation features that's hard to beat for the price, so it's pity this will be the last standalone version.

Take a look at Nikon's own free packages for excellent quality raw processing and basic browsing / image selection (but not Lightroom-style organisation):

https://nikonimglib.com/ncnxd/
https://nikonimglib.com/nvnxi/

Capture NX-D is a fully-featured raw converter, and in the most recent version has restored the 'control point' technology that had been missing from the last few versions of Capture. It has a decent image browser too, which arguably makes Nikon's other package, ViewNX-i (a browser and basic raw converter) somewhat superfluous (though each has a button that calls the other, so it's easy to switch between them). I prefer the default output of Nikon's own raw converters to Adobe's (though I haven't used the latest tools in CC). The downside of Nikon's packages is that they tend to be slower and clunkier than some of the third party alternatives.
 
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The one thing I should have said about Apple laptops is that they are not user-upgradable, meaning that you will be stuck with whatever you could afford. For *me* that completely kills any interest I have in a Macbook, and having used a Mac for 6 years for my business, made me replace it with a Dell that has been very affordably upgraded when it needed more storage. If you want a Macbook then I'd recommend buying the highest spec machine that you can afford, because that's all it can ever be.
 
ancient_mariner said:
The one thing I should have said about Apple laptops is that they are not user-upgradable, meaning that you will be stuck with whatever you could afford. For *me* that completely kills any interest I have in a Macbook, and having used a Mac for 6 years for my business, made me replace it with a Dell that has been very affordably upgraded when it needed more storage. If you want a Macbook then I'd recommend buying the highest spec machine that you can afford, because that's all it can ever be.
Click to expand...
I've just upgraded my MacBook with a larger, solid state hard drive and more ram. I also upgraded a Windows laptop with SSD drive.

The MacBook was massively more straight forward to upgrade than the Windows laptop.
 
FlyPhot said:
I've just upgraded my MacBook with a larger, solid state hard drive and more ram. I also upgraded a Windows laptop with SSD drive.

The MacBook was massively more straight forward to upgrade than the Windows laptop.
Click to expand...

Your Macbook is old, and all versions of the Macbook pro since the 2012 model have both RAM and storage soldered to the Mobo and the battery glued in place. Upgrading a typical windows laptop is no more difficult than upgrading an old Macbook.
 
Thanks guys.
Some great info here, one thing I should point out is I meant MacBook Pro Iv been looking at what’s available & the 15 is the way to go I think, as for the lack of ability to upgrade, has to be the top spec model.
Thanks for all your comments on software, I’m getting my head round it now, Lightroom does seem good for my immediate photo editing ie RAW & organising, so will seriously concider this & tbh I’m no graphic designer so I agree not going to bother with PS for now.
Affinity to me looks quite good though haven’t really scratched the surface so may stick with this for a while & I didn’t realise the pc version was more capable,.
 
Thanks for asking this question Marc1548. It has helped me loads. I am a bit of a numpty when it comes to which software is best and isn't way expensive.. and what is Lightroom about? Some great info shared here.. thanks all :)
 
Hi Marc

Like you I wasn’t keen on paying monthly for lightroom or photoshop so I looked into free software. I currently use RawTherapee for editing my raw files, which is a reeeally good piece is software esp considering it’s free. Lots of YouTube tutorials out there to get your head around it. For more detailed editing I use GIMP also free. Very powerful software but takes some learning - again, YouTube is your friend. You can do pretty much anything on GIMP that you can do on photoshop - with photoshop you’re paying for user-friendlyness

Good luck with it!
Tom
 
ancient_mariner said:
a little more automated than other packages
Click to expand...
That's totally unfair - it's only as automated as you want it to be. As with most apps, you can change defaults (commonly found under 'edit' / 'preferences'). It's hands-on all the way for me. Though its auto functions are pretty good, I suspect, if that's your drift ...

I've been providing a bit of commentary as a new-ish user of it who's traditionallly used Lightroom, not far from here -
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/dxo-half-price.688570/

And it's available for mac.
 
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droj said:
And 16-bit layers and full cmyk capability - or has Gimp caught up?
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Sounds like you’re trying to justify your ‘subscription’ ;)

The advice with gear is always ‘use what you’ve got until you reach its limitations - then fork out for something better’. I think similar should apply with software: Use the free stuff until you feel you need whatever it is that paid software is offering.
 
Tom Pinchenzo said:
Sounds like you’re trying to justify your ‘subscription’
Click to expand...
I don't have a sub to justify. I was just mentioning stuff I've used in PS that other apps mostly couldn't do (at the time, but I don't bother to stay up to date on that).

I'm in accord with your attitude generally, whether it's to do with hardware or software.
 
The question to ask is how much post processing am I going to do. If it’s minimal then go for a cheap option if it’s going to be heavy then pay for a good solution. All these products give you a trial period so use them to your advantage
 
droj said:
That's totally unfair - it's only as automated as you want it to be. As with most apps, you can change defaults (commonly found under 'edit' / 'preferences'). It's hands-on all the way for me. Though its auto functions are pretty good, I suspect, if that's your drift ...

I've been providing a bit of commentary as a new-ish user of it who's traditionallly used Lightroom, not far from here -
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/dxo-half-price.688570/

And it's available for mac.
Click to expand...

It's quite fair - you open an image in LR and the adjustments are minimal. Open an image in DXO and BAM! all the built-in tweaks are delivered full on, unless it's changed since version 11. Not a problem for an experienced user, but not helpful for a novice.
 
MysterRees said:
Thanks for asking this question Marc1548. It has helped me loads. I am a bit of a numpty when it comes to which software is best and isn't way expensive.. and what is Lightroom about? Some great info shared here.. thanks all :)
Click to expand...

No worries, I have gained some very useful info from here also. It’s mind boggling how much there is out there.
 
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