Best Post processing software?

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103
Name
Joe
Edit My Images
Yes
Hey guys, back again looking for another reccomendation.

I dont really want to subscribe to adobe's payment methods so I am looking to buy something outright preferably.

I did try the trial for lightroom and quite liked using the hsl sliders, I also use all the basic tools and sometimes healing options, I would like to learn about masking and gradual filters etc.


So any recomendations to replace Photoshop and lightroom would be amazing.

Also guys I'm very new so I may not understand some more complex terms or editing techniques, I shoot raw, portrait and landscape photography mainly.

Thank you very much in advance. I'm so glad I found these forums and look forward to in the distant future being able to help
others haha
 
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I was actually quite keen on Luminar 4 but obviously it's supposed to be very slow so I wasnt sure how bad that would effect me.
 
Have a look at Affinity Photo. On offer just now for £25.

I use lightroom / photoshop but bought this as well. Great focus stacking features built in.

Cheers,
Dougie.
 
DxO Photolab (current version is 3.2)

PS to a degree PP software can be a personal choice..,.....all offer trial periods so download and see which one(s) fit your requirements and working methods.
 
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Affinity Photo is a very capable substitute for Photoshop. However, the raw conversion capabilities fall a bit short IMHO.
For raw processing I use ON1 PhotoRaw2020. You can make the raw conversion inON1, then send it to Affinity for pixel level editing without an intermediate step. Also you can send your developed raw file to the Nik suite, or Photomatix and re-import the result seamlessly back into ON1.
I've not tried printing from ON1 yet - I still send the file to Lightroom 6 to print as I'm familiar with the options and results I get.
 
I have always been a lightroom and Photoshop user, now on subscription, let's face it who could afford the outright price. However I am no expert and I still tend to use the most basic functions, clone, crop, resize and dodge and burn. Get it right in camera and a good image shouldn't need much more
 
I have always been a lightroom and Photoshop user, now on subscription, let's face it who could afford the outright price. However I am no expert and I still tend to use the most basic functions, clone, crop, resize and dodge and burn. Get it right in camera and a good image shouldn't need much more


I just think the price, to basically rent adobe's products is frankly ridiculous. I would like to own what I'm using.
 
Affinity Photo is a very capable substitute for Photoshop. However, the raw conversion capabilities fall a bit short IMHO.
For raw processing I use ON1 PhotoRaw2020. You can make the raw conversion inON1, then send it to Affinity for pixel level editing without an intermediate step. Also you can send your developed raw file to the Nik suite, or Photomatix and re-import the result seamlessly back into ON1.
I've not tried printing from ON1 yet - I still send the file to Lightroom 6 to print as I'm familiar with the options and results I get.
I am working in exactly the same way and I agree completely.
I tried printing from On1 to my Canon "Selphy" dye-sub postcard printer and it worked fine.
My big prints are always sent out to a lab.
I don't have any Adobe software installed on my system.
 
I just think the price, to basically rent adobe's products is frankly ridiculous. I would like to own what I'm using.
The original package price to buy was over £500, and for that you didn't get any long term updates. This way you always have the latest and can use across a couple of computers/phone/tablet
 
The original package price to buy was over £500, and for that you didn't get any long term updates. This way you always have the latest and can use across a couple of computers/phone/tablet
As a result of all the additions that have been "tacked on" over the years, Photoshop has one of the worst User Interface of any major software.
It could benefit from being re-written from the ground up and it might then have a UI which is comparable to Affinity Photo.
When you owned a stand-alone version of PS you could choose if you upgraded when a new version came out, unlike the CC edition, which is "upgraded" whenever Adobe thinks they can fool people into thinking they are getting something worthwhile. As a photographic tool, I would guess that the average photographer probably uses between 10% and 25% of Photoshop's capabilties and as for receiving regular updates, when did PS last receive any significant upgrade?
It's because Adobe can no longer charge for a major upgrade that has led to them introducing the rental model, they can effectively do nothing major to the program and still keep receiving income - quite clever if you are Adobe.
Incidentally, if you read the T&C of ANY software, you will see that you never actually OWN the program, you have purchased a licence to USE the software
I've heard photographers who have the last stand-alone edition of PS (CS6) say they will continue to use it as long as they can, since it does everything they need.
Improvements to PS these days come under the category of "polishing a turd" rather than offering any significant benefit to the end user.
 
I suppose the rental model works well for people who used to buy every edition, but I would usually skip a couple before upgrading. It was because of people like me that Adobe introduced CC. At work, we used to stick the current version of CS Design Standard (PS/Illustrator/Indesign/Acrobat Pro) on a PC when we bought it, and it would stay there for the life of the machine. It wasn't something we used every day, but would be fired up when we needed to prepare technical illustrations for a publication. It was heavily discounted for academic sites and was a pretty good deal. Now, to get the same combination of software, the cheapest deal is to rent the full CC package. That's also discounted for us, but the annual rental (including a bunch of stuff we don't need, and upgrades we don't care about) comes to roughly the same price as a perpetual CS DS licence. So if we typically kept a PC for 5 years before upgrading, CC represents a 5-fold hike in the price we'd have to pay. This is why I now have Affinity installed at work. Incidentally, I still have a copy of PS7 from 2002. It's not as slick as my copy of PS CS6, but it basically does everything I need and runs under the latest version of Windows 10.

[Edited from original so it actually makes sense!]
 
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As well as PP capabilities, the choice will also depend on how you want to manage your files and workflow. If you always shoot jpeg then PP is less important than the ease of file management. If you are a RAW shooter, which I would recommend for portrait and landscape, then PP capabilities become more important
 
The original package price to buy was over £500, and for that you didn't get any long term updates. This way you always have the latest and can use across a couple of computers/phone/tablet

The shift towards subscription models is coinciding with a reduction in innovation.

15 to 20 years ago software was improving with each new version and customers had a greater incerntive to pay for upgrades. Software vendors started seeing the market for new customers soften due to saturation and the market for upgrades soften because of the lack of incentives.

Successful subscription models work well for companies that are already dominant, have a tie in to customers via habit/familiarity, and a tie in via content/diogital asset management.

So we have Adobe and Microsoft doing rather well (though to be fair Microsoft is innovating a bit more than it used to in terms of the internal product architecture - but some of that is more for their long term benefit to completely lock out competition) and in the UK accounts companies like Sage getting a solid grip on their established market bases and turning them into cash generating monthly direct debits.

There needs be an investigation into practices and restrictions.

Adobe's annual subscriptions are an example - I think there's an argument that software on a monthly subscription should be something that can be terminated or even suspended by a consumer at a month's notice.
 
MS at least gives you a choice - you can still buy a perpetual Office licence. And if you go the Office 365 rental route, you are getting a decent 1TB of cloud storage for a pretty reasonable price, competitive with other providers who don't throw in an office suite.
 
On a side note ~ I have always aimed to buy perpetual license software that is authorised by using a license code, though most(all?) 'phone home once' to confirm the legitimacy of the license.

But now one software I bought uses "Account Verification" to authorise the ownership....................I wondered about this and was informed that many, of what are in effect perpetual license, software programs are going that method ~ but are they really???

It feels more like a subscription model, especially if for any reason e.g. complete loss of internet access or worst case scenario the verification servers go down or are 'turned off' the software could or will cease to function.
 
I use Capture 1 Pro. I am very far from being an expert with it but it combines sophisticated asset management/filing tools with a RAW processor. I use Adobe LR at work and much prefer both the interface and the results from C1Pro, though I am more familiar with the latter. The quality of its RAW rendering gets very good reviews. The downsides are that it's expensive, although you can get a free trial version, and the learning resources are much thinner on the ground than for LR.

I have Affinity for pixel editing, partly as it had good reviews, partly because it was cheap and partly because it wasn't Adobe. I usually get everything I want from the C1 processes though.
 
On a side note ~ I have always aimed to buy perpetual license software that is authorised by using a license code, though most(all?) 'phone home once' to confirm the legitimacy of the license.

But now one software I bought uses "Account Verification" to authorise the ownership....................I wondered about this and was informed that many, of what are in effect perpetual license, software programs are going that method ~ but are they really???

It feels more like a subscription model, especially if for any reason e.g. complete loss of internet access or worst case scenario the verification servers go down or are 'turned off' the software could or will cease to function.
I think anything that needs to phone home even once is using a verification server, and if that dies then you'll no longer be able to do a fresh installation. To their credit, when Adobe killed the verification servers for older versions of CS, they provided installers that no longer needed to phone home. When they did this for CS2, they helpfully left the installers together with fresh keys on a public support website, and lots of people downloaded a 'free' copy of the whole suite! For CS3, you had to prove ownership with your original keys to get the new installers and keys. I did this, and now have a copy of CS3 Design Standard that I can install on a new PC without Adobe's 'permission'. Hopefully they'll do this for CS6 one day...
 
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MS at least gives you a choice - you can still buy a perpetual Office licence. And if you go the Office 365 rental route, you are getting a decent 1TB of cloud storage for a pretty reasonable price, competitive with other providers who don't throw in an office suite.
For cheapskates like me you can always download "Open Office" or "Libre Office" both of which are FREE and offer most of what MS Office will do.
If you just want to write the odd letter or play with a spreadsheet, then they will both accomodate all your needs, and if you have to exchange files with other users, they are completely compatible with MS Office
 
I've always used ACDSee, which seemed so simple compared to Elements when I was first starting out.
I'm not a big PP person, and it (ACDSee) seems to do all I need and way more if you want to put in the effort to learn the more complex stuff.
 
I was actually quite keen on Luminar 4 but obviously it's supposed to be very slow so I wasnt sure how bad that would effect me.
Yes. A little slow. But offset by price and ease of use. The sky replacement tool is brilliant.
 
Another vote for Affinity Photo. Great range of features at a good price. One major omission is DAM. Consequently I'm using DigiKam alongside Affinity to provide DAM. No integration, but does allow review and rating of images before post processing.

I can't comment on Affinity Photo's raw processing. Only just getting to grips with this aspect.

Also not yet used the focus stacking function, but have seen a lot of praise in other posts.
 
Another vote for Affinity Photo. Great range of features at a good price. One major omission is DAM. Consequently I'm using DigiKam alongside Affinity to provide DAM. No integration, but does allow review and rating of images before post processing.

I can't comment on Affinity Photo's raw processing. Only just getting to grips with this aspect.

Also not yet used the focus stacking function, but have seen a lot of praise in other posts.
I dont know what DAM means, I'm very new to this
 
For cheapskates like me you can always download "Open Office" or "Libre Office" both of which are FREE and offer most of what MS Office will do.
If you just want to write the odd letter or play with a spreadsheet, then they will both accomodate all your needs, and if you have to exchange files with other users, they are completely compatible with MS Office

I agree, but I'm used to MS Office and I've been using it for donkey's years, going back into the 1990s. I have Word set up (styles, macros etc) just the way I like to work, and run my own domain mail and gmail through Outlook which is pretty seamless. The 1TB of cloud storage in Office 365 is a bonus, and the monthly sub doesn't cost much.

I might move to one of the free alternatives if I ever have to start all over again, but I can't really see that happening and I'm content with the MS product for now.
 
I dont know what DAM means, I'm very new to this
DAM means Digital Asset Management - where Digital Assets are your image files.
When using Lightroom, you need to "import" your image files into Lightrooms database. This allows you to assign keywords, rate images etc and search the database using queries such as:
keyword
Camera type
Lens
date
etc etc

I believe Lightroom is the most capable DAM system (if you need it). If I were a pro shooting weddings or other assignments for employers I would probably stay with Lightroom as, IMO, nothing else comes close for DAM.
However, I'm an amateur with a carefully constructed file storage structure and CAN do without Lightroom's DAM capabilities. ON1 has recently introduced some DAM capability but it's got a way to go before challenging Lightroom in this regard.
I'm still happy with the combination of ON1 and Affinity. I bought the while they were on offer (still current, I think) at about £50 for On1 and £30 for Affinity - these are perpetual licenses.
 
Sorry... DAM - digital asset management. Software that allows you to review and rate your photos. DigiKam is an open source (free) package that was designed for Linux, but is available for Windows.

Did you say what operating system you are using?
 
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No one here has mentioned Photoshop Elements. I too am a digital novice and didn't want to make commitments without learning some basics. PSE at a one-time $60 (black friday) price seemed reasonable for an introductory experience. I've been using it now for 6 months. I find new weaknesses every day, Stuff I wish it had or did better. Still, I've decided to postpone any upgrades. The cost/benefit analysis doesn't offer enough value for the way I work.

Here's a little more detail on that analysis.
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/pse-vs-lightroom.709946/
 
I’ve used Photoshop Elements for the past ten years or so, upgrading every 2-3 years. Never felt the need to get the full version. I am also using xnView, the free viewer and catalog software. Ocassionaly I used Nik’s free plugins (they used to be free and I kept a copy). I recently downloaded the free (yes, I like free stuff...) Luminar 3, but I only use it occasionally.
 
I was a great fan of apples aperture. When it went I had to choose something else. I down loaded several programs and gave them all a good road test before I made a choice. Like a camera I chose the one I felt at ease with l. That was adobe cc. I would say to any one test them out chose the one you feel at ease with
 
Have a look at Affinity Photo. On offer just now for £25.

I use lightroom / photoshop but bought this as well. Great focus stacking features built in.

Cheers,
Dougie.


If I move around the studio to how I like it will it be like that again when I open it next?

Such as moving the navigator to the top, getting rid of history and 32 bit preview etc..
 
DAM means Digital Asset Management - where Digital Assets are your image files.
When using Lightroom, you need to "import" your image files into Lightrooms database. This allows you to assign keywords, rate images etc and search the database using queries such as:
keyword
Camera type
Lens
date
etc etc

I believe Lightroom is the most capable DAM system (if you need it). If I were a pro shooting weddings or other assignments for employers I would probably stay with Lightroom as, IMO, nothing else comes close for DAM.
However, I'm an amateur with a carefully constructed file storage structure and CAN do without Lightroom's DAM capabilities. ON1 has recently introduced some DAM capability but it's got a way to go before challenging Lightroom in this regard.
I'm still happy with the combination of ON1 and Affinity. I bought the while they were on offer (still current, I think) at about £50 for On1 and £30 for Affinity - these are perpetual licenses.
Thank you very much for that I really appreciate it
 
Another vote for Affinity Photo. Great range of features at a good price. One major omission is DAM. Consequently I'm using DigiKam alongside Affinity to provide DAM. No integration, but does allow review and rating of images before post processing.

I can't comment on Affinity Photo's raw processing. Only just getting to grips with this aspect.

Also not yet used the focus stacking function, but have seen a lot of praise in other posts.





If I move around the studio to how I like it will it be like that again when I open it next?

Such as moving the navigator to the top, getting rid of history and 32 bit preview etc..
 
If I move around the studio to how I like it will it be like that again when I open it next?

Such as moving the navigator to the top, getting rid of history and 32 bit preview etc..

Not 100% on this, I only bought it a couple of weeks ago. Standard user friendly options though, I can check if you really want (I'm a software engineer for 35+ years).

You can't go wrong for £25 with Affinity.

Helped me out stacking this a couple of nights ago. So simple.

D750 - Sigma 150-600mm. 9 Shots exposure bracketed then stacked using Affinity.

Cheers,
Dougie.
MoonStackExpBracketed.jpg
 
Not 100% on this, I only bought it a couple of weeks ago. Standard user friendly options though, I can check if you really want (I'm a software engineer for 35+ years).

You can't go wrong for £25 with Affinity.

Helped me out stacking this a couple of nights ago. So simple.

D750 - Sigma 150-600mm. 9 Shots exposure bracketed then stacked using Affinity.

Cheers,
Dougie.
View attachment 278199





So I want to have the navigator top right, then under that the basic, details, lens, overlay and tones then at the bottom right histogram, metadata and focus.
 
Thank you Dougie, yeah with Covid19 my sleeping pattern is all out of whack so instead of lieing in bed failing to get back to sleep im watching youtube tutorials getting to grips with affinity photo, so far I think it may be exactly what I am looking for, I have a 90 day free trial but by that point the price will be full again I imagine so I have to decide to buy as quick as possible really.

Kind Regards

Joe
 
I dont suppose you know how to re-dock the"tabs" or whatever theyre called do you?

Like I movee things around so the navigator is top right and the other things underneath it and I want to reconnect them back together as they were in the beginning but in my new layout
 
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