Editing software for a beginner

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I know this subject has probably been done to death but I'll ask anyway! Which of the editing software that is available is the best starting step for a beginner please? I won't be heavily editing my photos so nothing too extreme is needed but I would like something that allows editing of RAW files (It's been suggested that I shoot in RAW) would Affinity be a good start or would lightroom 6 be a better bet? I don't want to pay a subscription so anything that can be bought outright would be good. Thank you for your time.
 
One thing to consider?

Are you talking just editing or do you wish the same program to do the cataloguing and keywording? When you end up with 1000's of images you will want to know you can some form of index/cataloguing ;)

FWIW I use Lightroom 6 and it handles almost all of my editing and cataloguing needs. However, certain pp functions I finish in Photoshop ........perhaps Photoshop Elements would suffice if I was buying today.

PS no idea about Affinity Photo.
 
One thing to consider?

Are you talking just editing or do you wish the same program to do the cataloguing and keywording? When you end up with 1000's of images you will want to know you can some form of index/cataloguing ;)

FWIW I use Lightroom 6 and it handles almost all of my editing and cataloguing needs. However, certain pp functions I finish in Photoshop ........perhaps Photoshop Elements would suffice if I was buying today.

PS no idea about Affinity Photo.

Hi, thank you for the reply. I'm not interested in cataloging at the moment, I just want to dip my toes into editing without going too deep into it. I am quite interested in Affinity as it's only thirty odd quid compared to Lightroom 6 which is £110. I can swallow spending £30 if I find editing is not for me.
 
Not sure where you have seen £30 as on makers own website says £48.99

Can't immediately find if if they offer a trial download.....but if you can trial it go for it before you buy it?
 
Not sure where you have seen £30 as on makers own website says £48.99

Can't immediately find if if they offer a trial download.....but if you can trial it go for it before you buy it?

Well I'm sure it was only £33.99 a few days ago! That's a shame, I should have bought it at that price. I'll have a search to see if I can trial it, didn't think of that. Thank you for the idea.
 
Hi, I have Affinity Photo to replace Adobe CS6 as I didn't want to go down the subscription road especially as I only take photos as a hobby and Adobe Photoshop IMO is really for those who are or want to go Pro. I also have Skylum's Luminar and bought that because they promised an upgrade that would include a DAM as Lightroom has an that also ment I could get rid of Lightroom 6 although it is a DAM. But and it's a BIG BUT!! Skylum have made promises along with so many excuses over must be two years since that promised a DAM and many still wait but I gave up. So IMO go for Affinity Photo and not just because it's cheap but also there are 100's of video tutorials from them and others that will teach you how to use it. Russ.
 
Some speak highly of On1 RAW as a standalone photo editor.......more cost than Affinity but they do as I recall have a trial period.
 
Some speak highly of On1 RAW as a standalone photo editor.......more cost than Affinity but they do as I recall have a trial period.
Ha, I have that also but you need a good compter to run it, when with previous version my computer handled it but now even with 16GB Ram, 650Ti 1GB graphics card it runs like a donkey not a race horse but in saying that when I get a more powerful setup I will return to it and again plenty of tutorials on how to use it. Russ.
 
Canon user, right? I mainly use DPP which is a free download from Canon as it covers most of my needs (tweaking colours, a bit of cloning, cropping etc.). Did I mention that it's free?

I also have Affinity which I can heartily recommend. I generally use it only when I want to do something that DPP can't do so well (such as applying changes to selected areas) and even then I'll first use DPP to process the RAW file and then work on a TIFF or Jpeg in Affinity. There are loads of videos out there to get you going. Why not download the trial and see?
 
I'd say as immediately above. DPP free from Canon to tweak the raws, in particular shadow and highlight areas, and the tonal distribution between - tweaking things at the raw conversion stage will minimise quality losses.

Affinity thereafter. But you can try using Affinity for raw processing too. Get a free trial, but with all these things there's a steep learning curve in the early stages.

Affinity has high-end features - that doesn't mean that you have to use them all, but they're there as you advance if required. And it's currently very good value.
 
I know this subject has probably been done to death but I'll ask anyway! Which of the editing software that is available is the best starting step for a beginner please? I won't be heavily editing my photos so nothing too extreme is needed but I would like something that allows editing of RAW files (It's been suggested that I shoot in RAW) would Affinity be a good start or would lightroom 6 be a better bet? I don't want to pay a subscription so anything that can be bought outright would be good. Thank you for your time.

LR6 and Affinity do complementary jobs with some overlap. LR6 is good for image management, selection / culling from multiple images, raw processing and basic editing. Affinity (like Photoshop) is good for more complex and flexible editing of single images. It has a raw processor, but that really isn't its strong point. One problem with LR6 is that it will no longer be updated, so there'll be no direct support for the raw formats of new cameras introduced after the end of last year (though you'll be able convert these to Adobe's 'universal' raw format, DNG, using the free DNG converter if you don't mind an extra step).

Even without the special offer, Affinity Photo is still a very good deal, probably the most powerful image editor for the price, and in many ways competitive with Photoshop (plus it has a few tricks of its own). As above, you might consider using it in combination with Canon's DPP for selecting and processing your raw images (i.e., export tiffs from DPP to Affinity rather than load raw files directly into Affinity).

You could also take a look at GIMP - the interface is clunkier than Affinity, but it's still a powerful tool and you can't beat the price! Again, DPP might be a better bet for raw processing than GIMP's raw plugins.
 
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Canon user, right? I mainly use DPP which is a free download from Canon as it covers most of my needs (tweaking colours, a bit of cloning, cropping etc.). Did I mention that it's free?

I also have Affinity which I can heartily recommend. I generally use it only when I want to do something that DPP can't do so well (such as applying changes to selected areas) and even then I'll first use DPP to process the RAW file and then work on a TIFF or Jpeg in Affinity. There are loads of videos out there to get you going. Why not download the trial and see?
Got to agree, as a beginner it might be sensible to stick with DPP which comes free with your camera. That should do well to tweak any RAW images you take.

BTW I do agree that Affinity was about £33.00 last week - they had a 30% off ofer on, which I took up, see:
https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/editing-software.682430/#post-8221803
So far I am very impressed with its possibilities, though there are some advantages to Photoshop, even the very old version I use! On the other hand, at fractionally under £50 Affinity Photo is good value, but not something you probably need right now.

It is often a good idea to stick to free software that is easily available, like DPP. If you need to do more why not try GIMP. It is quite a steep learning curve, but no worse than it is for Lightroom or Affinity, and it has another advantage - its FREE! You can see more about it here:
https://www.gimp.org/
and there are download links on the page. It won't deal with RAW images, but can deal with other formats. In the end, if you don't like DPP for your RAW images you might try RawTherapee. Again it is free, and more details are available her:
http://rawtherapee.com/blog/features

Just because you pay for somethingt doesn't necessarily make it better! I use both RawTherapee and GIMP on my laptop while travelling. They are both very competent pieces of software and do a good job.
 
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I am quite interested in Affinity.

I don't think you can go wrong with Affinity. Lots of tutorials on the tube, nice raw developer and pp editor. I use in in combo with FastStone image viewer to sort through the photos, find
which I want to work on then send it to Affinity.
 
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You could go for an old version of Elements on ebay, they are still capable software packages for jpegs (as they probably wouldn't support raw files from your camera) cost under £20.
 
Have a look at the photo magazines in WH Smith. I bought one a while ago as it had ON 1 on the disc, albeit an older version.

Might be worth £5 or so to get a functioning edit suite.
 
Try Faststone Image Viewer, its free & very easy to use, works for me.

Not sure, but I don't think that Faststone processes a RAW image. From my understanding, and use of it for viewing images only, it uses the embedded JPEG image when editing. I may be wrong and will stand corrected if this is the case.

The combination of Faststone for viewing and sorting and Affinity for processing/editing is a good one, as suggested by Pete B above. The only drawback is that Affinity costs money and there are some free alternatives available that might be worth experimenting with to gain confidence before spending money on something that, in the end, you may not like.
 
I started off with Photoshop CS2 and never got on with it. Then Lightroom became available and I took the plunge with that, and found it very intuitive and easy to use. You learn to use the variuos different tools as you go along.

It is such a shame Adobe took it down the subscription route, but I would nevertheless strongly recommend LR v6 standalone if you can still get hold of it. (but note the comment above that it will never be updated)

If you decide to go for Affinity, which is said to be an excellent PS alternative, DON'T buy it from the Microsoft store, as I unfortunately did. It gets buried deep in Windows and you can't access it directly from LR (as in Photo>Edit in.....)
 
Thank you all so much for your replies and input, it's much appreciated. I'll have a butchers on YouTube to see if there are reviews of the recommended software and come to a decision as to what I'll end up with. Again thank you, you've all been very helpful.
 
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