Recommend me a photo editor programme

r1flyguy

r1flyguy

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Hi all

I had my mind set on photoshop element II, and was looking to purchase it when a thread on here (not this thread) came up with Amazon selling it at a £25 saving.
I was ready to purchase but then read some of the comments and one member in particular slated it saying it was a waste of money!!!

So now I am confused as to what product to buy :bang:

I wish to start shooting in raw for more flexibility and I'm using a MBP for my photo uploads and basic editing using iPhoto.

Can someone please offer me some advice on what software would be good for a beginner who wishes to build upon his basic knowledge and doesn't want to have to spend even more money upgrading to another programme in the near future

Thank you in anticipation

Gaz
 
r1flyguy said:
Hi all

I had my mind set on photoshop element II, and was looking to purchase it when a thread on here (not this thread) came up with Amazon selling it at a £25 saving.
I was ready to purchase but then read some of the comments and one member in particular slated it saying it was a waste of money!!!

So now I am confused as to what product to buy :bang:

I wish to start shooting in raw for more flexibility and I'm using a MBP for my photo uploads and basic editing using iPhoto.

Can someone please offer me some advice on what software would be good for a beginner who wishes to build upon his basic knowledge and doesn't want to have to spend even more money upgrading to another programme in the near future

Thank you in anticipation

Gaz
Click to expand...

Have you tried any free programs?

Photoscape is quite a fair program and for single applications Eazy Thumbnails can reduce your image size or filesize very rapidly, even in batches.

Serif also give away some free photo editing programs like Photo Plus and they're very good.

The Gimp is another free one which quite a lot of people use but it has quite a large learning curve.

Hope this helps a bit.

.
 
For me, Lightroom will do 90% of all the editing i ever need to do, as well as being a great resource for cataloguing my images. It's able to process your RAW files and is relatively easy to use. It can make universal adjustments to your images to make them look their best. If however, you want to make radical changes to your images i.e. Put an object in that wasn't there, thats when CS6 or elements will be needed
 
LR4.4 came out today, and you can buy it off Amazon for £89. Thats a lot of program for little money.

I'd like to know what the "waste of money" comment was in relation to though. Considering 1000's of people use it im confused. Its one of the best entry level editing programs, and has many of the top end Photoshop CS features in it.
 
I'd definitely support the idea of try the free ones before you spend any money.

Photoscape is a limited but a very easy to use program. Its RAW converter is not great but Photoscape handles jpegs and tiffs and Canon DPP will output jpegs and tiffs. I often find Photoscape does all I want.

As already mentioned GIMP take a while to get into but it covers just about everything.

If you don't like them, you have lost nothing.

Dave
 
If I were you I would use DPP and Canon utilties (which you should have got with your camera) to get any raw cataloguing done and then buy the latest version of PS elements which is more than enough for most photographers to do some more refined editing.

CS* photoshops' have way too much stuff for most of us and therefore stupidly priced.

There is always Gimp which is free and very similar to Photoshop but it takes a bit of learning.
 
I agree with the previous post. If you're starting out use the Canon DPP and then do a final edit in PS Elements. That will take you a very long way and cover just about everything you want to do.
 
dave_bass5 said:
I'd also recommend downloading the 30 day free trials of LR4 and PSE11 as well. Again, nothing lost.
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Nothing lost. Just a load of hard drive space :)
 
dave_bass5 said:
LR4.4 came out today, and you can buy it off Amazon for £89. Thats a lot of program for little money.

I'd like to know what the "waste of money" comment was in relation to though. Considering 1000's of people use it im confused. Its one of the best entry level editing programs, and has many of the top end Photoshop CS features in it.
Click to expand...

Hi Dave,

Typically I can not find the original thread where this comment was made, it was a duo,I ate thread of one posted in the shopping section when someone found a one day Amazon sale for Ellements 11.





Words said:
I agree with the previous post. If you're starting out use the Canon DPP and then do a final edit in PS Elements. That will take you a very long way and cover just about everything you want to do.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will take a more I depth look at this before I switch over to just taking RAW photos.


I don't mind paying for software as long as it will do what I would like it to do and won't need to upgrade it anytime soon.

Thanks all for your comments to date.

(y)
 
all the software mentioned has 30 day trial periods.
GIMP is free, nearly as good as CS5 and loads of free tutorials on the web, but only works in 8 bit.
LR4 is superb for most workflows, but no good really for major changes to shots, like removal of foreign objects, which both GIMP and CS do well.
Serif have a promotion on at the mo for photo editor, ive just ordered it for £15, was worth a punt because i'm trying to find the laziest way to do things as sometimes CS and elements can be long winded, but the results can be very good.

If i was to recommend a course of action it would be this.
Download and install the following
GIMP (you will need the free transform preset as well just look for it on their support site)
LR4 trial
CS6 trial (very expensive)
Elements trial
Serif photoplus x6 trial

Then have a play with your images and sets to see which you prefer.

My workflow is generally import to LR4 crop and adjsu as necessary, then export.
If they need major removal of objects or a layer or two added then export to cs5. But in honesty i try to get everything done in LR, anything requiring more can be very time consuming.
 
Its not a waste of money, Its very good and easy enough to understand and use. If this the 1st time you've had a dable with something like this you cant go far wrong for the price than photoshop elements II.
 
dave_bass5 said:
LR4.4 came out today, and you can buy it off Amazon for £89. Thats a lot of program for little money.

I'd like to know what the "waste of money" comment was in relation to though. Considering 1000's of people use it im confused. Its one of the best entry level editing programs, and has many of the top end Photoshop CS features in it.
Click to expand...

If you have any school children in the house or students you can get lr4 on the student scheme. I paid £57.
 
If the waste of money member is me I'll explain a little...

I have older versions of Elements and I've tried later versions to including the cut price one. What kills them for me are that many of the fixes are limited to Auto only and that annoys me and I'd rather use one of the free packages such as Rawtherapee.

But that's just me and I did say that my posts are IMVHO, if other people are happy with the Auto fix options then I suppose E makes sense, but personally I'd look at the free options and other pay options first before buying.
 
This might be the thread...

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=474135

One poster says he uses E together with plugins and that would seem a better way forward and would give more user control. Personally I wouldn't be happy with E as my only processing package as I find the auto options too limiting.

If it's worth the money to use with plugins the next question could be can plugins be used with free packages with more user controllability?
 
Another vote for Lightroom - it does 99% of everything I want and it's a great way to keep your photos organised... plus the plugin to upload to Flickr is very useful.

As others have said get the trials and have a play around.
 
I use LR4 and Elements 11. I would say 70% of my workflow is done in Lightroom for speed with the detail done in Elements where something extra is needed which Lightroom can't do. If I only had one however I would go Elements as you can do a lot more with it although it would be a lot more slow and cumbersome to use than lightroom for processing batches of files.

Every Adobe product I've owned I have started with the trail first which had led to me buying it. It really is about trying both and seeing which suits you best. Start with lightroom and if you reach its limits then look at Elements.
 
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Get the best you can afford is my advice - I bought Photoshop CS5 never looked back, it does all you'll ever need ;)


Les (y)
 
r1flyguy said:
I wish to start shooting in raw for more flexibility and I'm using a MBP for my photo uploads and basic editing using iPhoto.


Gaz
Click to expand...

You know that you can use iPhoto for raw files from a 650D? (just checking)
I only do minor editing and use iPhoto and find it fine for that. Quicker and simpler with raw files than having to mess around with other software as raw is handled in same way.

I have PS Elements 8 as my wife uses it but I can't be bothered with it.
 
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I use Elements 11 which I think is the best version so far, it does everything I need and much more...:cool:
 
petersmart said:
Have you tried any free programs?

Photoscape is quite a fair program and for single applications Eazy Thumbnails can reduce your image size or filesize very rapidly, even in batches.

Serif also give away some free photo editing programs like Photo Plus and they're very good.

The Gimp is another free one which quite a lot of people use but it has quite a large learning curve.

Hope this helps a bit.

.
Click to expand...

Do you know if some of these programmes would give you a similar level of adjustment that the likes of Elements or LR4 can give you? Going to try out a few of these tonight.
 
Lez325 said:
Get the best you can afford is my advice - I bought Photoshop CS5 never looked back, it does all you'll ever need ;)

Les (y)
Click to expand...

Cheers Les, looks like I have a few options

ernesto said:
You know that you can use iPhoto for raw files from a 650D? (just checking)
I only do minor editing and use iPhoto and find it fine for that. Quicker and simpler with raw files than having to mess around with other software as raw is handled in same way.

I have PS Elements 8 as my wife uses it but I can't be bothered with it.
Click to expand...

I didn't actually know that :bonk:

J H Foto said:
I use Elements 11 which I think is the best version so far, it does everything I need and much more...:cool:
Click to expand...

Thanks, it narrows my options down

woof woof said:
This might be the thread...

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=474135

One poster says he uses E together with plugins and that would seem a better way forward and would give more user control. Personally I wouldn't be happy with E as my only processing package as I find the auto options too limiting.

If it's worth the money to use with plugins the next question could be can plugins be used with free packages with more user controllability?
Click to expand...


Hi Alan

That's the one :D

I wasn't meaning anything by your comments or have anything against your opinion, actually quite the opposite.

I value experienced opinions, hence the reason for my post as if the general consensus was that E11 wasn't that good then I was looking for advice on appropriate programmes for me, which Of course have been provided by the good folk on here (y)
 
Another for lightroom here it does almost everything you will need and you can add plugins to it as well.
 
GIMP all day, every day. Cannot be beaten for the price.

If you prefer a more "integrated" GUI, try paint.net
 
itsme93 said:
Nothing lost. Just a load of hard drive space :)
Click to expand...

Not at all. LR doesn't take up much space, its the images and previews that take the space.
I have one of those advanced PC's that lets you un install software that you dont want. It magically gives you HDD space when you use it ;-)
 
woof woof said:
One poster says he uses E together with plugins and that would seem a better way forward and would give more user control. Personally I wouldn't be happy with E as my only processing package as I find the auto options too limiting.
Click to expand...

Well PSE has full manual control, there is absolutely no need to ever touch a button with the word "auto" on it ;)
 
dave_bass5 said:
Well PSE has full manual control, there is absolutely no need to ever touch a button with the word "auto" on it ;)
Click to expand...

Really? In that case we're looking at different things.

This is a screen grab from an older version of PSE, when I've tried later ones including the latest cut price one what I saw was as here, mostly Auto corrections...

pse_zps8df1eb11.jpg


If you like the PS interface and just want basic stuff and can live with the Auto corrections... or somehow don't see the Auto stuff
dave_bass5 said:
Well PSE has full manual control, there is absolutely no need to ever touch a button with the word "auto" on it ;)
Click to expand...
then I suppose it makes sence but personally I'd probably use a free package like Rawtherapee than pay any money for a list of auto corrections. As I said all IMVHO.
 
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woof woof said:
Really? In that case we're looking at different things.

This is a screen grab from an older version of PSE, when I've tried later ones including the latest cut price one what I saw was as here, mostly Auto corrections...

If you like the PS interface and just want basic stuff and can live with the Auto corrections... or somehow don't see the Auto stuff then I suppose it makes sence but personally I'd probably use a free package like Rawtherapee than pay any money for a list of auto corrections. As I said all IMVHO.
Click to expand...

Did you not try clicking on the menu options that weren't prefaced by Auto? Everything that can be done automatically can be done manually as well.
 
dave_bass5 said:
Not at all. LR doesn't take up much space, its the images and previews that take the space.
I have one of those advanced PC's that lets you un install software that you dont want. It magically gives you HDD space when you use it ;-)
Click to expand...

my computer disagrees with you :LOL: but seriously i know not that much is taken up but lightroom is one of my biggest programs but 835mb is nothing these days

1a47988d59c9057654dbab907e4c62c4.png
 
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Forget the great big lumbering lumps produced by adobe at a cost. Simple use FASTSTONE it free it's great.:D
 
kestral said:
Forget the great big lumbering lumps produced by adobe at a cost. Simple use FASTSTONE it free it's great.:D
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The OP is using a MBP so Faststone will not work unless he uses Windows emulator.

Also, Faststone is very basic with edits but good with other stuff like batch resizing and renaming.
 
There nowt wrong with elements at all, but seeing as your on a MBP forget LR and get Aperture.
 
Guys. Your confusing the heck out of me :LOL:

All your replies are educational and have given me more options than I realised!!!

Looks like I'm going to have to do some research on your suggestions and go from there.

iPhoto on the MBP gives some basic editing abilities as your all aware and I have yet to try the canon utilities which as advised offers RAW editing function, which I've loaded up and will try.

I think with my very basic knowledge, I have been given some good options such as LR, CS & Elements which appear to be the mainstream programs so thank you all for your replies.

I'll be back once I have purchased & in need of help on how to use my chosen programme :)
 
Guys. Your confusing the heck out of me :LOL:

All your replies are educational and have given me more options than I realised!!!

Looks like I'm going to have to do some research on your suggestions and go from there.

iPhoto on the MBP gives some basic editing abilities as your all aware and I have yet to try the canon utilities which as advised offers RAW editing function, which I've loaded up and will try.

I think with my very basic knowledge, I have been given some good options such as LR, CS & Elements which appear to be the mainstream programs so thank you all for your replies.

I'll be back once I have purchased & in need of help on how to use my chosen programme :)
 
r1flyguy said:
Guys. Your confusing the heck out of me :LOL:

All your replies are educational and have given me more options than I realised!!!

Looks like I'm going to have to do some research on your suggestions and go from there.

iPhoto on the MBP gives some basic editing abilities as your all aware and I have yet to try the canon utilities which as advised offers RAW editing function, which I've loaded up and will try.

I think with my very basic knowledge, I have been given some good options such as LR, CS & Elements which appear to be the mainstream programs so thank you all for your replies.

I'll be back once I have purchased & in need of help on how to use my chosen programme :)
Click to expand...

OK, take it a bit at a time.

First, what are you hoping to achieve? If you want decent shots that are roughly as you saw the through the viewfinder - and that's a good starting point - then pretty much any of the suggested programmes will do. You need to be able to get the files out of your camera and onto a hard drive, quite likely tweak the horizon straight, and perhaps lighten or darken the image. You will need to sharpen the shots because virtually all digital photos need a bit of sharpening. A lot of shots will also benefit from some cropping as well. Then you need to save and name the file.

Start with those: Straighten, lighten or darken, sharpen, crop, name & save.

Do shoot in RAW, as this will give the best results. It really doesn't take any more work or learning.

Photoshop and/or Lightroom are used by the overwhelming majority of pro photographers. That may tell you something. Elements will let you do more complicated edits and consequently there is more to learn. Lightroom is faster if you take a lot of similar shots and want batch process them.
 
To add to the above, if you go the Elements route you also get a cut down LR as the front end for raw files. Adobe ACR is the bit that reads the raw files first, and the version that works with elements has a lot of the basic functions of the full blown LR4.
So you get both a very good raw editor that should help give you an understanding of raw files, and give you the same IQ output, plus a very good photo editing program should you wish to take things further.
 
jon ryan said:
You need to be able to get the files out of your camera and onto a hard drive, quite likely tweak the horizon straight, and perhaps lighten or darken the image. You will need to sharpen the shots because virtually all digital photos need a bit of sharpening. A lot of shots will also benefit from some cropping as well. Then you need to save and name the file.

Start with those: Straighten, lighten or darken, sharpen, crop, name & save.

Do shoot in RAW, as this will give the best results. It really doesn't take any more work or learning.
Click to expand...

iPhoto will do all that for you (and work seamlessly with raw) and you don't even need to save/name files as you can just put them in relevant folders or even leave them in the autocreated 'events' views

Don't discount iPhoto just because it is free with the OS, it does all the basics as listed above and is much quicker and easier than loading alternative software, saving, etc,.

I have trialled Aperture and Lightroom and own PSE 8 but use iPhoto as it does exactly what I need it to in a quicker and simpler way.
 
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