What photo editing software to buy

[Parkersdad]

I shoot with a Nikon D300 in RAW mode. What software do you guys and gals recommend? I’m not a professional so keep that in mind.

 

[480sparky]

Try the software that came with the camera first. It's free.

 

[Dave442]

I use LightRoom. They have the Photographer bundle at Adobe with LightRoom CC Classic/Photoshop for $10 per month. I also have On1 and with upgrades have probably paid about the same each year as what the Adobe subscription runs for.

You can download the Nikon software. I have the CaptureNX-D and ViewNX programs.

 

[SquarePeg]

I found Photoshop Elements to be a reasonably priced single cost alternative to paying Adobe monthly for PhotoShop and Lightroom. Easy to use as well since there are Guided, Intermediate and Expert modes.

 

[Derrel]

I suggest Adobe Lightroom. It works splendidly, and is reasonably easy to learn how to use.

 

[idcanyon]

You should add Affinity Photo to your list for consideration.

 

[Parkersdad]

Thanks for all of your replies. I’m either going to look tonight or in the morning and decide what I’m going to buy software wise.

 

[ClickAddict]

Depends on your intended editing. If you're looking for something to do minor color correction / exposure adjustments and perhaps a bit of retouching skin blemishes and such, Lightroom is far quicker to learn and use and will more than be enough for what you need. If you are planning on doing wild photo composites where you take your child's photo and add him onto the back of King Kong's head sticking out of your backyard pool, then you may want to invest in Photoshop.

 

[KmH]

Unfortunately, Ps Elements only has 1/2 of the Raw file editing capability/features/functions of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), included with Adobe's $9.99 a month Photography subscription (Pro grade Photoshop & Lightroom).
ACR is Ps Camera Raw and Lightroom's Develop module.

Note too that Ps Elements has no 16 bit color depth editing capabilities.
Bit Depth

 

[s_marolf]

For free options there's Darktable. I use that and they just launched a windows version. Not as good as Lightroom I'm sure, but it's free.

Another out of the box option is Snapseed for tablets. I have a 45 minute train ride twice a day so I often edit on my tablet with Snapseed. Not as manymfeatures but very easy to use. Also would make a good choice while traveling.

 

[Parkersdad]

I ended up buying the Affnity software and so far I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the help.

 

[TCampbell]

I ended up buying the Affnity software and so far I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the help.

I didn't chime in earlier, but as Adobe is the "800 lb gorilla" of the photo editing world, you'll find just about everything is designed to support their software. Loads of software that can operate as a plug-in ... build those plug-ins for Photoshop & Lightroom.

But the downside to Adobe software is that you can no longer just buy it. Now you have to "rent" it by the year. I am frustrated that people let them get away with calling it a "cloud" model since the features needed to qualify as a "cloud" product are not present. They do not offer "service elasticity". I can not pay for the software when I want to use (at the point of value) and not pay when I am not using it. They act like you get to rent it by the month... but it isn't actually possible to rent it for a month. It's a subscription with 1 year terms.

I bought Affinity for my iPad (of all things ... I still don't own it for the desktop). I found that it's really pleasant to use. It does everything I would normally use Photoshop to do (it even knows how to open .psd files) but it's easier to use and frankly it seems to do a better job. I was impressed. And of course you don't have to "rent" it.

I have not yet found a non-rent version of digital asset management (something to replace Lightroom). Skylum makes a program called Luminar and they are positioning themselves as a Lightroom alternative. But the big "catch" is that they do not have digital asset management ... but claim they are launching this in 2018. I'm taking the "wait & see" ... I would only buy it if they had digital asset management (and it needs to be decent). But on the plus side... this is software you get to "buy" (and it's reasonably priced). It's not "rental" software on a 1 year term like Adobe.

 

[LWW]

AFFINITY PHOTO FTW!

 

[SquarePeg]

I ended up buying the Affnity software and so far I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the help.

I didn't chime in earlier, but as Adobe is the "800 lb gorilla" of the photo editing world, you'll find just about everything is designed to support their software. Loads of software that can operate as a plug-in ... build those plug-ins for Photoshop & Lightroom.

But the downside to Adobe software is that you can no longer just buy it. Now you have to "rent" it by the year. I am frustrated that people let them get away with calling it a "cloud" model since the features needed to qualify as a "cloud" product are not present. They do not offer "service elasticity". I can not pay for the software when I want to use (at the point of value) and not pay when I am not using it. They act like you get to rent it by the month... but it isn't actually possible to rent it for a month. It's a subscription with 1 year terms.

I bought Affinity for my iPad (of all things ... I still don't own it for the desktop). I found that it's really pleasant to use. It does everything I would normally use Photoshop to do (it even knows how to open .psd files) but it's easier to use and frankly it seems to do a better job. I was impressed. And of course you don't have to "rent" it.

I have not yet found a non-rent version of digital asset management (something to replace Lightroom). Skylum makes a program called Luminar and they are positioning themselves as a Lightroom alternative. But the big "catch" is that they do not have digital asset management ... but claim they are launching this in 2018. I'm taking the "wait & see" ... I would only buy it if they had digital asset management (and it needs to be decent). But on the plus side... this is software you get to "buy" (and it's reasonably priced). It's not "rental" software on a 1 year term like Adobe.

I’ve been using Affinity for iPad ($19.99!) and so far I love it except for sharpening. Care to share your thoughts/steps for sharpening? I’ve been using the Unsharp Mask filter but I can’t get it to work as well for me as when I was using PSE11 Unsharp Mask feature. The values don’t carry over. Also there seems not to be a general “sharpening” tool outside of Unsharp Mask.

 

[TCampbell]

Peg,

I have not tried to do sharpening in Affinity (yet). I do still have my subscription ($120/yr) to Adobe Cloud for Lightroom & Photoshop. It's just that I like some tools better in Affinity (namely... when I have to "clone" or "heal" it seems to work better).

However... on those occasions when I sharpen or de-noise using Photoshop, I have a process where I create a mask to detect edges of contrast.

Why?

Sharpening & De-noising are basically the opposites. One tries to reduce the difference between pixels... the other tries to exaggerate the difference between pixels.

If you sharpen... you increase noise. If you De-noise you soften the image.

BUT... if you create a mask to detect edges of contrast, then you generally want to apply the sharpening just in those areas where you already have strong contrast. And when you want to de-noise, you invert the mask so you de-noise the non-contrasty areas away from the "edges" of detail.

It's a bit of a process... but it does provide better results.

I only have Affinity on my iPad... but I may see if I can replicate the process I do in Photoshop and if I can, I'll post the steps.

Roughly... I duplicate the image to a new layer.
I create a layer mask.
I select the image.
In photoshop if you "alt-click" (windows) or "option-click" (mac) on the actual MASK in the layer (not the image) it will display the mask in the main area (in a new mask, you'll just see an all-white screen).
You then "paste" the image to the mask. When you do this, the image in the mask will be black & white (masks are monochrome... anything "white" is not masked... anything "black" is masked. Anything "gray" is semi-masked (wont get the full effect of whatever you do).

You can "invert" the image in the mask (it will look like a photographic black & white film negative) for use when de-noising.

There are several ways to create a mask to detect regions and edges... sometimes I use the "levels" and alter the white-point & black-point (to massively crank up contrast). You can create a mask to detect edges. Often you'll need to apply a Gaussian Blur of a maybe a couple of pixels to increase the edge and create a better transition between masked & non-masked areas.

Having done this, you now have a mask which isolates areas that need sharpening vs. areas that can take de-noising (the inverse of the same mask).

You can now go after sharpening and de-noising much more ambitiously than otherwise possible without creating the bad side-effects.

Again... I have done this in Photoshop... I have not yet attempted to do this in Affinity Photo. But I may toy with it just to see if it works.