Awesome Software

[Vautrin]

I'm sure if Ansel Adams had a disposable camera he could have made great pictures, but let's face it great software (and great equiptment) helps a lot.

I wanted to start a thread to see what software people use that helps bring their photography to the next level kind of as a fun way to see what's out there...

Personally I've found the following indispensable:

Autopano: stitching together images seemlessly it's brain dead simple to make a digital photo the size of a building if I wanted
Lightroom: it's weird because the "auto" features on lightroom alone are worth the cost. I no longer take yellow tinged pictures inside due to my camera's crappy whitebalance
Photomatix: HDRs -- love 'em or hate em, but this is one useful tool...

What else do people use?

Thanks,

Dan

 

[ddm1975]

Lightroom II - absolute necessity to me editing in RAW
PS cs3 - couldn't complete anything without it
Noiseware - helps w/ grain

 

[mJs]

Waiting for the new Lightroom (looking forward to that)
I have an OLD version of photoshop (was going to upgrade but decided to go with lightroom instead)
and one that i use a LOT is by Tiffen, called DFX. It has hundreds of filters and effects...

 

[Big Mike]

I'm sure if Ansel Adams had a disposable camera he could have made great pictures, but let's face it great software (and great equiptment) helps a lot.

Don't forget that Ansel probably spent as much or more time in the darkroom, as he did actually taking photos.

 

[KmH]

Jeez software up the wazoo: the main cahunas from Adobe CS4E/Lightroom 2.6/Illustrator and about 25 other specialized programs from outfits like Topaz, Imagenomic, Photomatix, Nik, blah, blah, blah.

 

[Garbz]

The grand trio listed by Vautrin will handle almost any task and should be in every photographer's collection IMO.

Autopano has gotten really good with the new version and the CUDA acceleration.
Lightroom is (or should be) the one stop powerhouse for all RAW files.
Photomatix is the last word in HDR.

What more could you want?

DNG Profile Editor is the last one on my list. I used it more previously than I do these days, but Lightroom has this annoying tendency to produce purple images. People aren't supposed to be purple and the DNG Profile Editor takes care of that wonderfully .

 

[Josh66]

Lightroom is (or should be) the one stop powerhouse for all RAW files.

Lightroom is almost all I use... Occasionally, I'll want to do something that it just can't do - and I use GIMP for that.

For me, GIMP works fine because I rarely have to use it, and there's no way I could justify the cost of Photoshop for as much as I would use it. GIMP might be a little harder to work with, but it definitely has the cost advantage.

 

[Kcc]

Lightroom FTW!
Photoshop CS3 (but not good with it)
Element (same, need to learn more on it)

Kcc

 

[bhphotography]

photoshop still holds the trump card in my mind, but lightroom is very capable

 

[Vautrin]

photoshop still holds the trump card in my mind, but lightroom is very capable

Lightroom & Photoshop are like a hammer and a nail gun. I need to drive a nail in the wall, I grab the hammer. I need to build a house, I grab the nail gun...

 

[Mike_E]

If you shoot Nikon then Capture NX2. Getting a photo just right is a lot easier with that than anything else (maybe because Nikon has hidden a few things that others haven't found?)

 

[Vautrin]

If you shoot Nikon then Capture NX2. Getting a photo just right is a lot easier with that than anything else (maybe because Nikon has hidden a few things that others haven't found?)

Interesting...Olympus should take a hint from nikon... The software that's included is ok but nothing compared to lightroom... I love the yellow people the white balance creates in some lighting on the olympus software...

 

[Cooler_King]

I use

Picasa 3.5 for organising/tagging and viewing EXIF
GIMP to modify

 

[hp1000]

aperture for almost everything

 

[Dominantly]

Well... I am a bit of a software whore, I'll admit it.

Photoshop Elements 6.... It's like the D40 of software, very basic but capable of great results when used properly.
CS3 Extended.... I rarely use it.
Lightroom 3 beta.... I enjoy it, I also like the interface with PS and my Smug Mug.

Plug Ins
Topaz Bundle
-Adjust 3
-Denoise 3
-Remask
-Simplify
-Detail
-DeJpeg

Nik Software

-Viveza (control point technology is fun/amazing)