best photo software

[al7601]

I'm in the market for photo editing software. I'm not a professional but would like to explore and be creative with my photos and at the same time not have software that's going to take forever to learn. Would it be Adobe elements, lightroom 3, corel?

would like to hear options for price not being an issue and for price being an issue.

btw its for a windows based pc.

thanks

 

[o hey tyler]

Price being an issue: Gimp

Price not being an issue: Photoshop CS5

Price being even less of an issue: Lightroom & CS5

 

[Bubbles22]

I prersonally have messed around with photoshop and lightroom. I am not a professional it is just for family photos and my own personal use. I prefer lightroom. I think if you had to do some major changes then you would need photoshop. You could always use the 30day free trial and see if you like it before you buy.

 

[skieur]

Corel Paintshopr Pro Photo X4 is more feature rich than Elements and has a "lightroom" type program and Colour FX 3 by Nik software (software filters) included. I recently paid $39 Canadian for the package from Staples (a business/office store).

skieur

 

[al7601]

thanks to both, do you need lightroom and CS5 together?

 

[o hey tyler]

thanks to both, do you need lightroom and CS5 together?

No, for most of my photos, I run them through lightroom and don't even open photoshop. But lightroom is not an "Editing platform" like photoshop is. It's an image processing program.

 

[o hey tyler]

As a matter of fact... http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...-amazon-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-3-sale.html

 

[greybeard]

thanks to both, do you need lightroom and CS5 together?

No, they are 2 different programs. Lightroom is more of an organizer with some basic editing features. You can crop, straighten, adjust color, contrast, exposure, white balance and minor spotting. It does this in a "none destructive" way. When you edit with Lightroom the corrections are saved to a sidecar file and the main file isn't touched. In order to save these corrections to the main file you have to export it as a new file. This keeps your originals untouched. If however, you need more than minor spotting etc. You will need a program like CS5, Photoshop elements 10, PaintShop, Gimp, etc. Lightroom will send your file to another editor that you define for heavier editing. Mine is setup to link to CS5 and Photoscape.

Paintshop, CS5, elements 10, Lightroom 3.6 etc. are all available as a 30 free trial from the companies website. Download and check them out for yourself.

 

[matt hkd]

Lightroom is the way to go

 

[shuttervelocity]

ok, you say you're not a professional and would like to learn PP. Have you tried Photoscape? Its free and its got a lot of learning material. before I got into using CS5, I could not believe all the features were available for free in Photoscape. That, along with noise ninja was all I needed to process my pictures when I was using windows.

 

[greybeard]

ok, you say you're not a professional and would like to learn PP. Have you tried Photoscape? Its free and its got a lot of learning material. before I got into using CS5, I could not believe all the features were available for free in Photoscape. That, along with noise ninja was all I needed to process my pictures when I was using windows.

^^^^I still use it everyday.....great program and free.

 

[KmH]

Best in what way? Best for a begining amateur, an advanced amateur, a pro retail photographer, a pro editorial photographer, or a pro commercial photographer?

 

[Joey_Ricard]

I'm in the market for photo editing software. I'm not a professional but would like to explore and be creative with my photos and at the same time not have software that's going to take forever to learn. Would it be Adobe elements, lightroom 3, corel?

would like to hear options for price not being an issue and for price being an issue.

btw its for a windows based pc.

thanks

Best is subjective until you set solid parameters based on your intended use.

Best for you?
Not a pro, have no need to be able to make graphics in addition to editing basic images? = Lightroom

 

[al7601]

thanks again for all the feedback, everyone is very helpful on here. Yes, I seen lightroom is on sale at amazon. I'm not a pro as in, I'm an amateur.

I haven't tried Photoscape but might as well for free. I thinks I'm going to go with Lightroom 3. I'm more of a family man so alot of pics of my family both indoors and out. I don't want my head to spin when trying to improve photos because I'm so confused but if I can improve my pics slightly then I'm happy. I'd also like a feature that would allow me to combine multiple photos to have a wide panaromic shot.

My camera is Canon t3i. With lightroom should I remove the Canon software or is there still a purpose for it? Oh and finally, does lightroom store your photos like a Picassa program does?

 

[greybeard]

I see no reason to remove the Canon software, it should co-exist just fine with Lightroom.