editing tools? whats the best way to do it

[yaopey]

I used to have the same thought. But I took the leap of faith to subscribe to Adobe CC (LR + PS) more than a year ago and have never turned back since. I don't earn an income from photography but I feel $10 a month is more than affordable, and it helps me to progress because I have the tools I need to create images.

There are MANY alternatives to Photoshop and Lightroom, some are more common than others. Some are free and some require a fee.

I have a post on "A list of free and paid image editing software" which I was planning to delete, following site restructuring. But if you're interested, I can share the link here.

Yeah totally interested you can share the link here think it would be pretty helpful to others as well, also thanks for the helpful responses from other posters will def look into free PP software's mentioned above once my trial ends.

Now that i think about it $10 a month isn't that bad instead of paying like $200 something for the complete software i guess i feel like i'm missing out on something literally everyone has lol

Here's the link:
The Ultimate List of Image Editing Software For Photographers

Adobe CC works for me so I don't mind paying for the price. But again, that's just me

I love that #1 on the free list is no longer available from Google. They killed it off.

Didn't know that until now! Maybe I should update that post again :/

 

[Ysarex85 79]

I used to have the same thought. But I took the leap of faith to subscribe to Adobe CC (LR + PS) more than a year ago and have never turned back since. I don't earn an income from photography but I feel $10 a month is more than affordable, and it helps me to progress because I have the tools I need to create images.

There are MANY alternatives to Photoshop and Lightroom, some are more common than others. Some are free and some require a fee.

I have a post on "A list of free and paid image editing software" which I was planning to delete, following site restructuring. But if you're interested, I can share the link here.

Yeah totally interested you can share the link here think it would be pretty helpful to others as well, also thanks for the helpful responses from other posters will def look into free PP software's mentioned above once my trial ends.

Now that i think about it $10 a month isn't that bad instead of paying like $200 something for the complete software i guess i feel like i'm missing out on something literally everyone has lol

At $10.00 per month for Adobe you're paying the highest price out there. I'll still endorse Lightroom as one of the best possible choices but if you buy the subscription you're paying top dollar. The software that I use the most is one of the highest priced: Capture One at $300.00. Let's do a price compare between C1 and the Adobe photographer's bundle out over five years. The total Adobe cost is easy: $600.00 for 5 years. The C1 price is trickier. First to be fair I need to supplement C1 with a pixel level editor. So I'm going to add Affinity Photo for $50.00. That makes my initial buy in $350.00. Right now C1 is out in version 10. Phase One's behavior is pretty predictable. About every 18 months you're going to get a new version. You don't have to upgrade but when you do it's going to cost you $100.00. You really only need to upgrade if you need support for a new camera. Phase One plays the same no support in old versions for new cameras game that Adobe invented. Let's assume you're not buying new cameras every 18 months and you decide to skip version 11. Phase One is very understanding about that and when version 12 comes out they'll still let you upgrade version 10 for $100.00. Let's do that. So three years in Capture One's cost is $450.00. In the next three years we'll do the same and our total 6 year cost for Capture One + Affinity Photo is $550 versus Adobe's $600.00.

And then the kicker: If you stop paying Adobe the software shuts down. If you decide not to further upgrade Capture One the software keeps working.

Joe

You do have a point

But at the end of the day, Lightroom and Photoshop are part of my workflow and it works for me.

I recommended Lightroom as a excellent choice.

Also, the price comparison isn't that big of a gap.

It's a huge gap if you ever stop paying Adobe. In 5 years if you stop paying you've spent $600.00 for software you can't use and a C1 user has spent $550.00 for software they can keep right on using. I know you're never going to stop paying, but that's kind of the point.

I do pay a monthly fee but I don't have to worry about the latest version, when the update is going to be and the hassle of downloading and installing.

You may have to worry about a lot worse. Do a Google search on Adobe CC update breaks, kills, deletes, crashes, etc. and you can read all night. And you didn't have to worry about getting it! For example:

Adobe creative cloud keeps breaking |Adobe Community
This morning's Creative Cloud Update just REMOV... |Adobe Community
Adobe issues fix for Creative Cloud Mac update that could delete files
Be careful when running the Adobe CC 2015 update
Creative Cloud Crashing! |Adobe Community
Creative Cloud for desktop app crashes when you start it on Mac OS
Adobe Creative Cloud applications close immediately after launch
Photoshop CC is crashing a lot on my system | Photoshop Family Customer Community
Resolving crashing with Adobe Creative Cloud applications

I could make that list pages long.

The CC takes care all of that for me. So maybe in a way I'm also paying for convenience.

Again, that's just my opinion

Lightroom is great software. I make my money teaching people how to use it. But the Adobe CC bundle is paying top dollar and if you quit paying you're left holding the bag.

Joe

 

[table1349]

Like Joe I an a Capture One Pro user. Have been since V4. I usually upgrade every other version. I have CS 6 as my last Adobe version and do have LR, which just doesn't get used. I got in on the ground floor of Affinity for next to nothing. If CS6 can't handle it someday then Affinity will be what I use. Frank.y Capture One easily fills 95% of my needs. Affinity or CS6 get used more for fun than anything else these days.

 

[Ysarex85 79]

If you're willing to complicate the workflow and break it out into multiple steps (not really a huge disadvantage) then you have piles of options at every price point from free to under $50.00 without any compromise in quality -- just a compromise in workflow. You could for example take Sparky's approach and use the camera supplied conversion software with a supplemental pixel-level editor. It's a two step workflow but without quality loss. You can set that up with multiple software options in addition to the camera supplied converter. I can easily match the quality you get from Adobe by using Raw Therapee (free) plus Affinity Photo ($50.00).

Joe

I use Sparky's approach with UFRaw for raw conversion and Gimp for subsequent processing. UFRaw automatically sends the converted image to Gimp (or any other program you choose) the same as Lightroom sends images to Photoshop. The same applies to using Canon's free DPP software - it will link seamlessly to Gimp or whatever you will.

I have the operating system set up to open UFRaw when I click on a CR2 (Canon raw) file.

That's not how the workflow becomes complicated. It's not about any irritation having to open and close apps. The problem is that you're editing is split between applications and you're forced to generate an intermediary RGB image for part of the process. This leaves you without access to modify your editing without doing large portions of it over again. It's also a file management complication and waste of disk space.

Let's walk through an example. And Evan55T, here's an example of how post processing is integral to taking the photo. Here's a JPEG generated by my camera:

That is horrible. Fortunately I never intended to use it as I only save raw files. The raw file exposure is excellent. What I saw in that landscape was the line of shorter lighter trees on the marsh edge and I knew I could make that work. So I captured a raw file to give me the greatest amount of usable data. The scene is effectively backlit and in the camera JPEG the sky is blown out. I knew I'd have to burn in the sky and I knew I had to capture enough data to permit that.

If I go the UFRaw or any other legacy raw converter route I can't do any local adjustments -- burning, dodging, local contrast variations, split white balance, etc. (A raw converter is a parametric editor. It doesn't change the original raw file it just saves a text file with processing instructions.) So I have to process the raw file and settle for an intermediary level of processing producing a result that I can further process with a pixel level editor such as PS or GIMP or Affinity, etc. Here's that result using UFRaw:

Much better than the camera hack job but still a lot missing. What I can't do now with UFRaw or PhotoNinja, or DX0, or DPP, or SilkyPix, or etc. is:
Burn down the sky.
Change the color of just the sky (split WB).
Change the color of just the grass.
Change the brightness of just that line of trees.
Change the contrast of just that line of trees.

I can do all of that in PS or GIMP or Affinity, but I need a 16 bit TIFF file and most importantly my work is split between the two apps -- the parametric editor and the pixel level editor. What happens if I spend 20 minutes in GIMP getting all that above list finished and then wake up sober in the morning and decide I want to change something I did in UFRaw? Ouch!!!! I re-do all the GIMP work. That sucks. I also have to save the UFRaw work to disk and save the huge TIFF file to disk on top of the raw file.

Or I could just do everything on that list in Lightroom or Capture One. I prefer C1 personally and here's the photo I saw that day processed only in C1:

In addition to the raw file I am saving two C1 text files in total less than 2,000K. If I wake up sober in the morning and want to make a change I can surgically alter anything I did -- I have complete unrestricted re-edit access. That is so valuable. We change our minds over time. C1/Lightroom, I can do the same in both so I'm not making this a specific APP endorsement as much as a way to work endorsement. If you can get the job done in a parametric editor you come out ahead. If not you can still do good work but it's more complicated and most importantly you lose that complete unrestricted re-edit access.

Joe