Help me pick a editing program for my Mac.

KmH · Nov 14, 2012

GIMP can't do 16-bit depth edits either.

The big plus PsE has is wide support, tutorials, books, etc.

Derrel · Nov 14, 2012

Nikon Capture's problem is that it is...Nikon Capture...I have had a full,licensed version of Nikon Capture since it was version 1.0...it has always been very "iffy". Powerful, capable, yes, and also non-intuitive, and prone to crashing, memory inefficient, and in general, very poor support from Nikon, with slow or non-existent updates for incremental or even major Mac OS updates. There's no other way to put it...Nikon Capture has long been wayyyyyy below what modern software ought to be. Nikon and Nik Software have both let Capture degenerate as the years have gone by. Both companies have their heads so far up an Aperture, that they cannot tell there's a Lightroom on the other side on yonder ridge, and they both have their reasons for making Capture sucky. The various problems Nikon has had with Capture make for some entertaining (infuriating?) reading on Thom Hogan's Nikon site.

I have not fired up Capture in MONTHS, literally....why would I??? Lightroom and CS can do all I need, with much less chance of a crash or an incessant wait to do the simplest of batch operations. Nikon Capture seems like it was designed by two half-witted high school programmers. On a long weekend. With bong hits every three hours.

Nik Software wants users to buy THEIR OWN software solutions. NIKON Corp has allowed NIK to slowly ruin Capture. Nikon does not "do" software worth a damn.

Honestly, I'd say get Lightroom 4 for your Macbook. For workflow and basic editing/organizing, cropping, and so on, a LOT of power and great stability on the various MAC OS variants. Get something else for 16-bit editing and more involved editing and compositing tasks.

unpopular · Nov 14, 2012

KmH said:
GIMP can't do 16-bit depth edits either.

The big plus PsE has is wide support, tutorials, books, etc.

oh don't even get me started on gimp.

panblue · Nov 14, 2012

1:1 pipe is certainly slower than 1:2 pipe. One or two filters are slow to render, but usually they are bypassed, in preference for others (see Flickr Discussions for suggestions). Which ones do you use?

Sliders can be set to non-linear response... speeds up adjustments. Work colourspace, output colourspace can be specified. What makes Photivo 'different' in terms of how your print should look?

I use it sometimes for its very good external camera profile/base curve profiles, colour denoise, lens correction and LAB filters (e.g saturation curve ..amazing tool!). Wiener sharpen sometimes but not usually now as it's 'too sharp' for me

. Try the Reinhard Brighten filter included in the latest binary. Amazing!

Faststone is very good for upsizing. Depending on the size of your print, a 200% upscale in FIV, using their particular bilinear algo (bilinear is a generalised term; i dont know how FIV go about it but it works very well for upsizing), giving you 4x mp of your original file is very quick, up to ~50mp. Would assume that's plenty for any print your are making. There is no FIV for Mac that I could see online after I checked.

In terms of commercial software, SilkyPix Dev Studio I like and it's much faster than the earlier versions.
Capture One is excellent quality. Lightroom I cannot stand!

panblue · Nov 14, 2012

Nikon Capture is rubbish !! C'mon guys ..it sh*te! LR is god awful too.

Derrel said:
Nikon Capture's problem is that it is...Nikon Capture...I have had a full,licensed version of Nikon Capture since it was version 1.0...it has always been very "iffy". Powerful, capable, yes, and also non-intuitive, and prone to crashing, memory inefficient, and in general, very poor support from Nikon, with slow or non-existent updates for incremental or even major Mac OS updates. There's no other way to put it...Nikon Capture has long been wayyyyyy below what modern software ought to be. Nikon and Nik Software have both let Capture degenerate as the years have gone by. Both companies have their heads so far up an Aperture, that they cannot tell there's a Lightroom on the other side on yonder ridge, and they both have their reasons for making Capture sucky. The various problems Nikon has had with Capture make for some entertaining (infuriating?) reading on Thom Hogan's Nikon site.

I have not fired up Capture in MONTHS, literally....why would I??? Lightroom and CS can do all I need, with much less chance of a crash or an incessant wait to do the simplest of batch operations. Nikon Capture seems like it was designed by two half-witted high school programmers. On a long weekend. With bong hits every three hours.

Nik Software wants users to buy THEIR OWN software solutions. NIKON Corp has allowed NIK to slowly ruin Capture. Nikon does not "do" software worth a damn.

Honestly, I'd say get Lightroom 4 for your Macbook. For workflow and basic editing/organizing, cropping, and so on, a LOT of power and great stability on the various MAC OS variants. Get something else for 16-bit editing and more involved editing and compositing tasks.

panblue · Nov 14, 2012

DO you major rendering elsewhere and just use GIMP for layer work. Then it's OK.

unpopular said:
KmH said:

GIMP can't do 16-bit depth edits either.

The big plus PsE has is wide support
, tutorials, books, etc.

Click to expand...

oh don't even get me started on gimp.

Derrel · Nov 14, 2012

I can agree that Capture is ****. But Lightroom being "God-awful"??? I cannot agree with that one bit.

SilkyPix Developer Studio, mentioned by panblue...I have that as well...at times it can make some AWESOME images from RAWs...but the interface is rather hard to wrap one's head around. it's got a very "foreign" interface. Powerful, and yet very klunky.

unpopular · Nov 14, 2012

I've thought about Silky myself, maybe I should take another look? Looks ridiculously powerful.

panblue · Nov 14, 2012

Yea

I dont think English is their strong point.

Unless LR is totally different from when I last used it whenever, 18 months ago or so, i found it just horrid. Clunky, cluttered, obscure file management rationale and very slow. Odd that my experience is so different from you all.

Derrel said:
I can agree that Capture is ****. But Lightroom being "God-awful"??? I cannot agree with that one bit.

SilkyPix Developer Studio, mentioned by panblue...I have that as well...at times it can make some AWESOME images from RAWs...but the interface is rather hard to wrap one's head around. it's got a very "foreign" interface. Powerful, and yet very klunky.

panblue · Nov 14, 2012

SPDS ("spuds"

) and LR offer a batch environment..something Photivo seems to lack..although there is supposedly a batch capability, I have no idea how this can be implemented or where it can be found.

Have you tried Capture One?

unpopular said:
I've thought about Silky myself, maybe I should take another look? Looks ridiculously powerful.

unpopular · Nov 14, 2012

panblue said:
Yea I dont think English is their strong point.

Unless LR is totally different from when I last used it whenever, 18 months ago or so, i found it just horrid. Clunky, cluttered, obscure file management rationale and very slow. Odd that my experience is so different from you all.

Derrel said:

I can agree that Capture is ****. But Lightroom being "God-awful"??? I cannot agree with that one bit.

SilkyPix Developer Studio, mentioned by panblue...I have that as well...at times it can make some AWESOME images from RAWs...but the interface is rather hard to wrap one's head around. it's got a very "foreign" interface. Powerful, and yet very klunky.

Click to expand...

pan - I don't understand it either, maybe the sex is good.

unpopular · Nov 14, 2012

panblue said:
SPDS ("spuds" ) and LR offer a batch environment..something Photivo seems to lack..although their is a btach capability, I have no idea how this can be implemented or where it can be found.

unpopular said:

I've thought about Silky myself, maybe I should take another look? Looks ridiculously powerful.

Click to expand...

I'm not too interested in batch, but the color interfaces look crazy fun. I love RPP, but it's SO technical, sometimes it'd be nice to have something that isn't intentionally made to feel like an E6 processor. But the results are just fantastic.

I've also downloaded the CaptureOne demo - was a bit disappointed.