New to Photo Editing Software

[benjyman345]

Hello,

I have been a keen photographer for many years but tend to do everything in camera.
I have decided to choose a photo editing software to do some light editing - (I.e. Exposure, colour, hue, saturation, contrast adjustments, sharpening, bracketing etc) on my Mac Laptop.
I may do a bit of raw photography but have not done so far.

I have used photoshop briefly in the past and found the simple adjustments easy enough but anything more was either to complicated or maybe I did not have the concentration or perseverance to learn the more technical aspects.

What are your suggestions for my situation:

* Photoshop Elements
* Apple Aperture
* Other

Thanks heaps.

 

[The_Traveler]

rather than starting a new thread, why not search for the many previous threads on this topic?
then, if you have a more specific question, people can answer.

 

[johnh2005]

My simplest advice would be to download a free copy of Photoshop 5.5 and play with it a LOT during your free trial. Since the trial is time limited I would advise you do the following:

1. Gather up any photos you already have that you think could benefit from Photoshop.
2. Take a few new pictures specifically "screwing" them up in the fields you are looking at. Overexpose a few, underexpose a few, use incorrect white balance etc etc. Shoot these with the RAW + L format. This will allow you to fix a JPEG and adjust the RAW so you can see the difference it can make in shooting RAW.
3. Go on youtube and look up some videos on the topics you want to learn about. Search many many different terms and look for different people's channels. Start a new bookmark folder in your browser. Have sub folders in it. Start with Photoshop>RAW>Exposure>Colors>Curves etc etc. Make sure you can understand the people you are watching. If you can "kinda" follow along without a copy of photoshop in front of you then you can probably follow well with a copy in front of you. If you have a dual monitor setup this will greatly benifit as you can have the tutorials on one monitor and photoshop on the other.
4. Be prepared doing the above before you even start the long download. Have time set aside for a few weeks to 30 days to really play with it.

Once you are prepared sit down and play with it as much as you can. Do this for ONLY photoshop. Once your 30 days is up do all of the above for each of the other programs you are thinking about. Once you are done you should have a great idea of which one is for YOU.

 

[480sparky]

...................
1. Gather up any photos you already have that you think could benefit from Photoshop.
...............

Step 1(a): Make duplicates of those images so you don't screw up the originals.

 

[Breaux]

It sounds like Photoshop might be overkill for your needs. Also look at Photoshop Elements - a stripped down, much cheaper Photoshop. There's also GIMP, which is free, and can probably do everything you need:

GIMP - for Mac OS X

 

[johnh2005]

...................
1. Gather up any photos you already have that you think could benefit from Photoshop.
...............

Step 1(a): Make duplicates of those images so you don't screw up the originals.

Hehe yeah, I just assumed everyone would know that. He had said he had used it before. However, VERY good point as I myself, when starting out ruined a couple of shots. Though they were already "ruined" when I started. haha