Photo editing software...

Michael Cardenas

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Hi. My name is Mike, and I'm fairly new to photography:05.18-flustered:. I was wondering what type of photo editing software I should purchase to start practicing editing my photos. Any tips, advice or recommendations anyone?
 
Adobe has a free 30 day trial of Lightroom and Photoshop. It’s a subscription service that you pay around $10 a month for but you always have the latest upgrade. If you’re looking for a one time purchase there are other options topaz labs, affinity photo, capture one… All of them likely have 30 day free trials

if you’re new and just starting out the thing is, a lot of the tutorials are going to be based on Adobe Lightroom. same thing for all the workshops and things like that so it’s your choice but I tried to go the other route and found I had to get back to Adobe because that’s where a lot of the training and available information is based.
 
I use an older version of Photoshop Elements and own the disk, no subscription required.

It is very capable and would more than suit the needs of a beginner.
 
If you're looking for something that is very capable and doesn't require a subscription (ie: a monthly fee) than look at Affinity Photo. I'm very happy with it.
 
Adobe has a free 30 day trial of Lightroom and Photoshop. It’s a subscription service that you pay around $10 a month for but you always have the latest upgrade. If you’re looking for a one time purchase there are other options topaz labs, affinity photo, capture one… All of them likely have 30 day free trials

if you’re new and just starting out the thing is, a lot of the tutorials are going to be based on Adobe Lightroom. same thing for all the workshops and things like that so it’s your choice but I tried to go the other route and found I had to get back to Adobe because that’s where a lot of the training and available information is based.

What she said!

I'll add to it - Gimp is a freeware that is pretty good, but not a lot of training out there. PaintShop Pro 2020 | Download Your Free Trial is relatively inexpensive, has a 30 day trial, and has some training videos out there. Also, it has a Photoshop feel to it, so if you decide to go to Adobe later, a lot of what you learned in Paintshop applies to PS.
 
I can't add much to the good info in the earlier posts - but I guess it also depends on what you're using for the editing?

Windows or Apple PC, or Android or Apple tablet? Plus are you planning to edit RAW files, or just make small adjustments to jpegs?

I use an Android tablet with a stylus, and basic Lightroom is free, with a subscription to upgrade.
 
Almost every program I am aware of offers a 30 day free trial.

If you just want to get your feet wet, FastStone Image Viewer is free !

After processing my raw files into jpeg in Elements, I resize etc. in FastStone.

Cheers, Don
 
If you have a Mac computer use their included 'Photo' software. It's quite detailed and thorough. You can practice your cropping, exposure/contrast editing, color balance/saturations, B&W, retouching, vignetting, and the list goes on. It's intuitive w/ easy to use sliders, but also advanced w/ curves and levels.
 
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There really is an abundance of software in the photography/illustrator world. As said above Gimp is free and currently has an update to make it look like Photoshop. Then there is Photoshop for a subscription price. The yearly price is a good deal. There are many to choose from and none are better than the other but rather what the user has experience with and what you like better as the end user. Try them all out. =]
 
I use an older version of Photoshop Elements and own the disk, no subscription required.

It is very capable and would more than suit the needs of a beginner.

Photoshop Elements is very good for a beginner. They also have a companion program call Photoshop Premiere Elements. It's for video. So if you shoot both stills and videos clips, both programs would be very useful. You can combine both stills and videos to create slide shows like this.
 
The first question I’d ask is what kind of editing do you want to do? If it is exposure, white balance, contrast, sharpening and such there is no need to buy anything. Depending on the camera brand, many offer excellent software to edit Raw and JPEG files with a free download license.

Second question is which camera?
 
Re post 3 I have an v9 of PSE and it still does all I need inc 2mtr 2Gb panorama
 
I prefer Exposure and I'm the only one in this forum. However, I am not a skilled editor so I gravitated towards this software because it made sense to me right out of the gate. I am not impressed how it handles highlights and have sent in my complaints. They have responded several times and asked for examples, what am I trying to accomplish, etc. They are very customer service oriented and actually made some progress with the last release. The only thing that saves my bacon is that I am careful with in camera images.
 
This question comes up a lot in various forums and everybody has their favorites as you can see above. FWIW, if you are really serious about photography, i.e., plan on putting in the time required to constantly improve your skills and creativity, then go with the Adobe subscription which includes LightRoom and Photoshop. It really is the industry standard and there are tons of free, very good, online training materials available in addition to the Adobe tutorials that come along with the subscription. The reason I recommend LR is that it has a fairly comprehensive post processing package along with an image database that allows you to catalog your work. What you can't do in LR you can do in Photoshop. The learning curve for Lightroom is fairly gentle. The learning curve for Photoshop is steep, but you will be amazed at what you can do in Photoshop.

Another package I use and like is Topaz Studio2 along with some of their other AI apps like DeNoise and Sharpen. You will get good results without the steep learning curve of Photoshop.
 

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