poor mans photo shop

[JoeW]

First, let me put in a vote for Pixelmator. It's especially effective with Macs (what I use). It doesn't do everything that Photoshop does. But it has a lot of good stuff, it's dirt cheap and allows you to do a lot of creativity with your photos.

Second, if you really want to do Photoshop (but don't want to pay) then use GIMP (which is free and I believe open source). It's a bit clunky but is designed to be a free public alternative to PS.

Third, Macs no longer come with iPhoto. Their new updated program is called Photos and is an enhancement to iPhoto and I believe also replaces Aperture (I may be wrong on this last part).

My advice on programs: it depends upon what you want to do with it. Software is just a tool. So asking someone "should I get a hammer?"...probably, unless what you want to do is to paint a window frame...in which case a hammer would be amazingly ineffective at that. If what you're looking for is a program that is free to sort out large batches of photos and do modest, basic edits then Nikon's ViewNX2 program probably accomplishes that. If you're looking for a free program to do basic edits and then display those photos (i.e.: show 'em off on your laptop while storing them on the Cloud) then Apple's Photos does that.

For right now, it's probably not wise for you to plunk down a lot of cash on a program since you're still just figuring out your camera. At a minimum, you need something to convert from RAW (if you're shooting in that), do basic edits (crop, straighten, brighten, some erasing), store/file/archive, and then display. And there are a lot of programs that will do those things (some may even be on your computer). And then once you get an idea of what your big challenges are (i.e.: you shoot a ton of files and do minimal editing but need an organizational system and access vs. lots of detailed editing and creative changes to each photo vs. showing 'em all off to friends and family) that will then tell you which direction to go.

 

[jaycar85]

it's only $10 a month. just pony up. It's the price of 2 Cafe Latté at Starbucks. Learn the proper software the first time and you don't have to relearn it in the future.

Chuasam i know its not much, and yeah i will probably end up fork n out the green lol just seems like this world loves to nickle and dime you 10 a month for this 20 a month for that before you know it you got 400 month in just crap. I think ill just work with the nikon software until i outgrow it then move up.

 

[waday]

I think ill just work with the nikon software until i outgrow it then move up.

I think this is a good move, especially because you may not need all of the fancy options provided in Photoshop/Lightroom right now.

It's the same reason why I buy cheap equipment until I can afford the nice stuff. Learn on free/cheap equipment, then upgrade when you've reached the limit of the current setup.

 

[Microbois]

Don't mean to hijack this discussion, but people don't realize how bad it is for us, customers, to see the software industry moving towards a monthly service basis, as opposed to providing a good you purchase and use. I won't get into all the details of why software developers are taking this route, but there's nothing good in this future for us; customers. If software companies want recurring income, which is a much tougher business nowadays that software are mature technologies, there are many proven ways to acheive this goal without going to a billable monthly service. Actually, I think a monthly software rental plan can be interesting for those who need software for a brief period of time, or if you hire new employees and need more licenses, again for a short period of time, but for regular customers, this makes absolutely no sense.

 

[The_Traveler]

Any company needs recurring income to support their business.
I had a small internet company that did policy development and training for healthcare companies.
Without subscription for training and certification yearly, my company would have disappeared.
Companies need to stay in business and $10/month for LR and PS is about 6 years equivalent to buying.

I'll bet on that.


And compared to all the other expenses of photography as a hobby, 10/month is trivial, budget dust.

 

[Microbois]

Any company needs recurring income to support their business.
I had a small internet company that did policy development and training for healthcare companies.
Without subscription for training and certification yearly, my company would have disappeared.
Companies need to stay in business and $10/month for LR and PS is about 6 years equivalent to buying.

I'll bet on that.

And compared to all the other expenses of photography as a hobby, 10/month is trivial, budget dust.

Software companies had recurring income for more than a decade now through software assurance programs where they would supply new versions of software, and support, for as long as customers paid their yearly or monthly fees. This was also a good way for companies to budget their software expenditures. But the main flaw of such software assurance program, from the software developer's perspective, is that the customer remains owner of the product (software) forever.

The problem with the 10$/month rental program is that you are not actually purchasing a product, but a service, and a service can be interrupted, modified, cancelled, neglicted, or go up in price, etc. Your only power is to shut up and pay, or cancel your subscription if you're not happy. A "service" is treated in a totally different manner than a "product" in all consumer laws. Selling a product that would stop working automatically after one year is illegal, but it's not for a service. The elephant in the room that the uninformed public is missing here, is that by providing a service, you no longer have the power as a customer to influence the development of software. Software companies are dreaming to become utility companies in the future, but they will also take their bad habits, and considering the poor reputation of software developers, it will get ugly sooner than later.

What kills me in this whole scam is if you stop paying, all your files, at least in their native format, become unreadable and unsuable. Software developers should at least offer a paid version like before, and a monthly rental program if they wish, but moving software to this unique model is a trend we will soon regret as customers, but very few people understand this. Once again, we're all free to do whatever we want, but I'm not buying into this, and all I hope for, is this model doesn't become the only way to use software in the future. I don't even mention the aspect of having your computer talking to the servers of the software developer on a daily basis with all the possibilities it opens to have unauthorized access to our computers. All that stuff combined with cloud storage, and you are in for a very big surprise... I won't derail into privacy issues, but this is exactly where it's heading, but people just don't care as they don't understand at all what's really going on.

Please save this discussion, and let's talk about where the software industry has led us in 10 or 20 years from now. Sure, there will be some advantages, but they may not outweight the inconvenients...

 

[The_Traveler]

Software companies had recurring income for more than a decade now through software assurance programs where they would supply new versions of software, and support, for as long as customers paid their yearly or monthly fees. This was also a good way for companies to budget their software expenditures. But the main flaw of such software assurance program, from the software developer's perspective, is that the customer remains owner of the product (software) forever.

Excellent point but software companies have the same problem as hardware companies do now, the marginal improvements aren't worth the new cost and so people stop subscribing - and the company fades, essentially because they have improved themselves out of business.

Please save this discussion, and let's talk about where the software industry has led us in 10 or 20 years from now. Sure, there will be some advantages, but they may not outweight the inconvenients...

I won't be here in 10 or 20 years and so the issue is moot for me.

 

[pixmedic]

I dont understand how the files will be unusable if i stop my adobe subscription.
i save the raw files on disk. so...no issues there. I can go back and edit them with any program i want down the line.
LR and PS spits out a jpeg as my end product, which I give to clients...dont see how THEY can open and use their file when they don't have adobe and I wont be able to down the road if i quit adobe.
im really not seeing a downside. $10 is dirt cheap for the two best photography software programs you can get.
I understand not "owning" the software....but its no different than leasing a car instead of buying it. you have to give the car back when you stop paying for it. same with my PS and LR. Im fine with that.

 

[Microbois]

Excellent point but software companies have the same problem as hardware companies do now, the marginal improvements aren't worth the new cost and so people stop subscribing - and the company fades, essentially because they have improved themselves out of business.

Yes, it's a known problem, but it's not unique to the software industry. In fact, it's one of today's challenges for companies in our fast changing world, but we are all in the same boat. I just don't like as a customer to consciously put my balls in the hands of the industry and hope they will do the right things for me. If software companies get a constant flow of cash, they will sit on it, and provide minimal improvements to their "service". I prefer to live in a cruel world where companies have to hire the best software engineers, heavily invest in R&D, be serious about being a market leader, and leave the final choice to customers to buy their product or not.

Just remember that a new sucker is born every minute, so there's room to sell to new customers forever. It's just that the software industry has to stop looking at double, or triple digits growth, as the norm, and accept single digit growth as normal. They may also consider lowering their prices too, as they are quite greedy. I remember several years back, I've looked at the annual report of Microsoft and their profitability was over 25%, but try to find that kind of profitability in other businesses, good luck. I guess it's shareholders first! Very often, lowering prices increase sales dramatically too...

I dont understand how the files will be unusable if i stop my adobe subscription.
i save the raw files on disk. so...no issues there. I can go back and edit them with any program i want down the line.
LR and PS spits out a jpeg as my end product, which I give to clients...dont see how THEY can open and use their file when they don't have adobe and I wont be able to down the road if i quit adobe.
im really not seeing a downside. $10 is dirt cheap for the two best photography software programs you can get.
I understand not "owning" the software....but its no different than leasing a car instead of buying it. you have to give the car back when you stop paying for it. same with my PS and LR. Im fine with that.

I'm not talking about the RAW or the JPG files. I'm talking about the native PSD file you make before you generate a JPG file. When more software are on such monthly rental program, like Microsoft Office, then your .DOC and .XLS files will become unusable, unless you are provided with a "viewer", but you won't be able to modify the file if your monthly subscription is not paid. The big problem I see with this situation, is how your archives will look like in the future, especially if you stopped using rented software for say 10 years?

If you have no problem leasing software, then please do! Sure 10$/month is dirt cheap for two mainstream photography software, but again, this is beside the point. Would you say the same thing next year if it's no longer 10$/month, but now 29.95$/month? What happens if they split LR from PS and ask 10$/month for each next year? It's open ended, and as a customer, I don't like being in that situation... Maybe you're very happy now, you drank the Kool-Aid and life is good, but will you be happy when the company takes a new direction you don't want to follow? If you decide to change boat later on, it may cost you a lot.

You say "I understand not "owning" the software....but its no different than leasing a car instead of buying it. you have to give the car back when you stop paying for it.", but you don't understand the underlying problem. There's no problem with leasing, because you are free to lease, or buy, a car since it's your decision in the end. With LR and PS in the CC, you have no choice, and you are forced into this model, want it or not...

Once again, people are lured into attractive monthly pricing, for admittedly excellent pieces of software, but what happens next? Some people live happily not knowing what tomorrow has in reserve, I'm just not like that.

 

[Dao]

I think one of the current trend is, especially for the new generation, not to own things. So for those who grow up in this type of environment may not see any issue of not owning a software, songs/music, videos, games etc. Maybe in 10 -20 years later, people may say why their grandpa/grandma bought all those stuff. They may find it strange to buy a software/music/video or store all the content themselves.

But for me, at this moment, I still like to own. I am old school.

 

[pixmedic]

Excellent point but software companies have the same problem as hardware companies do now, the marginal improvements aren't worth the new cost and so people stop subscribing - and the company fades, essentially because they have improved themselves out of business.

Yes, it's a known problem, but it's not unique to the software industry. In fact, it's one of today's challenges for companies in our fast changing world, but we are all in the same boat. I just don't like as a customer to consciously put my balls in the hands of the industry and hope they will do the right things for me. If software companies get a constant flow of cash, they will sit on it, and provide minimal improvements to their "service". I prefer to live in a cruel world where companies have to hire the best software engineers, heavily invest in R&D, be serious about being a market leader, and leave the final choice to customers to buy their product or not.

Just remember that a new sucker is born every minute, so there's room to sell to new customers forever. It's just that the software industry has to stop looking at double, or triple digits growth, as the norm, and accept single digit growth as normal. They may also consider lowering their prices too, as they are quite greedy. I remember several years back, I've looked at the annual report of Microsoft and their profitability was over 25%, but try to find that kind of profitability in other businesses, good luck. I guess it's shareholders first! Very often, lowering prices increase sales dramatically too...

I dont understand how the files will be unusable if i stop my adobe subscription.
i save the raw files on disk. so...no issues there. I can go back and edit them with any program i want down the line.
LR and PS spits out a jpeg as my end product, which I give to clients...dont see how THEY can open and use their file when they don't have adobe and I wont be able to down the road if i quit adobe.
im really not seeing a downside. $10 is dirt cheap for the two best photography software programs you can get.
I understand not "owning" the software....but its no different than leasing a car instead of buying it. you have to give the car back when you stop paying for it. same with my PS and LR. Im fine with that.

I'm not talking about the RAW or the JPG files. I'm talking about the native PSD file you make before you generate a JPG file. When more software are on such monthly rental program, like Microsoft Office, then your .DOC and .XLS files will become unusable, unless you are provided with a "viewer", but you won't be able to modify the file if your monthly subscription is not paid. The big problem I see with this situation, is how your archives will look like in the future, especially if you stopped using rented software for say 10 years?

If you have no problem leasing software, then please do! Sure 10$/month is dirt cheap for two mainstream photography software, but again, this is beside the point. Would you say the same thing next year if it's no longer 10$/month, but now 29.95$/month? What happens if they split LR from PS and ask 10$/month for each next year? It's open ended, and as a customer, I don't like being in that situation... Maybe you're very happy now, you drank the Kool-Aid and life is good, but will you be happy when the company takes a new direction you don't want to follow? If you decide to change boat later on, it may cost you a lot.

You say "I understand not "owning" the software....but its no different than leasing a car instead of buying it. you have to give the car back when you stop paying for it.", but you don't understand the underlying problem. There's no problem with leasing, because you are free to lease, or buy, a car since it's your decision the end. With LR and PS in the CC, you have no choice, and you are forced into this model, want it or not...

Once again, people are lured into attractive monthly pricing, for admittedly excellent pieces of software, but what happens next? Some people live happily not knowing what tomorrow has in reserve, I'm just not like that.

why do i care about the native PSD file when I have the raw file and the finished jpeg file?
this is a total non-issue to me.

your not "forced" into anything with adobe. don't want to lease their software? then don't. its that simple.
you can buy other software that does essentially the same thing. lots of people do professional work without using adobe products. Adobe is not the only game in town, and does not have a monopoly on photo editing software.

If adobe jacked their prices back to the original $50 a month tomorrow, I would quit my subscription.
I would simply try a few other programs and find one that works best for me, and that would be the only significant inconvenience to me.
I would still have use of ALL my saved raw files and ALL my saved jpeg files so there is no significant loss on either my end, or past clients end.

in the meantime.... I am very happy to take advantage of having the latest PS and LR updates without having to shell out a ton of money. I will take advantage of this deal for as long as adobe keeps that price. will it cost me money later?
it might, I dont know. what i do know is that it didn't cost me $800 right now. in all reality, i was using CS5 and LR4 because I didn't want to spend the money on the upgrades.
this was a great solution for me, and i suspect, plenty of other people.

for the rest, just go buy another editing program and dont worry about what Adobe is doing.
im sure Adobe has doomed itself to immediate failure with their business model the same way some people say Nikon has.

 

[JacaRanda]

Or.....just buy it for $699 (photoshop CS6) and be happy you think you own it.
Or.....just buy it for $150 (LR6) and be happy you think you own it.

 

[Microbois]

why do i care about the native PSD file when I have the raw file and the finished jpeg file?
this is a total non-issue to me.

Because all the hours of work you've put into a picture is in the PSD file! While it may not represent a big issue for you with pictures, I've used a lot of software in my life, and it would be a living nightmare if a company like Autodesk, maker of AutoCAD, would take a similar route. It would put countless projects at risk once archived.

in the meantime.... I am very happy to take advantage of having the latest PS and LR updates without having to shell out a ton of money. I will take advantage of this deal for as long as adobe keeps that price.

This is short term thinking, but by drinking the Kool-Aid, by subscribing to the "service", and by accepting all the drawbacks, you help software companies make this business model viable. Don't worry, I'm not reproaching you anything, we live in free countries and I respect people's decisions... Seriously. But if one day we come to regret it, I'll be that old grumpy man saying : "I told ya!". LOL.

for the rest, just go buy another editing program and dont worry about what Adobe is doing.
im sure Adobe has doomed itself to immediate failure with their business model the same way some people say Nikon has.

Don't worry, I'm not losing sleep over what Adobe is doing with their business model. I'm using other software to edit my pictures, and I'm very satisfied. The only thing that worries me a lot is if this software monthly rental business model is here to stay, or if it will be just a temporary "blurp" in the software history. I read somewhere that the next version after Windows 10 will also be available only on a monthly basis. This sucks big time...

Or.....just buy it for $699 (photoshop CS6) and be happy you think you own it.
Or.....just buy it for $150 (LR6) and be happy you think you own it.

Nope, I'm using alternatives and open source software whenever possible. The only "mainstream software" in my computer is Windows 7, but that's me...

 

[pixmedic]

why do i care about the native PSD file when I have the raw file and the finished jpeg file?
this is a total non-issue to me.

Because all the hours of work you've put into a picture is in the PSD file! While it may not represent a big issue for you with pictures, I've used a lot of software in my life, and it would be a living nightmare if a company like Autodesk, maker of AutoCAD, would take a similar route. It would put countless projects at risk once archived.

in the meantime.... I am very happy to take advantage of having the latest PS and LR updates without having to shell out a ton of money. I will take advantage of this deal for as long as adobe keeps that price.

This is short term thinking, but by drinking the Kool-Aid, by subscribing to the "service", and by accepting all the drawbacks, you help software companies make this business model viable. Don't worry, I'm not reproaching you anything, we live in free countries and I respect people's decisions... Seriously. But if one day we come to regret it, I'll be that old grumpy man saying : "I told ya!". LOL.

for the rest, just go buy another editing program and dont worry about what Adobe is doing.
im sure Adobe has doomed itself to immediate failure with their business model the same way some people say Nikon has.

Don't worry, I'm not losing sleep over what Adobe is doing with their business model. I'm using other software to edit my pictures, and I'm very satisfied. The only thing that worries me a lot is if this software monthly rental business model is here to stay, or if it will be just a temporary "blurp" in the software history. I read somewhere that the next version after Windows 10 will also be available only on a monthly basis. This sucks big time...

Or.....just buy it for $699 (photoshop CS6) and be happy you think you own it.
Or.....just buy it for $150 (LR6) and be happy you think you own it.

Nope, I'm using alternatives and open source software whenever possible. The only "mainstream software" in my computer is Windows 7, but that's me...

i don't get the "kool aid" reference.
adobe offers a service I find useful, so i use it.
when they stop offering a service i find useful, i wont use them anymore.
I don't save PSD files. only raw and finished jpegs, so...losing adobe tomorrow would be no less detrimental to me than if i lost the use of any other product. i would just start using another.
the hours of work i spent are saved as the hi res jpeg. if, for some reason, i need to re-edit, i would just start with the raw file. I don't spend "hours" on any single picture, so even if i needed to reedit a handful, it wouldn't be more than an hour or two...not exactly crippling for me.

I understand...CC isn't the best solution for everyone.
I don't get to keep the movies i watch on netflix for $8 a month.
I don't get to keep the shows I watch on cable.
I don't get to keep the songs i listen to on Pandora.
I would assume you probably don't subscribe to any of those either.
I get to use the best photo editing software on the planet, for just a little more than i pay for netflix.
right now, for me, that's a far better option than settling for a lesser program and batching system just for the privilege of "owning" it.

if that's "drinking the kool aid", pour me another round.

 

[Microbois]

I understand...CC isn't the best solution for everyone.

I don't have a dog in this fight, nor do I really care as I've been a long time and happy user of alternative and open source software. Even my own choice is not for everyone, just as CC is not for everyone either. The only reason why I brought up this software rental business model, it's because I know a few big cheeses in the software industry, and I know exactly where all this is going, and chose not to be part of it, that's it. All I hope for is it doesn't sink the whole industry in this rental model only. I also happen to know what kind of data is coming back to the software developer during updates, upgrades, activation, etc.

I don't get to keep the movies i watch on netflix for $8 a month.
I don't get to keep the shows I watch on cable.
I don't get to keep the songs i listen to on Pandora.
I would assume you probably don't subscribe to any of those either.

You are confusing a few things here... TV shows, musics, and movies are "content", but software is a "tool", not content. I'm not the type of guy to go out and buy movies, but I like to purchase my tools once, and have them when I need them.

By the way, you say you don't get why I refer to the Kool-Aid expression. I never looked up the definition until now on Wikipedia : Drinking the Kool-Aid is a figure of speech commonly used in North America that refers to a person or group holding an unquestioned belief, argument, or philosophy without critical examination. It could also refer to knowingly going along with a doomed or dangerous idea because of peer pressure. It can also be used ironically or humorously to refer to accepting an idea or changing a preference due to popularity, peer pressure, or persuasion.

Couldn't be more dead on! LOL.