What software should I use

[Vic Vinegar]

What is a good piece of software for editing for somebody starting out? How would I go about learning how to use software?

 

[Light Guru]

Start with lightroom them move to photoshop. As for how to best lean it well that would depend on your learning style.

 

[KmH]

Start with GIMP.org.
It's free and for learning how to use it - GIMP forums - Google Search

Adobe's Lightroom and Photoshop are industry standard software.

There is a consumer version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements.

 

[snowbear116 47]

You should be able to do a lot of the basic editing with the software that comes with your camera. Gimp will cover everything else.

 

[Vic Vinegar]

What's the difference between lightroom and photoshop?

 

[snowbear116 47]

Lightroom is a photo management program - library & cataloging, that has some editing functions. Photoshop is strictly a high function editor.

 

[Alyssa15267]

I use PhotoShop elements 12. Its better than the one that come with the camera. Its not hard to use and isn't very expensive at all, I'm self tought when it comes to editing,but there's a lot of great tutorials that help me learn. Hope this helps

 

[JoeW]

What is a good piece of software for editing for somebody starting out? How would I go about learning how to use software?

GIMP is free, a bit cumbersome, but does an incredible amount of stuff. Pixelmator is very inexpensive and very good. Ultimately you'll probably to go Lightroom and then Photoshop but they're more expensive then Pixelmator and more complicated (especially Photoshop) to learn. If all you're looking to do are very simple edits (crop, convert to B&W, sharpen, change some color balance) then iPhoto or a number of simple photo editing programs or even Picasa can do those things for you.

 

[Vic Vinegar]

All of this free advice makes me feel like I'm stealing information. This is all such amazing advice and I feel like I should be paying lol. Thanks everyone! BTW are those programs like a yearly subscription or a 1 time buy or...?

 

[Alyssa15267]

1 time buy.

 

[rudimaes]

I also use Photoshop Elements 12, I'm very satisfied and it's (relatively) easy to use.
There are many good books on Photoshop Elements (and on Lightroom and Photoshop)
Rudi

 

[greybeard34 7]

At home I use a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop. But at school we don't have those programs and I use Microsoft Photo Gallery. It's a free (and clean) download from Microsoft and you don't have to worry about all those junk programs being downloaded along with it that you get with other free programs. It has similar features to Lightroom.

 

[KmH]

Photoshop CC 2014 is a raster graphics editing application designed for photography and graphic arts.
Photoshop includes 2 plug-ins - Bridge, which is an image file browser, and Camera Raw a parametric image editing application (Adobe Camera Raw or ACR). Note that CC 214 does have some vector graphics editing capabilities, but Adobe's primary vector graphics application is Adobe Illustrator.

Photoshop Lightroom is a image database management application that has 7 modules, one of the modules being essentially the same parametric image editing application (ACR) that Photoshop has. Note: using a database manager is different from using a browser.

Adobe offers a Photography Program subscription that is $9.99 a month and includes both Photoshop CC 2014 and Lightroom 5.
The 2 are included because Lightroom was designed for photographers (with minimal graphic arts features) as a front end application to compliment, not replace, Photoshop.
Lightroom can be purchased by itself ($120), but has to be purchased again when a new version is released. Once a new version is released Adobe stops updating the older version. The old version is still usable, but it will never again be updated. LR 5 is the current version and is about due to be replaced by LR 6,

The subscription includes updates and new versions of both LR and CC 2014.

Photoshop Elements (PsE) a de-featured consumer version (has about 40%) of the pro grade Photoshop. Elements also includes an image browser function and about 1/2 of ACR's features, capabilities, and functions.
Here too Adobe issues new versions and old versions no longer get updated. PsE 13 is the current version, so PsE 12 is no longer updated.

 

[Braineack]

start with workflow and develop/processing software designed for photographers, then move on to "editing" if you need it.

 

[JoeW]

All of this free advice makes me feel like I'm stealing information. This is all such amazing advice and I feel like I should be paying lol. Thanks everyone! BTW are those programs like a yearly subscription or a 1 time buy or...?

That's very generous of you. I'll gladly take a check or money order made out to JoeW.

Gimp is freeware. So is Picasa. iPhoto will come with any Mac that you buy. LR is a 1-time buy as is Pixelmator and NX-2 Capture by Nikon. PS CS is a subscription (which makes it seem cheap and affordable but it's only cheap if you rent/lease it for a couple months--if you're a serious photographer you ought to assume you're going to be leasing it for 5-10 years at least, multiply the rate times that and see what you're paying). As for a bunch of other programs (like Acorn, PhotoImpact, Snapseed, etc.), they vary in price from a couple of dollars to about $30.

Here is a 2015 review of a bunch of photo editing programs: Photo Editing Software Review 2015 Best Photo Editor Software Digital Photo Editor - TopTenREVIEWS

If you really don't know what you want and want to dip your feet in to the water without spending a lot of money, I'd recommend Pixelmator. It would be a very low risk, good payoff option to start with. I paid $20 for it a couple of months ago. If you find it too difficult to learn, than you definitely don't want to invest in GIMP or PS CS and possibly even LR--their learning curve will be even higher (and except for GIMP, much more expensive).

BTW, you should check--I have a Mac (which Pixelmator runs on). The original version was only for Mac but I believe it runs on PCs now. But you should check before you invest any money. All the other programs (GIMP, etc.) are Windows programs.