Which Photo editing software would you recommend? Do you edit all your photos?

[Schmidlove]

I'm currently using Lightzone, which is a free software. I enjoy the functionality of the program but i'm wondering if a paid program would help the quality of the overall edited photo. Once I upload the photo to a site it doesn't have the quality in which it should (or at least what I believe it should be). So what program would you recommend for the new photographer? With that said, should I be editing my photos to give it that extra bit of help or love the picture that I have taken for what it is.

 

[Pejacre]

I can recommend Lightroom - does nothing fancy like Photoshop but gives you an excellent level of control over the standard processing functions. That said it's always best to strive to get it right in camera, but I'm not that good so I use LR

 

[Ysarex]

I'm currently using Lightzone, which is a free software. I enjoy the functionality of the program but i'm wondering if a paid program would help the quality of the overall edited photo. Once I upload the photo to a site it doesn't have the quality in which it should (or at least what I believe it should be). So what program would you recommend for the new photographer? With that said, should I be editing my photos to give it that extra bit of help or love the picture that I have taken for what it is.

All digital photos require editing.

LightZone is very good software -- I use it regularly. Are you using LightZone to process raw files or JPEG files? LightZone is ideal for processing raw files. I can help with LightZone.

Joe

 

[Schmidlove]

Thank you.

 

[Schmidlove]

I'm currently using Lightzone, which is a free software. I enjoy the functionality of the program but i'm wondering if a paid program would help the quality of the overall edited photo. Once I upload the photo to a site it doesn't have the quality in which it should (or at least what I believe it should be). So what program would you recommend for the new photographer? With that said, should I be editing my photos to give it that extra bit of help or love the picture that I have taken for what it is.

All digital photos require editing.

LightZone is very good software -- I use it regularly. Are you using LightZone to process raw files or JPEG files? LightZone is ideal for processing raw files. I can help with LightZone.

Joe

Joe
I personally love the program, i've been using it since day one but I'm not seeing the quality in which I believe it should be (photo seemed to be clearer prior to edit, blur seems to be in final edit). I shoot RAW, maybe i'm just not using all the functions together appropriately. I would appreciate the help.

 

[Ysarex]

I'm currently using Lightzone, which is a free software. I enjoy the functionality of the program but i'm wondering if a paid program would help the quality of the overall edited photo. Once I upload the photo to a site it doesn't have the quality in which it should (or at least what I believe it should be). So what program would you recommend for the new photographer? With that said, should I be editing my photos to give it that extra bit of help or love the picture that I have taken for what it is.

All digital photos require editing.

LightZone is very good software -- I use it regularly. Are you using LightZone to process raw files or JPEG files? LightZone is ideal for processing raw files. I can help with LightZone.

Joe

Joe
I personally love the program, i've been using it since day one but I'm not seeing the quality in which I believe it should be (photo seemed to be clearer prior to edit, blur seems to be in final edit). I shoot RAW, maybe i'm just not using all the functions together appropriately. I would appreciate the help.

Can you manage to make one of your raw files and an edit available -- drop box or something? If so I'll be happy to run it through LightZone for you. Another option would be for me to make a raw file available to you.

Joe

 

[Mandolin]

All digital images require editing

I often wonder if this is a universal belief among digital photographers. Honestly curious; do ALL digital photos require editing? Or has the modern eye become so accustomed to seeing digitally enhanced images that the SOOCs look, well, meh?

 

[Schmidlove]

Can you manage to make one of your raw files and an edit available -- drop box or something? If so I'll be happy to run it through LightZone for you. Another option would be for me to make a raw file available to you.

Joe

I'm new to the site, how would I go about making a RAW and edit available? I can email or post on my flickr if that is easier.

 

[Ysarex]

Can you manage to make one of your raw files and an edit available -- drop box or something? If so I'll be happy to run it through LightZone for you. Another option would be for me to make a raw file available to you.

Joe

I'm new to the site, how would I go about making a RAW and edit available? I can email or post on my flickr if that is easier.

Here's a raw file that you can download: set_one_4.dng

It's a simple landscape. Go ahead and run it through LightZone and see what you get. I'll post a processed JPEG shortly and then I can go through the processing steps with you.

Joe

 

[Ysarex]

All digital images require editing

I often wonder if this is a universal belief among digital photographers. Honestly curious; do ALL digital photos require editing? Or has the modern eye become so accustomed to seeing digitally enhanced images that the SOOCs look, well, meh?

I didn't say anything about digitally enhanced I said all digital photos require editing.

Here's a digital photo in the form that your camera would first record it:



It's a near perfect exposure -- does that work for you or would you prefer it edited?

Joe

 

[Mandolin]

All digital images require editing

I often wonder if this is a universal belief among digital photographers. Honestly curious; do ALL digital photos require editing? Or has the modern eye become so accustomed to seeing digitally enhanced images that the SOOCs look, well, meh?

I didn't say anything about digitally enhanced I said all digital photos require editing.

Here's a digital photo in the form that your camera would first record it:

View attachment 80185

It's a near perfect exposure -- does that work for you or would you prefer it edited?

Joe

A misunderstanding over the wording, I guess. My question was more along the lines of using LR or PS on every shot. Is it necessary? Can a photographer today survive in a world w/o knowledge of these programs? Coming from a film background, it is all a bit overwhelming

 

[KmH]

All digital images require editing

I often wonder if this is a universal belief among digital photographers. Honestly curious; do ALL digital photos require editing? Or has the modern eye become so accustomed to seeing digitally enhanced images that the SOOCs look, well, meh?

Pretty much all film based photos are, and were edited before digital cameras were invented.

Some of that film editing was dome pre-process rather than post process.
When I say pre-processed I'm referring to the color, contrast, and light response of the make/model of film chosen and the use of colored filters on the front of the lens.

Other free and open source raster graphics (digital photo files) editing applications are GIMP.org and Photoscape,org.

 

[Mandolin]

All digital images require editing

I often wonder if this is a universal belief among digital photographers. Honestly curious; do ALL digital photos require editing? Or has the modern eye become so accustomed to seeing digitally enhanced images that the SOOCs look, well, meh?

Pretty much all film based photos are, and were edited before digital cameras were invented.

I realize this. I'm talking specifically about LR/PS/etc, though. All I'm saying is that it's one thing to learn how to use these new cameras and all their functions, and THEN to have to learn the programs as well. Will a SOOC image survive in a Photoshop world? I'm not bashing PS at all, it is an extremely useful tool. I'm not seasoned enough to word this question correctly, I suppose. Does anyone sell photographs that haven't seen the light of Photoshop?

Sorry, OP, for crashing your thread, btw. Trying to wrap my mind around this.

 

[KmH]

Digital photos have many of the same issues film photos and camera gear have had basically since the beginning of photography - like limited dynamic range and color response.
And computer editing applications have been designed based on wet darkroom techniques to allow he same type of edits to be done to digital photos.
Digital adds some new issues, like image noise instead of having to deal with silver partical size (grain).

Computer based photo editing is math.
Since a computer is basically a really fancy (and fast) calculator, we can now do more as far as editing than could ever be done in a wet darkroom.

 

[Ysarex]

I often wonder if this is a universal belief among digital photographers. Honestly curious; do ALL digital photos require editing? Or has the modern eye become so accustomed to seeing digitally enhanced images that the SOOCs look, well, meh?

I didn't say anything about digitally enhanced I said all digital photos require editing.

Here's a digital photo in the form that your camera would first record it:

View attachment 80185

It's a near perfect exposure -- does that work for you or would you prefer it edited?

Joe

A misunderstanding over the wording, I guess. My question was more along the lines of using LR or PS on every shot. Is it necessary? Can a photographer today survive in a world w/o knowledge of these programs? Coming from a film background, it is all a bit overwhelming

Yes, but so many photographers have this misconception that the photo delivered SOOC as they say is somehow not edited. Every JPEG that a camera creates is edited by both the software in the camera as well as by the photographer. And as you can see from the actual raw file that I posted -- those JPEGs are edited a lot. Every digital camera has software on a chip in the camera that does that processing. Available to the photographer are controls on the camera that allow the photographer to add input -- raise contrast, sharpen, HTP or ADL, lower saturation, etc.. It's all editing of the raw sensor capture.

So the question should be is the editing done using the camera software good enough? Is it as good as you can do editing the raw file later by hand? Well that depends on your standards and circumstance and on your skill editing that raw file.

All digital photos require editing. My standards require that I do it myself.