Which storage & editor

[Papillon]

Hi, newbie looking for recommendations for basic storage and editor online for pc. I've had a look at gimp but does seem complicated for my needs. Thanks for any replies

Sent from my SM-G960F using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app

 

[dennybeall]

There are many different special purpose programs such as Gimp. Many people enjoy finding free, or very inexpensive, special purpose programs to do the various things they need to do with photos.
Others, like myself, choose to spend 10 bucks a month for Photoshop/Lightroom. The two programs have simple basic functions AND some very complex capabilities that you can choose to learn to use. The best part is that they have all the capabilities you may need for stills and for video.

 

[Derrel]

I like Lightroom. I've used Photoshop, Nikon Capture, MacBibble, Canon DPP, Fuji EX, SilkyPIX,and a couple others...Lightroom works well, and does what I need and want, and it's fast.

 

[TCampbell]

This is sort of two questions since you asked about "storage".

There are numerous editors that just let you do image adjustments, but do not "manage" the storage of your images. That storage management is usually called "Digital Asset Management" or "DAM". It means the application has some type of library management system that keeps track of all the images you've imported, knows where they are on disk (or even relocates them and organizes them into it's own hierarchy), and does loads of library/meta-data management things... it doesn't just keep track of images & their names... it knows what camera & lens was used, settings, etc. You can rate images. You can apply keywords. It can even track geo-location. So you could say ... show me all the images that I've tagged with the "portrait" keyword where I used a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and I used a focal length in the range of 150-200mm... and it would quickly pull up all those images for you.

I use Lightroom for this. Prior to Lightroom, Apple had a pro product called "Aperture" which they've since discontinued. I don't know of any other decent DAM products (but maybe I'm just not aware of them.)

There's a new-ish product that runs on Windows & Mac called "Luminar" by Skylum and they claim to be adding a DAM tool sometime this year ... but it's not there yet.

That's the DAM part... but there's also the image adjustment part.

Photoshop and GIMP are "layers-based" editors. They are also "destructive" editors in that it is possible to make changes to images that cannot be un-done once you save.

The name "Photoshop" implies it's for photos and photographers... but that's really just a tiny part of what Photoshop can do. It's an extremely powerful tool for graphics artists (which may have nothing to do photographs) and also publishers. As such it has a bit of a learning curve and it's tools aren't laid out in a way that "speaks the photographer's language".

Lightroom, on the other hand, is the Adobe product which IS meant exclusively for photographers (and not for graphics artists, etc.) It does "speak your language" in that all the adjustments use names that you probably already understand. It's a lot easier to use and is much faster than Photoshop or GIMP. It is not a "layers-based" editor. Also it is "non-destructive" in that when you import your images, it treats them like negatives... you can adjust an image all you want, but that original data is NEVER destroyed (you can't destroy it even if you try... the controls don't exist. The only thing you can do is delete an image if you are sure you no longer want it.)

The nice thing about light room is that it lets you do some powerful things to edit entire photo-shoots all at once.

E.g. when you do a shoot, you probably take more than just ONE photo at a location. You may take hundreds. As long as all the photos were taken in the same lighting conditions, they probably all need the same white-balance adjustment. If they were taking using the same camera and lens, then maybe they even need other common global adjustments such as sharpening, etc. You can adjust just the first image... and then "sync" your adjustments by selecting a range of images and telling it to apply those same changes to the entire set.

Adobe is (whether we like it or not) the "800 lb gorilla" of the photography world. Their products dominate. That means there's a whole industry of Lightroom and Photoshop plug-ins ... that don't exist for any other tools. E.g. if you get an X-Rite color-checker to create a color profile for your camera... there's a plug-in for Lightroom so that your image data is instantly corrected as the images are imported. But there isn't one for any *other* editing software. This gives Adobe an advantage.

I don't particularly like having to "rent" software by paying Adobe $10/month... but at the moment I just am not seeing anything else.

I do see some tools that show promise and may eventually equal or exceed them ... and I'm hoping they will (when we get serious competition in the market, the consumers win because it forces the companies to be competitive both on price and functionality to show they have more "value").

 

[AlanKlein]

Try Irfanview; it's free and pretty simple to do basic stuff.

 

[Papillon]

Thankyou for the replies. Ive opted for Lightroom. Seems user friendly for beginners.Thanks again

Sent from my SM-G960F using ThePhotoForum.com mobile app