Post Processing Software

its not about the software, its about the image and how you polish it. i don't know anything about the program you mentioned. but if you can clean, crop, straighten, adjust etc with it, then its fine. i recommend photoshop but it depends what you plan on doing with it. simple edits, go with free. lots of cutting out and cloning, go with adobe or corel.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

For processing of raw images I use Dxo optics pro, I find it gives much more pleasing finish to my images than lightroom. For processing after raw conversation I use corel paintshop pro.

and I scorn Adobe PS in all it's forms and use photoplusX5 by serif (there are newer versions).

Srinivasan

Welcome!

Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Lightroom, are the standard software programs and ALL others have been developed from them. I would suggest, GIMP, which is free or for around $70, from Amazon, Photoshop Elements 13, which is ALL you'll need for years.

Here's a YOUTUBE video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKzKJkV7MGs

also, you can visit the adobe site and download a free trial of PSE13 and try it out before you buy anything.

As Mike mentioned, it's not just the software, but the learning HOW to use the software that really makes the difference. NONE are really easy or intuitive, but you can learn a lot watching Adobe's own "how to" movies and also Youtube's.

Shooting RAW is the first step in creating great images!

Good Luck,

Rich

There are many MAJOR edits you can do with several on-line FREE programs... for minimal payments of $4.99 a month. The ones I use are "Picmonkey, Ribbet and IPiccy".... strange names... but these are amazing editing programs for bare pennies. I also use Photoshop Elements... much cheaper than the full version of Photoshop. I continually use ALL FOUR editing programs. Love each of them!

I use Paint Shop Pro.

confused yet?

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I have been using lightroom for quite some time, as I always shoot RAW format with my Nikons, BUT I recently read an article regarding the poor color rendition of lightroom vs the capture NX software and after some checking, sadly, colors are reproduced better in the Nikon software. To get matching color in Lightroom I had to make a color matching profile. Could just be my old eyes, but I ran 100 images through LR, same 100 through Nikons software, and the nikon software images were cleaner :(.

I first started with the free Gimp, but found it not user-friendly, at least for me. I then purchased PS CS5, got a book by Scott Kelby to go with it, watched videos (Scott Kelby also), and used just that for awhile. Then I went with LR3, and also have some Topaz programs. I use all 3 depending on the image and what I want to do.

Photoshop or lightroom... the end result can be the same but the path to get there is different.

Lightroom as it's name suggests has a workflow modeled after what a film photographer would go thru in a darkroom... but it can now be done in the light.. hence... LightRoom ;O)
Unlike Photoshop it also has a powerful database built in to organize your images to suit your preferences. LightRoom also allows you to create multiple versions of your Raw images nondestructively and with out the creating duplicates of your file. When you make and save a version of your image only the instructions that you executed to create that new version are saved in a tiny file. So when you want to work on one of those versions all it does is load your original then the instructions and applies them. You can even drop that instructions file on another image and it will apply the same changes. But wait... there's more ;O) much, much, more.

Photoshop, on the other hand is more of a free for all.. it is like a box of multi function tools that you can use to get the results you want in many different ways. There are suggested workflows for Photoshop, but you are free to disregard them.

There are more "creative" things you can do in Photoshop that you cannot do in LightRoom though.

Zoner. With Windows 8 I couldn't load Photoshop Elements so I gave up on Adobe.
https://www.zoner.com/

Lightroom and then have plug ins for..others! I start in Lightroom and continue in Topaz. I have others I don't use too often. Once or if I'm going to get creative with something, adding texture layers or filter effects, I mostly do that in Smart Photo Editor - it has it's pros and cons but really they all do. Nothing is one size fits all for editing.

Bump!

@ see my photos.. the problem you may have had was not with photoshop elements.. it runs fine in win 7, win 8 and win 10.

Well.. possibly if you were trying to run a very old version of Elements. currently at version 13.

Good luck, I have been using an old program that is no longer available, or I'd recommend it. I installed Gimp, bought the book, Beginning Gimp, and still cannot get it to open the way the book describes. :(

I use Adobe Photoshop Elements (V12) for 95% of my photo editing. It's about $75 or so on Amazon and comes on a CD with PC and Mac versions. It is likely all that many people will ever need. I also have the add-on Google NIK Collection for some special editing effects.

But, as Mike says above, it's all about the image with which you begin your post processing.


---------------
~ Bill
~ US Pictures .com

@Bob, it wasn't an old version. I believe it was either 10 or 11. Kept getting errors and after troubleshooting and looking for answers in forums I just gave up on it. I couldn't even download new adobe stuff when I bought my new Windows 8 computer. Windows can be funny like that sometimes. I have Gimp downloaded but yet to really give it an honest try.

@See...

Well OK. Sorry it just bothers me when a quick statement condemning something [ anything not just tech ] without much details. But I can totally empathize with your situation. Having been involved with the management of computers for 20 I have seen my share of head scratchers ;O). There are a billion different combinations of hardware installed on computers.. each component conforming to certain standards with some conforming to only 98% or less of the standards. There are also issues of hardware failing but still functional for most tasks and only showing up under certain conditions. Graphics cards are a notorious source of issues. Each new iteration of graphics cards adds many new functions that the higher profile graphics programs immediately try to leverage.. and computers with "lesser" graphics cannot keep up... although sometimes it only takes adding more memory to the graphics card to allow them to keep up.

Software usually gets the blame because that is where you "see" the issues suddenly pop up.

For a majority of home computer users these problems do not occur because their usage is not pushing the current limits of the technology... emailing, facebooking, tweeting... etc can be done easily by most computers. And there is the added situation where price sometimes is the major deciding factor in a computer purchase [ not saying that is your situation ] but low price comes with.. well a price... when you try using resource hungry applications. And a majority of adobe products are certainly in that category.

Oops, almost forgot, I also use the Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 (SEP2) plug-in for some b/w conversions. I bought SEP2 before they were bought by another company. Google as I recall?



"..as Mike says above, it's all about the image with which you begin your post processing."

Concur on that.

Craig, What was the problem downloading Photoshop Elements? Did you use the alternate downloader or Akamai Downloader? The Akamai didn't work for me so I used the alternate and it worked fine.

How do you like Zoner? Is it a stand-alone program?

I agree with some of the comments above that it is not as much the software as what you do with it.
Gimp is free but sometimes you get what you pay for. Although, I admit that I don't use all the bells and whistles of the CC suite.
PSE is somewhere in between, but if you want to record actions (which saves a ton of time for series of commands that you do frequently) I don't think this is an option but it does allow you to play actions that have been recorded in full photoshop if said commands are available in PSE.
I have seen over edited images that look worse than sotc images, so again, half the battle is what you do in the software.

@Jessica= I can't remember what downloader it was but even from the adobe site I couldn't get it to download. I think like what most others said which is try to get it right or as best you can within the camera and its easier regardless. Zoner is a stand alone program and a bargain of a price. I upgraded to 17 for only 19.00 bucks.

It's not about getting it right in the camera. Post processing is necessary for most photos as the camera sees differently than the eye.

I used to pp my images with Aperture 3 from apple and it was very user friendly programme. But since the apple support and up dating came to an end recently I had to move on to Lightroom. Light room is a photo management programme that can be also used to do minor manipulations . Photoshop is a major programme that can give you more possibilities to go further into manipulations. But A well exposed and created image in the camera need very little manipulation. so Most of my work is well finished in my camera and I hardly do use all the functions of PS CC . But Photoshop is the best and with it you have more possibilities to achieve very high level in possibilities in image manipulations.

@Jessica.... Spot on, glad someone else said it....


I use Adobe CC.... It works for me, It may not work for others, try a bunch and see what works best for you

Just to repeat.. all of adobe products can be tried for free. so... first... read up about them.. watch some youtube tutorials or adobe tutorials at tv.adobe.com. then.. download the trial programs.

There are top photographers using all sorts of different software. So, I think its a matter of learning the applications and techniques regardless. The new cameras have built in adjustments available also. I can straighten, make black and white, and other adjustments in the camera but the LCD screen is simply too small for me to really see it.

There is another reason to go with adobe.. training. And free online tutorials for any situation you find yourself stuck in. Same with books... check with your local library... there are probably Photoshop, and LightRoom books available.

Cyril, I just found out that Apple is releasing their new OS soon (El Capitan) and one of the new features in the Photos APP that replaced Aperture is the ability to integrate third party app plugins into the Photos program. This should improve the work flow dramatically, I have been looking for alternative editing software but am holding off until then, Hopefully, topaz impression and pixelmatr plugins will be included,,,and not just the main ones like LR and PS, I was disappointed that Paint Shop Pro and some of the corel programs do not work on the Apple OS,

To add to what Bob mentioned about books, if you look on Amazon, a lot of times they have used ones at reduced prices. I've not bought any of them (used ones), but have seen them available occasionally.

And to add to what Greg just mentioned.. ;O) You will find many more Adobe users here on FAA to answer you questions concerning photo editing.