|
|
Post by wannabe on Jul 3, 2016 22:00:21 GMT
Calling all photography geeks!  I need to get me a 'proper' photo editing package - I've been using FastStone Viewer for most processing but I'm struggling with its Noise Reduction / Sharpening aspects, in that sharpening brings out the noise more but using noise reduction softens everything up...  I know Lightroom is well used and recommended, and I've previously played (and struggled...) with Photoshop, so I'm keen to get recommendations on what the best way forward is. I don't want to pay £££ for software but if that's what it takes... Any advice gratefully received! |
|
|
|
Post by myothercarsa2cv on Jul 3, 2016 22:17:00 GMT
I use the Canon software that comes with their bodies, pretty good but basic.
|
|
|
|
Post by joeytalent on Jul 4, 2016 7:47:53 GMT
I signed up for the Adobe Creative Cloud suite - Photoshop and Lightroom for £7.99 a month. I've not used anything else as Lightroom came free with my first camera.
|
|
|
|
Post by boringgit on Jul 4, 2016 8:17:39 GMT
Dark table and Gimp. I don't know if the former is available for Windows or Mac, but Gimp is I believe.
|
|
|
|
Post by Horney on Jul 4, 2016 8:23:55 GMT
I've heard good things about Gimp.
|
|
|
|
Post by wigwambam on Jul 4, 2016 9:49:31 GMT
Gimp is the best thing you will get for free on all platforms. For photo editing it does pretty much everything you would want to do, but it isn't workflow based so not as painless and quick to use as Darktable or Lightroom when working with a number of files. Darktable is also free but you will probably need to install Linux. It might be possible to install on Intel OSX Mac machines but I have never tried as Apple can suck my whatnot. Works well on Fedora, I pretty much only use Darktable nowadays. It is the balls.
|
|
|
|
Post by wannabe on Jul 4, 2016 12:16:09 GMT
I'm not sure I want to google 'Gimp'...  Installing Linux is outside my capabilities, I fear, so it looks like I'll have to give Gimp a go! FastStone Viewer has been pretty good to me, but last time I was converting a load of files from RAW to JPG it seemed to do some weird thing where it brightened them all up, despite not having anything selected to make it do so.  |
|
|
|
Post by ghostrider on Jul 5, 2016 7:56:14 GMT
I used Gimp until I got my Lightroom package. Gimp is good but I never found it user friendly. If I was just working with jpegs and not RAW then I just used Picasa. Most of the time if you only need to straighten something, sharpen something or saturate something then I find that more or less ideal...
|
|
|
|
Post by Meerkat on Jul 5, 2016 11:49:24 GMT
Another +1 for gimp! Been using it for years and it's great. A lot of the features are based on photoshop which means that you can look up photoshop tutorials and normally it will work the same in gimp.
It's a bit of a learning curve to begin with (especially if you're not used to photo editing software) but it's pretty fully-featured for a free program.
|
|
|
|
Post by Meerkat on Jul 5, 2016 11:51:42 GMT
Oh, and if you're looking for a simple windows-based program for basic sharpening, cropping, softening, and batch editing (eg. processing 20 files in a folder all in the same way) then IrfanView is also pretty good. Quite basic, but incredibly useful. And free.
|
|
|
|
Post by BikeTuna on Jul 6, 2016 9:37:45 GMT
I use Paint.net, but it's not really for photo editing.. I use it for creating web graphics and for my requirements it handles the photos well, but you'll want Gimp for what you want I imagine
|
|
|
|
Post by wannabe on Jul 6, 2016 10:38:07 GMT
Thanks for the replies, everyone  I will check out all the options! |
|
|
|
Post by V6 on Jul 29, 2016 10:51:42 GMT
Photoshop CS2 was available for free for a while (maybe search for that). I have CS4 on a disc which is similar with a load of other things. Aside from being an illustrator I used to spend half my time being a photo retoucher for a london design constants. So I can only get on with Photoshop. I also refuse to rent applications monthly as it will end up costing you thousands of pounds.
|
|
le sigh