Do I have to get photoshop?

[Colin Southern]

A great program for the price is Paint Shop Pro X5 from Corel. Comes very close to photoshop for 1/6 of the price.

I think you'll find that it competes more against Photoshop Elements than Photoshop.

[loosecanon]

Do you need an DSLR to take great pictures, no of course not, but the viewfinder and controls help you turn what you see into the image you want, and the quality of image is higher in terms of resolution/noise/lens resolution than most point and shoot cameras. Many of us would like to also own a Hasselblad and set of lenses. We don't because there are financial limits to what each of us can afford to do.

when it comes to picture editing software there are good free or cheap alternatives, capable of good work. However as one develops ones photography sometimes you may find that you enjoy editing images, tweaking here, removing things, etc. You may get pleasure from many hours spent working on an image to perfect it. If you find this you may find you want tools that will be more versatile and do more, or do it quicker and better, and the latter two are certainly something that often comes with commercial software. If this is the case then just as a new lens is a considered purchase, where you balance its use against cost and affordability, so with software. Certainly Lightroom at its new lower price is an excellent start to index you images, develop raw and carry out broad brush adjustments. The latest versions of Photoshop elements, again not that expensive compared with the cost of equipment, does most of what photographers are likely to want to do, and because it is simple it both works faster and is more intuitive to learn. Corel software is also good and for full blown work worth considering. Adobe sadly have shown poor support for photographers who don't wish to continually spend a lot on upgrading to the latest version. Buy a 5D3 and adobe raw upgrade for older versions of lightroom or PS CS5 is not available. Couple this with the fact that the software even when fully legitimate and installed can suddenly decide to stop working, you have choices to make. Sadly there is not a simple answer, if there was we would all be using the same brand of camera.

[Colin Southern]

Adobe sadly have shown poor support for photographers who don't wish to continually spend a lot on upgrading to the latest version.

Huh?

They reduce the cost of their product from USD $699 to $199 for those upgrading from the previous version (or a qualifying version which may stretch a little further back) -- I'd call that pretty darn good support for existing users (which equates to 55c a day if my maths is correct) (assuming a 12 month update cycle).

Buy a 5D3 and adobe raw upgrade for older versions of lightroom or PS CS5 is not available.

Because - it's not logical to continue to poor resources into a discontinued product. However if one wants to open - for example files from a 5D3 on CS5 then they need only download the free DNG converter that Adobe make available (which then allows ANY version of CS to open the files).

Couple this with the fact that the software even when fully legitimate and installed can suddenly decide to stop working

It can happen with any software - more often as not though, if it requires re-activation it'll be because some key hardware has changed on the PC. If it's crashing or is screwed up for other reasons, who's to say that it's not due to an underlying hardware or OS issue? Photoshop is an extremely complex piece of software and to be honest, I've been particularly impressed with it's stability over all the previous versions I've owned. Off the top of my head I can only recall about 1 occasion where I've lost part of an edit due to a crash (and that was a hardware issue on the PC).

[drjuice]

Hi Fritha -

I refuse to buy Photoshop because I believe people should be interested in having a collegial atmosphere doing the kinds of things we do. If I were doing this to make buckets of money, I probably still wouldn't buy it because I have fun writing programs that work the way I want as well as to the standards for user interfaces, etc., which most commercial products don't do, based mainly on their thought that "they know better".

With one exception, because I have been using the product since it was in beta 0.81, well before the matter of software cost was an issue, all the software I use for image processing is either shareware, free, or personally written by me or a member of my team. If you want to explore shareware and/or freeware, I'd suggest starting with dcraw and/or Gimp.

I'm jes' sayin', even though I have a busted elbow.

virginia

[rpcrowe]

Photoshop Elements 10 (PSE-10) is an amazingly powerful program which can accomplish most of the things that you can do with the Photoshop CS6 program and PSE-10 costs a fraction of what Photoshop CS6 costs.

I don't know about the price of PSE-10 in other countries but, I have seen it on sale for as low as $50 USD (at Costco Membership Discount Store) soon after Adobe released the edition. It now runs about $80 from most retailers.

I will admit that Photoshop CS6 may be the Gold Standard but, PSE-10 will allow you to do the majority of editing and cataloging most photographers need. If, you eventually decide to upgrade to one of the Photoshop CS series programs, the learning curve between a PSE and CS series program is relatively comfortable. Many of the tools and processes of PSE-10 are almost identical to those of Photoshop CS6.

I actually like CS6 better than I like PSE-10 and I recently purchased CS6 on sale for $250 (USD). However, I have worked with PSE-10 and it is a very capable program...

[AB26]

Hi Fritha,

Welcome,welcome,welcome.

Get Nikon ViewNX2, if it was not bundled with the camera - it is free, mahala. What you need is a good UV filter for each lens to protect it, a tripod and maybe an external flash.
You do not "find style" but it is developed over time. Your own unique way of telling a story with the pictures you take.
I can see you are on the right track, if you managed to work out how to get the correct exposure using manual, you are learning very fast. It is always the better option to first get the shots right in camera before resorting to any sort of PP.
Soon you will find your way around the camera and start taking "artsy looking" pictures using different settings.

Take a couple of shots and post it in CiC. Let us see who calls herself a "photography moron".
Shoot the way you like and do not let others influence you on how you should take your pictures. If you like them it is good enough reason to take them. The finer technical details will come later.

Enjoy using your D5100, it is a great camera.

[Melkus]

A quick and easy program to use and is free is Picasa 3. You don't get a lot of control but for free it's not bad