Best photoshop

[takentheshotphotography13]

I am adventuring into photography. It has become a fun hobby and was wondering what is the best photoshop to use. I am just an amateur and want to learn more but do not want a very difficult photoshop to learn. Any ideas? Please Help?

[Carl in Louisiana]

Hello and welcome to CnC! To start out with you have Lightroom 5 and Elements 12. All have somewhat of a learning curve but I think Lightroom 5 would be the easiest to start with. You can download a free trial to try it out. But first watch some video's on Lightroom to learn a little about how to use it to make the most of the free trial. Hope this helps you.

http://tv.adobe.com/show/getting-sta...p-lightroom-5/

http://laurashoe.com/lightroom-5-tutorials/

[Manfred M]

Welcome to CiC

Adobe has three different products aimed at photographers;

1. Photoshop Elements - this is primarily aimed at the amateur market and is also the least expensive of the offerings;

2. Photoshop Lightroom - this is an interesting product that started out life as a database to help organize your images, but has reasonably decent editing tools. A lot of people like it, others (including me) are not all that impressed by it. It tends to sell for a bit more than Elements; and

3. Photoshop CC - aimed at the professional and advanced amateur. It is by far the most powerful in the group, but also the most expensive and the one with the longest learning curve. It is available by subscription only. As you are a beginner, I would suggest you stay away from it.


My recommendation would be to go to Elements; as it has the lowest cost of entry. There are a number of other programs out there that can be used for photo editing, but the Adobe products are the most popular, which means there is a fair bit of material; books, online, etc. material to help you learn them.

[rpcrowe]

First; Photoshop is a specific Adobe Program. In reality, you are looking for an photo editing program, among which, the three Adobe offerings: Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Lightroom are possibly the most used editing programs on the market.

There are some other for pay programs and several free programs available.

The advantage of the Adobe programs is that they are just about the standard of the industry.

Photoshop is no longer available for purchase but, rather you obtain it by subscription.

Photoshop Elements was once a really stripped down form of Photoshop but, over the years it has evolved into a powerful processing program.

I have not used Lightroom to any extent but, it is quite popular among photographers.

Another program you might consider is the OnOne Perfect Photo Suite which I use as an adjunct to my Photoshop CS6 but, can be used as a stand alone program. It is a very capable and powerful program that is quite simple to use. You can download a trial at: http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite8/

I am sure that some of our members can chime in regarding Lightroom (which has been mentioned previously) as well as give you some feedback on GIMP and Picasa which are two well known free editing programs...

[nimitzbenedicto]

Hi,

I tend to agree with Carl.

Try out Lightroom 5. It's relatively affordable and good enough for hobbyists and experts too.

HTH

[IzzieK]

Welcome to CiC. I sure would like to know your name so I (and others) can refer to you better than addressing you as taketheshotphotography13.

[takentheshotphotography13]

Thank you so much for everyone's help. I will check into Element and Lightroom.

[takentheshotphotography13]

I have contemplated putting my name. This is the first time joining a forum and this is all new to me. The internet still makes me nervous even with all the security programs now available and installed on different sites. My email was hacked before and changing passwords and usernames was quite disturbing. I love the internet and it is extremely informative, but sometimes it can give to much info.

[rpcrowe]

Why don't you just call yourself "Georgia" that is both a person's name and a place name...

BTW: if you elect to use Lightroom and eventually want to expand the capabilities of that program; Perfect Photo Suite has plug-in for Lightroom that will add many of the full Photoshop version's capabilities such as masking as well as many other capabilities (some of which the full Photoshop version doesn't include).
http://www.ononesoftware.com/support/3205/

[takentheshotphotography13]

Great idea, I think I will rpcrowe.

[IzzieK]

I have contemplated putting my name. This is the first time joining a forum and this is all new to me. The internet still makes me nervous even with all the security programs now available and installed on different sites. My email was hacked before and changing passwords and usernames was quite disturbing. I love the internet and it is extremely informative, but sometimes it can give to much info.

You will not regret joining this forum Georgia. What a beautiful name you have! Reminds me of a song... You will notice after a few posts that almost everyone but the hardheaded ones put their names and whereabouts here. It is a very safe site for now and our admins and moderators are really nice people who know their jobs, especially in protecting all of us from hackers and annoying people.

I've also been hacked before, twice from memory (last year) before I joined this forum. Ease your mind here. And enjoy your stay while here. Get to know us and us to know you via your posts and your photographs.

Cheers......
PS..rpcrowe is Richard, a wonderful guy from Kommiefornia ...

[rpcrowe]

Isabel...

Kommiefornia is in Northern California and it's capitol is/was the University of California, at Berkley.

I am from Southern California which is primarily patriotic and is usually diametrically different in beliefs from NorCal...

[IzzieK]

Isabel...

Kommiefornia is in Northern California and it's capitol is/was the University of California, at Berkley.

I am from Southern California which is primarily patriotic and is usually diametrically different in beliefs from NorCal...

Glad to know, Richard...I am more happy to know that you are. BTW, that comment was one of my (SA tongue-in-cheeks comments. )

[benm]

Lightroom is good; that's what I use. You can also try the software that came with your camera, might be good enough to start with.

[JR1]

Paintshop Pro, one of the best VERSION 7 yes 7.

I use it now in preference to Adobe, have used t in ALL versions of Windows including 8.2

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JASC-Paint...item3a8ccbb867

This is no longer available as JASK no longer exists so it can be used from a copy legally, some NEW or boxed ones are still available. as I say I use it daily for my work

[takentheshotphotography13]

Does anyone use or recommend GIMP or PICASA? From what I am reading Adobe Element seems to be the most used and liked, has anyone had a bad experience with it? Also does anyone use Flickr and how do you feel about? Thanks for everyone's input so far.

[Manfred M]

GIMP is a very powerful program that I personally do not like. Because it is open source, the price is right, but it relies on plug-ins from different developers, and I found the lack of consistency in their design a bit frustrating. I pick it up again every now and then and start working with it and give up after a few days.

Picasa is Google product, and is quite nice, but is primarily aimed at the casual user. Just like with GIMP, the price is right, but it is very limited as to what it does.

Flickr - use it and Yahoo finally spent some money on it last year and updated it. Almost all my postings are images from Flickr; its main advantage over other sites is that I can save a full reolution image from my D800 (36MP) on it and that's not something that other sites do.

My serious postings are done on my Pro Behance site (Adobe owned and operated).