What is best photography editing software

[Getsome]

I'm am still looking at software. Still new PP this has been great.

[GiantTristan]

Dear all members now with yours experence tell that what is best photography editing software.

I have used CS3 and Nikon NX in the past, but I now use almost exclusively DxO Pro Version6 in conjunction with Lightroom2. This gives me the best results in the shortest time and with the least effort.

[Blazing fire]

Regarding the issue of speed...

May i know what kind of performance problems you have with CS4, or more specifically, PS4?

1. Is PS taking too long to load (ie, you see that blue box for a very long time), or are your images take too long to be loaded onto the computer? If that's the case, then the best solution is to buy more RAM and/or buy SSDs (if you're rich), or place fast HDDs in RAID 1+0, depending in which is the bottleneck. Remember, it is as fast as the slowest component. For SSDs, look at OCZ Agility or Vertex. Intel's SSDs are not economically viable. For HDDs, look at Western Digital Raptors or their 640GB Caviar Black. Raid 1 + 0 (aka Raid 10) means you have 4 drives; Each drive in a pair has half the entire information. In an oversimplied version- when 01010101 is written, Drive 0 gets 0000 Drive 1 Gets 1111. This is called Raid 0. There are 2 of such pairs and they have identical information. This is Raid 1.

Drawbacks: If your PSU is of poor quality, eg some antec and toughpower series, it may blow and cause a current surge. As all your drives are in one location, all of them may be destroyed. It is very expensive. Raid 0 may not yeld any performance benefits. Raid 0 may cause complications when transfering your HDDs to another system. Raid 0 doubles the chances of data corruption.

2. If it takes a long time to convert, or it is generally sluggish/jerking/unresponsive, it is likely due to insufficient RAM. Tweeking of adjustments taxes mainly the RAM, not the CPU.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I have always found Nikon Capture NX2 to provide the best rendition of the NEF files. And I have tried CS4, Bibble, GIMP; none of them can reproduce what Capture NX2 is capable of reproducing from the NEF. I do agree that the UI for Capture NX2 is not the best that is out there. For my workflow I use a mix of Capture NX2, Bibble and Photoshop. Although I do have to admit that for batch processing I have found that Bibble Pro v5.0 gives me a much better performance than Photoshop or Capture NX2. I use Photoshop only when I need to use the layers feature. Bibble 5.0 looks like it will give Photoshop a good challenge, but again i'm yet to use all of the features available in Bibble.

Good question by the OP!

How do you survive with NX2??? It crashes everytime...

I always work in NEF format and frankly, the picture produced from NX2 and ACR is rather insignificant. The stability of CS4 is what forces me to use it over NX2.

Edit- The resolution from NX2 and ACR is noticable. ACR creates some softness. However, this should be easily removed by appling unsharp mask, and should not be noticable in print.

[carregwen]

Is PS taking too long to load (ie, you see that blue box for a very long time)...

Yeah, mine does that, but I love reading all those beautiful names... Thomas Knoll, Seethararan Narayanan, Andrew Cove, Colin Southern...

I might have made up that last one.

[arith]

Johny Depp or is it Jack Sparrow in PSE2.

[tbritton]

I cannot help but chime in here!

To my mind, the winner is Adobe Photoshop, from version CS and up to present day. CS is when they added the Shadow/Highlight tool, which is indispensable when used to open up things in 16 bit mode right off (clogged shadows or blown-out highlights).

I use Photoshop CS4 at work (I do production catalog image processing for my job's website, our online support for a brick and mortar store). I use Photoshop CS at home. I have never needed to use any of the features in CS4 that weren't already in CS for commercial OR hobby work.

At work, I work fast, I use actions on just about every image I work on (especially to produce three sizes in our "standard" rectangular frame and to make complex selections removing backgrounds and problems that come with the images we get.)

At home, I take my time, but still use actions for many things. I work in L*a*b mode often at home, seldom do at work, though I know what L*a*b tricks will rescue impossible problem images there. To me, any image processing software that does not allow me to have L*a*b, blending modes, masking, layers and tons of selection options should I require them is not going to cut it. Photoshop has pretty much always had those things (I've worked in Photoshop since version 4).

I am hopeful for the Gimp becoming as easy to use, but certainly the number of online (free!) resources for Photoshop simply blows away what is available for the Gimp. The Photoshop community is an amazing asset - like the one here - and is a very big part to consider when evaluating a "best" editing software. The support and critical input available for Photoshop is unparalleled.

Terry B.

[timo2]

>Edit- The resolution from NX2 and ACR is noticable. ACR creates some softness.

I think you’ll find that ACR isn’t creating softness but that NX2 is adding more input sharpening. I’d rather be in charge of input sharpening myself; that is just one of the reasons I don’t like NX2.

[mrrod]

Anyone use Viveza 2 with cs4?

[Colin Southern]

Yeah, mine does that, but I love reading all those beautiful names... Thomas Knoll, Seethararan Narayanan, Andrew Cove, Colin Southern...

I might have made up that last one.

Yeah ... I don't even make it onto page 784 that comes up 1/2 hour later! (on the help, about scroll). Actually, that roll is quite humourous to watch .. quite a few "easter eggs" there (by way of funny titles etc).

[Nik]

cs4 and lightroom. =)

i CAN'T wait until tomorrow for the launch of cs5!

[carregwen]

i CAN'T wait until tomorrow for the launch of cs5!

Don't get too excited, you'll probably need a new PC to process it all...

[Colin Southern]

cs4 and lightroom. =)

i CAN'T wait until tomorrow for the launch of cs5!

You'll HAVE to!

[Nik]

i've got a brand new computer. =)

[carregwen]

i've got a brand new computer. =)

We have to wait until 16:00 today. You are 08:00 on PDT. It's just like Xmas!

[Sai C]

How do you survive with NX2??? It crashes everytime...

I always work in NEF format and frankly, the picture produced from NX2 and ACR is rather insignificant. The stability of CS4 is what forces me to use it over NX2.

Edit- The resolution from NX2 and ACR is noticable. ACR creates some softness. However, this should be easily removed by appling unsharp mask, and should not be noticable in print.

I have never had NX2 crash on me. I run the program on a Mac and usually work on one image at a time. For images that require batch processing I use Bibble, and right now i'm having more problems with Bibble than with NX2 ...

Cheers!

[hoffstriker]

Still waiting for my new computer to arrive, according to fed ex it's: Departed FedEx sort facility, Apr-15-10, 03:28 AM, NASHVILLE
Scanned at FedEx sort facility, Apr-14-10, 18:14 PM, NASHVILLE
Package information transmitted to FedEx, Apr-13-10, 20:06 PM, NASHVILLE LOCAL

Nik your making me jelous, but it's just like Chanukah for me........ Good things for good lil boys, and girls......

[levelbest]

This is an old thread, but I am a new forum member. Therefore I will add my 2 bits ...

I am still learning what a workflow is. I have hundreds of photos, backed up everywhere but not particularly organized. All are Jpegs and Tiffs at this point. I am looking foreword to getting my next camera withy RAW, but first I am working through years of bad habits and old Jpegs first.

Software that I Have purchased with varying degrees of success are:

PhotoMechanic: Seems well built and targeted at professional press photographers. If you want something snappy to cull through initial sorts and apply IPTC data sheets and templates, look no farther. This allows a quick side by side comparison and is made to very quickly look through large batches of photos. One tutorial suggested using PM to ingest and preprocess, then using Lightzone to ingest and edit your selections. PM is not a photo editor. I also use this to upload photos to my Zenfolio site (It can upload to many other services and sites).

Pixelmator: Mac only, this is a Relatively new app that is sort of a Photoshop light, but not really. I think Elements takes that crown. Pixelmator however does layers, masks, uses custom PhotoShop brushes, etc. It loads fast and does a lot so I use it all the time.

Adobe Photoshop (CS5): Not so much for me. I had version 5.5 on the Mac side which was before OSX even. Powerful, complex and yes, complicated. If I Can find something that does most of what it does and is intuitive then I am going another direction, away from Photoshop (See Pixelmator, I already have).

Adobe Lightroom: I think I will return to Lightroom. I switched to Bibble 5 and was very frustrated at that companies problems in bringing my paid upgrade to useful status. I like the LR 3 beta I have demoed.

Bibble Pro 5: Potentially a great app. I paid full price for it over a year ago and it took almost a full year for it to start being used without crashing right away. I am still going to give it a try now that it is apparently stable, (don’t cut off your nose to spite your face), etc. However, I have a bad taste in my mouth from how many problems I have had with the Bibble team to date.

Lightzone: I got this as a part of purchasing Lightroom long ago. It was a hundred USD add on and I really like it. I am still not sure, having only just discovered the tutorials here on this site, how much I need to actually tweak my photos. LZ uses the Zone system and it makes editing so very intuitive. As a visual person, I like it very much.

Deep: Here is one that most probably have not heard of. Mac only, made by ironic Software Deep is frustratingly underdeveloped. What it does however is invaluable. I used Deep to search out all instances of similar photos across all drives. With the need to clean out bad organizational habits, Deep looks for other photos with similar colors, etc. and finds matches. You can flick the three rows of results too. They pinch off visually at either end so it looks like you are spinning a carousel, often quite quickly (or slowly). Very cool effect INHO.

David

[Paul]

I got into this discussion a little while ago and I even advised someone to use PS Elements over Lightroom.Maybe incorrectly.
Having bared my soul this is where I am at this moment. Most profesionals I have dealt with recently swear by LR. But I keep asking the question that, as PSE has a great photo management system, I understand that the real Photshop does not, which is the better programme, Elements or Lightroom?
I keep getting the same answer. They nearly all say the LR is better for photographers than Photoshop, as Lightroom was designed from the bottom up exclusively for photographers and PS was intended mainly for graphic artists. However I don't think ,as profesionals, they have ever worked with Elements so I don't trust the answer. I notice throughout the previous posts Adobe Lightroom has not been mentioned. So my question remains. Which is the better software. Elememts or Lightroom?

[Dave Humphries]

~ So my question remains. Which is the better software. Elememts or Lightroom?

Hi Paul,

We need Wendy, who has used both extensively for an answer.

My tuppence comes down to pointing out that there are many things that Elements can do which LR cannot (e.g. layers).

However, Elements and Photoshop CS3/4 are more akin to each other in that they both do layers, masks, etc. BUT only CS3/4/5 can do it in 16 bit, whereas Elements can only do those things in 8 bit

Where both LR and Elements win over CS3/4 is that I believe their photo/file organising application is better/more user friendly than CS3/4's "Bridge"
<Dave ducks for cover as the CS owners defend their app >

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

We need Wendy, who has used both extensively for an answer.

I have used both, but am certainly not an expert on them and only use a small portion of either program especially Elements.

Basically LR is much more user friendly and has a nicer user interface, in my opinion anyway. It costs 3 times as much as Elements 8 though so it should be slick. I got LR first and was up and running without too many problems. Everything was very intuitive and seemed to work as specified. I even made a web page that worked without having any knowledge of how to do so.

However, as i gained bits of experience I found that I could not do everything that I wanted with LR, so I got Elements 8. Although I like LR, I think if I had purchased Elements first I would not have found a need for LR. Elements did drive me crazy though trying to figure out how to use it and still does whenever I try anything new.

I know there are people here who do sharpening with LR (I can't remember who off the top of my head) and get very good results. I have not had the same experience because of the .5 minimum radius for sharpening. I always end up doing sharpening in Elements. From what I have heard version 3 of LR still has a minimum .5 sharpening radius.

I also find that I get better results in Elements when resizing and converting to jpg than I do with LR. Again that could be just me and my lack of expertise, but I don't see many options in LR to fix the problems that I was having.

In a nutshell. LR is slicker, for the most part does a good job and is very easy to use. Elements is a lot harder to figure out, but it does much much more and costs much less. I have not used the Elements Organizer so I cannot comment whether it is better or worse than LR. The LR organizer seems to work pretty good for me. I've had a few hassles due to moving files from one program to another, but they have been sorted out.

Hope someone with more experience can chime in, but my vote would be for Elements if you want flexibility. Just be prepared to spend some time with it if you don't know what you are doing.

Wendy