What is best photography editing software

[Steve H]

I notice throughout the previous posts Adobe Lightroom has not been mentioned. So my question remains. Which is the better software. Elememts or Lightroom?

Yes I was quite surprised at the lack of LR support here too. I have both elements 8 and the latest LR beta trial release on my imac. I hardly ever go over to elements - I know it's powerful and it's got layers etc but I find I can do everything I want to an image in LR alone. It has a learning curve (like all software packages) but the 'flow' is quite intuitive and the import/export routines are very good (as well as the many, powerful adjustment tools).

I will be buying the full version when it is released soon. The fully functional FREE beta has been out for public consumption for quite some time now (months) and the rumours are that it will be released April/May.... maybe. A very good marketing ploy by Adobe, I know I'm hooked on it. 2 week trials are just not long enough to evaluate software as complex as these editing suites these days.

[toobulkeh]

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

Sorry to ressurrect a (slightly) old topic, but I'm surprised not many people broke down the question. It really depends on what you want to do with the software. For example, editing a screenshot to composite multiple things is quite different than managing 3,000 wedding shots or resizing a thumbnail size icon.

For the casual photographer, iPhoto and Picasa both have intuitive workflows. MSPaint does really simple tasks really simply as well. For a specific camera (Canon), their DPP product is pretty excellent and has features I have yet to see (or find) elsewhere. For mass RAW editing: Aperture, Lightroom, and DPP are all amazing in their own right. CS5 is a boatload of sliders while GIMP is contextual-menu driven.

For you, it would depend on your background training. So answer this question first: Windows, Mac, or Linux? Then it depends on what you want to do with it. Mass edit RAWs for prints or composite for deviantart type output.

Best of luck in your search

[jalal]

Hi guys, I am a newbie, and totally new to photo editing software, add to that very basic knowledge of computers. Enjoy photography a great deal, would like to try my hand at editing. Came across this thread but my question would not be "what is the best programme" this discussion would be limitless with all the experts and their opinions, my question would be where would a newbie with limited knowledge start to look for a user friendly programme ? not too keen on free downloads as they come with a lot of baggage .
Thanks

[Colin Southern]

Hi Jalal,

Perhaps the big question is "how far to you want to go with it"? The likes of Photoshop are immensly powerful, but expensive -- but those two things aside you then really need to put aside a budget for learning how to make it fly. Small adjustments are pretty easy, but to tap into it's additional power requires additional investment in training and time -- well worth it if that's a path you want to go down, but perhaps not worth it if it's not.

Photoshop is so deep and wide that people write entire books on using just one particular aspect of it (eg colour correction / layers / masks / selections).

[jrvz]

I have all sorts of graphic editors GIMP, Irfanview, Picasa etc plus stuff from HP & Fujifilm etc, which I am trying to learn how to use fully, but at the moment it seems as if it depends what you want to do, andon how sophisticated you want to get, so I am learning how to walk at the moment - hopefully I can start running later.

BUT

I have 1000s of photos, scanned pictures, pictures downloaded from the web, and I am trying to work out how best I can organise them to find the picture I want etc. A lot of the pictures have IPTC, so it seems to me if I can find a good IPTC editor to label & describe the pictures it would be a big help, especially if the editor can find the pictures I want by searching for keywords. In other words I want software to organise & index my pictures.

I am sure that this must be a big problem for any professional studios, and probably for a lot of amateurs too.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[jiro]

...I have 1000s of photos, scanned pictures, pictures downloaded from the web, and I am trying to work out how best I can organise them to find the picture I want etc. A lot of the pictures have IPTC, so it seems to me if I can find a good IPTC editor to label & describe the pictures it would be a big help, especially if the editor can find the pictures I want by searching for keywords. In other words I want software to organise & index my pictures.

I am sure that this must be a big problem for any professional studios, and probably for a lot of amateurs too.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Adobe Lightroom can do this job for you. Hope this helps.

[Shadowman]

I have all sorts of graphic editors GIMP, Irfanview, Picasa etc plus stuff from HP & Fujifilm etc, which I am trying to learn how to use fully, but at the moment it seems as if it depends what you want to do, andon how sophisticated you want to get, so I am learning how to walk at the moment - hopefully I can start running later.

BUT

I have 1000s of photos, scanned pictures, pictures downloaded from the web, and I am trying to work out how best I can organise them to find the picture I want etc. A lot of the pictures have IPTC, so it seems to me if I can find a good IPTC editor to label & describe the pictures it would be a big help, especially if the editor can find the pictures I want by searching for keywords. In other words I want software to organise & index my pictures.

I am sure that this must be a big problem for any professional studios, and probably for a lot of amateurs too.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

My transfer program (View NX) always me to date and add a description when uploading from the camera. This helps with the organization and identifying portion of photo management. Also, if you have a preview function on your browser you can at least see which photos are in what folder before you open the image. I never realized how important it was to organize photos until I started carrying three cameras and I waited to transfer the images to the computer resulting in 5MBs of image per folder.

[martalda]

Has anyone tried the GIMP? An optimal solution in open source ... I recommend the experience.
http://www.gimp.org/

[Colin Southern]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Adobe Bridge (part of Photoshop Cs5) is built from the ground up for this.

[LeoLeo]

Well,

In the past 2 weeks me and some of my coleagues start a sort of "war" based on this thread "What is best photography editing software" ... (I start this bloody war after my struggle with the albino peacock..)
In order to have a fair competition, we use the following criteria :
1. Workflow : one shot, limited number of shots (10-50 shots, not studio series), multiple shots ( more then 200, not studio series)
2. Visual "quality of final image", after PP, on computer screen
3. Cost of software
4. Availability of support (tutorials/books/interactive videos/etc)

Four persons were involved in this (PP part, including me), and the final images were "analized" by others. Was not pure NASA rocket science, but certain a fun one. Also used a 5 level appreciation for each action (5 is top, 1 is lowest).
Actions taken for each picture : import, wb, crop, exposure adjustments, image adjustments (levels, sharpening, de-noise, colour enhancements), export

At the bottom line, our results are:
1st place: Lightroom 3 + Adobe CS5 (CS5 was considere a big bonus, at the end, but certain not a must)
2nd place: Raw Therapy + GIMP and KDE DigiKam + GIMP

The results are PURE SUBJECTIVE, because we are using those software as hobby, and we are not experts in any of them.

A bit of conclusions:

Commercial applications won based on technical support, features and intuitive workflow. Open Source applications do almost the same as the commercial one, but lack a bit in the features/support part.
If cost are not an issues, answer is more simple. If the cost of licensing is a problem, Open Source apps are a consistent choice. 900USD/900EUR are making a difference in the wallet, and for many of us might be a better investment in some gear.

As long as the commercial software can be downloaded and used for 15-30 days as trial, anybody can do the same empirical test.
Hope it helps,
Leo

[Hansm]

I figured out that I do less and less in Photoshop. Most stuff I do in Lightroom, only some minor changes are done in PS CS5, like retouching. This works still much better in PS then LR. Maybe just a matter of time?
Probably if I had to reinvest in software I first check PSE to see if I really need the very advanced features in PS CS5.

[Clactonian]

The one that you can master.