Beginner/Intermediate - Should I go for Lightroom 6 or Photoscape Pro X?

[SergeTheBlerge]

I have been using the trial Photoscape for a bit for some light to moderate photo editing. I want to move up and thought big on Lightroom 6 since I am shooting in both JPEG and RAW. As of now, though I have the Photoscape trial, I've been editing only my JPEG photos. I'd like to get Lightroom 6 for editing my RAW shots, but I can also do the same with Photoscape Pro. Difference being, Photoscape Pro is available for $29.99 as opposed to Lightroom 6 which I can download for $142 through Amazon. Since I have NEVER used Lightroom before, is it safer to just try Photoscape to begin and do Lightroom later? Would the editing of my photos at my more beginner/ intermediate level be more appropriate with Photoscape? I'm pretty ambitious and don't mind a learning curve.
I am currently shooting mostly landscape and city photography with my Canon Rebel T6i, which I'm aware is not the ideal landscape and low light camera, thus I kinda want a good editor to more or less "fix" any issues due to my camera's limitations. All of my shots simply do not feel sharp or crisp enough despite how much natural light and quick shutter speeds I can take advantage of during my daylight shots. Any advice is helpful. Also, is there anything I should be aware of when editing in RAW?

[paintingwithlight]

While you can edit RAW photos, what you are seeing on the screen is not the RAW image itself but a conversion to what the RAW image would look like if you were to convert it from RAW into a normal image file. RAW images themselves look strange because they have not been processes (demosaic'd, etc.). There are articles on this site that do a good job explaining.

Editing RAW files should be no different than editing JPEGs in my opinion.

I can't comment on PhotoScape since I don't use it.

I can't comment on the Rebel T6i but, in general, don't knock your camera. Some photographers have un unhealthy fixation on their gear as opposed to their photos. I'll offer an example from Nikon (what I shoot). I have a D7100. The body costs about $1000. I could have bought a D3300 for about $400 - the sensor and AF are (I believe) the same as the D7100 so the image quality should be identical. The reason for me to buy the more expensive body had nothing to do with image quality - it had to do with ease of operation for specialized functions. For example, I can set my camera to bracket images (over and underexpose) by rotating one knob while pressing one button on the 7100 - accomplishing the same task with the 3300 would require a few more button presses and navigating a menu. Also, I can use my 7100 to drive remote flashes without any extra attachments - I would have to buy those accessories for the 3300.

More expensive cameras don't imply better photos. Some of my favourite photos were shot with a P&S.

Michael

[paintingwithlight]

Oh, if you want good image editing software that is free try Google's NIK Collection. The youtube tutorials are very good.

[DanK]

Michael beat me to it. I was going to write some of the same points.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your camera for landscape work. It has one of Canon's newest sensors, which is the main aspect of the body that matters for landscape work. Very few of the bells and whistles on my most expensive body, a 5D III, help much, if at all, with landscape work. The quality of the lens matters somewhat, but even kit lenses can produce very good images. You posted a number of questions about sharpness in the past, and some folks explained then that the issues you were facing were mostly likely matters of technique.

To make this concrete: I'll post a photo I took with a Canon 50D, an older model that had a sensor of lower quality than yours:



I shoot only raw, and I recommend it for several reasons, but it will NOT improve sharpness. In fact, it will create the illusion that your images are LESS sharp. The reason is that when you shoot jpeg, the camera is automatically doing some postprocessing to convert the raw to jpeg, and part of that processing in some of the picture styles is sharpening. When you shoot raw, the software (for the most part) waits for you to do the sharpening.

Also, while some software includes better sharpening options than others, for the most part, this is not intended to make up for problems of technique. It is designed to compensate for the inevitable softness in digital images (especially those with anti-aliasing filters, like yours and mine) and to allow creative changes in the appearance of the image.

Also, is there anything I should be aware of when editing in RAW?

Entire books have been written about this. However, I mostly agree with Michael: the editing techniques you will want to learn are mostly the same, regardless of the image format. There are two main differences. One is that jpegs have already been processed. the other is that jpegs sometimes offer less editing flexibility. There are some very nice short tutorials on processing in the photography tutorials part of this site. I suggest you start there and then post questions about things the tutorials don't explain for you, or questions that come up when you try to do what they describe.

Re photoscape: I have never used it. I do all of my raw processing in Lightroom or occasionally adobe camera raw, which is just another interface on top of the same software.

[paintingwithlight]

I am currently shooting mostly landscape and city photography with my Canon Rebel T6i, which I'm aware is not the ideal landscape and low light camera, thus I kinda want a good editor to more or less "fix" any issues due to my camera's limitations. All of my shots simply do not feel sharp or crisp enough despite how much natural light and quick shutter speeds I can take advantage of during my daylight shots. Any advice is helpful. Also, is there anything I should be aware of when editing in RAW?

I recently printed a 24 inch by 36 inch photo shot with a camera with a 24 MP sensor. You should be able to achieve similar effects with your 18 MP sensor. I don't think that you need to improve your camera. The problem with a lack of crispness lies elsewhere.

Some 20+ years ago zoom lenses were compromises - you can't bend red light and blue light the same way through a lens, but at a fixed focal length you can compensate for this quite well. If you have variable focal length (i.e., a zoom lens) then the red light and blue light don't perfectly register in the same way. You can achieve sharper images with a prime (i.e., fixed focal length) lens than with a zoom lens. That being said, try playing with your f-stop before buying a new lens. If you are shooting with the aperture wide-open then that is the most likely source of lack of sharpness.

Each lens has its own sharpest rendering at a given f-stop. For DSLR lenses this often lies between f/9 and f/16. Take a series of shots with your camera, zoom into the center of the image and note which f-stop was sharpest. A tripod might help.

If shooting with a cropped sensor (like your camera) try shooting no slower than 1/FL th of a second where FL is the focal length of your lens to reduce blurring caused by hand shaking.

Finally, maybe clean your lenses and sensor? If you take a shot of a uniform surface (e.g., a clear sky) with the lens stopped down to the highest f-stop (smallest opening) then you will be able to see dirt on the sensor when you zoom into the image.

Best of luck!

Michael

[SergeTheBlerge]

I recently printed a 24 inch by 36 inch photo shot with a camera with a 24 MP sensor. You should be able to achieve similar effects with your 18 MP sensor. I don't think that you need to improve your camera. The problem with a lack of crispness lies elsewhere.

Some 20+ years ago zoom lenses were compromises - you can't bend red light and blue light the same way through a lens, but at a fixed focal length you can compensate for this quite well. If you have variable focal length (i.e., a zoom lens) then the red light and blue light don't perfectly register in the same way. You can achieve sharper images with a prime (i.e., fixed focal length) lens than with a zoom lens. That being said, try playing with your f-stop before buying a new lens. If you are shooting with the aperture wide-open then that is the most likely source of lack of sharpness.

Each lens has its own sharpest rendering at a given f-stop. For DSLR lenses this often lies between f/9 and f/16. Take a series of shots with your camera, zoom into the center of the image and note which f-stop was sharpest. A tripod might help.

If shooting with a cropped sensor (like your camera) try shooting no slower than 1/FL th of a second where FL is the focal length of your lens to reduce blurring caused by hand shaking.

Finally, maybe clean your lenses and sensor? If you take a shot of a uniform surface (e.g., a clear sky) with the lens stopped down to the highest f-stop (smallest opening) then you will be able to see dirt on the sensor when you zoom into the image.

Best of luck!

Michael

My rebel t6i actually shoots at 24.2 MP, not 18. I think the T5 shot at 18. Anyway, in terms of f stops, typically I keep it at 8, ubless I'm looking toward background blur, then I go to a lower f stop like 4 to 5. I adjust my shutter speed accordingly, but in the daylight never like going over 100 ISO. In darker light I at times just set the ISO to auto. I have a tripod but when shooting in open daylight it doesn't feel necessary since my shutter speeds are fast enough to not worry too much about hand shake.

As of now, I'm not looking to purchase a new lens, but would prefer with the two I already have - the standard 55 and a 700mm.
You said to shoot no slower than 1 FL of a second. Sorry but I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. I haven't picked up all the camera techy lingo as of yet. Thank you for the pointers!

[paintingwithlight]

As of now, I'm not looking to purchase a new lens, but would prefer with the two I already have - the standard 55 and a 700mm.
You said to shoot no slower than 1 FL of a second. Sorry but I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this. I haven't picked up all the camera techy lingo as of yet. Thank you for the pointers!

700mm?! Yow that is huge!

The 1/Fl is a very crude approximation. If shooting hand-held with my 70-300mm lens zoomed to 300mm I use a shutter speed of 1/320s (or faster). If shooting at 70mm I try to shoot a faster than 1/60 s.

Recently I took some photos of the moon zoomed to 300mm FL at 1/320s hand held. At full-screen the photos looked fine. When I cropped to the moon and expanded the image I found that only those shots taken when I was leaning against my garage were not blurred by shake.

Michael

[SergeTheBlerge]

700mm?! Yow that is huge!

The 1/Fl is a very crude approximation. If shooting hand-held with my 70-300mm lens zoomed to 300mm I use a shutter speed of 1/320s (or faster). If shooting at 70mm I try to shoot a faster than 1/60 s.

Recently I took some photos of the moon zoomed to 300mm FL at 1/320s hand held. At full-screen the photos looked fine. When I cropped to the moon and expanded the image I found that only those shots taken when I was leaning against my garage were not blurred by shake.

Michael

Oops, did I say 700? Sorry, mixed my numbers up. My two lenses are the standard 18 - 55mm and also use the 70 - 300mm. I don't even want to see the price of a 700mm.

[Manfred M]

Serge - Lightroom is much more (and less) than an editor. Lightroom started off life as an image management tool with some limited editing capabilities. It has evolved a lot since then, especially its "Develop Module", which is Adobe's name for the basic parametric editor. It uses the same 'engine" as Adobe Camera Raw, so the camera raw conversions are definitely part of the functionality.

That being said, it is not a pixel based editor, like Photoshop, so while it is reasonably powerful, it is still fairly limited in what it can do. It's a decent product and is more than enough for a lot of photographers, but I'm not sure how much additional value it will give you. The best way to find out is to download the trial version from the Adobe website.

I will disagree with the people who direct you to the Nik collection. I am a long time Nik user and bought the full suite years ago. It has some filters that nicely supplement what you can do with Lightroom / Photoshop, but it does not have some of the basic functions the both of these other products have.

[davidedric]

Hi,

I don't think you've had much by way of replies to your software question.

Lightroom has its lovers and haters, so I'll declare an interest and say that it's the main tool i use for managing my photos, for editing and for printing.

Provided you take a little time to understand how Lightroom operates, and it sounds as if you would be prepared to, i dont think the learning curve to get going is very steep at all. There is a lot of depth to the product and it can do a lot more than many think it can, but that doesn't get in the way of learning to use it.

What you do get is access to a huge range of resources, free and paid for, to help you learn how to use and get the best from the product. You would be using one of the industry standard products. Of course, there are other products out there, too, but Lightroom meets my needs.

You can download a free trial of Lightroom from Adobe. Before you do, though, download a copy of Victoria Bampton's free e-book from www.lightroomqueen.com It will give you a great start.

Dave

[rpcrowe]

Some photographers have a fixation regarding landscape photography with a digital camera. Their fixation is: you NEED to use a full frame camera for landscape and ALL landscape image should be shot with a wide focal length.

Nothing could be further from the truth: good to excellent landscapes can shot with crop sensor cameras and wide focal length, IMO, traditionally result in very boring images (unless there is a compelling feature or subject in the foreground). Using a wide angle lens just to obtain greater left to right coverage often results in a very dull and uninteresting foreground as well as an equally uninteresting expanse of sky with a smidgen of interesting stuff across the center of the image that has been reduced to a tiny and uninteresting size.

The kit lenses supplied with many entry level cameras are quite good, especially if used a stop or two below the maximum aperture and also used mounted on a tripod. Additionally, keeping away from the maximum wide and telephoto focal lengths might also keep your images sharp and crisp. learning how to sharpen images in post production will also go a long way in achieving good imagery.

If I were you, I would go with Lightroom or Photoshop Elements and also download the NIK Software Suite; which is a free plug-in for Lightroom and Photoshop distributed by Google. Lightroom or Photoshop Elements are pretty well standards of the industry (Photoshop CC is the Cadillac of editing programs but, is more than many photographers need).

Get a decent medium priced tripod and head. There are often used Manfrotto 3001 or 3021 Series tripods available with Manfrotto heads on eBay (USA) for between fifty and one hundred U.S Dollars). I used a Manfrotto 3001P tripod for years and it is great for landscape work.

Shoot your landscapes, tripod mounted, at ISO 100, between 20mm and 50mm (on a 18-55mm kit lens with an aperture of f/8 or f/11) and you should come out with some technically good images. Artistically, the onus is on the photographer to produce the image. Your gear will do the job...

Eventually, you might be interested in replacing the kit lens with a slightly better and more versatile glass. Tamron and Sigma are third party companies that produce quite good medium focal length replacements for the various kit lenses. I use a Canon EFS 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens as my primary medium focal length tool. However, although an excellent lens, the price rules out many photographers from owning it.

But, still, get the best images from your present equipment before buying upgraded gear!

[Mike Buckley]

If shooting hand-held with my 70-300mm lens zoomed to 300mm I use a shutter speed of 1/320s (or faster). If shooting at 70mm I try to shoot a faster than 1/60 s.

That general guideline is appropriate for a full-frame camera. When using a crop camera as in the case of Sergio's camera, the guideline is to use the full-frame equivalent of the focal length. So, when using a 70mm focal length, the minimum shutter as dictated by the guideline would be about 1/120 second, not 1/60. ((1/(70*1.6))=1/112.

However, if the camera body or lens has image stabilization built in and if that capability is turned on, you would then alter the guideline to take into account the effect of image stabilization. That might mean being able to use a shutter speed at least 1 to 2 stops (maybe more depending on the situation) than the method determined using the guideline.

Most important, after using the guideline, it's helpful to review photos at 100% to know whether to alter the guidelines to meet one's own camera-holding technique. As an example, when I use a shutter speed that is about 50% faster than the guideline would otherwise indicate, my rate of sharp images is considerably higher than when I don't use it.

[Mike Buckley]

The best answer I've ever seen to general questions such as these about which software application to use is the recommendation to dedicate a period of time when it's practical to really take advantage of the free trial period. Use that time to learn the software's basic capabilities you believe you would use most often. Also determine if the software has the other capabilities you think you'll use less often, but you probably won't need to explore them in any detail to make your decision. Maybe do all of that with no more than three apps and decide which one is the best fit.

[DanK]

Sergio,

I looked up photoscape here. It's not a competitor to Lightroom. From the list the company provides, it seems that Photoscape doesn't do most of what I would consider the core functions of photo editors.

The question of which photo editor(s) are best for you may be a bit premature. You need to learn first what the basic functions of an editor are, and practice them. The most basic functions--brightness, contrast, vibrance/saturation, sharpening, cropping--you will find in any of the real editing packages, although some are better than others.

Although I may have a higher regard for Lightroom's editing than Manfred does, the distinction he makes is important. Lightroom combines raw conversion with a fairly powerful suite of editing tools, but there are some things it doesn't do, or doesn't do well. Most important, it doesn't handle selections well. For that, you need a pixel-based editor, like Photoshop, Photoshop elements (cheap), Paint Shop Pro (I think still cheap), or Gimp (free).

For raw conversion, you don't have to buy anything. Canon cameras come with an excellent raw conversion package, Digital Photo Professional. Its editing capabilities are limited, but its conversion is first rate. You can then store the file as a TIFF and move it into another program. I personally use Lightroom instead because of the workflow. I can do much of my editing--sometimes, all of it--in lightroom, and it integrates flawlessly with Photoshop and some other software I use. It has a very nice print module that I use as well. Basically, it serves as the home for all of my images. If I have to move them out to photoshop or something else, I then bring them back in to Lightroom.

Option 1 is to get one or more packages that you hope to stay with long term. Option 2 is to get something cheap or free to use while you learn the basics and then relearn a few things if you decide to switch later on.

If you decide to try Lightroom, it will give you enough capability that you can learn and practice exposure adjustments, two types of contrast adjustment, sharpening, noise reduction, vibrance and saturation adjustment, high dynamic range merging, merginf of panoramas, vignetting, spot removal, and B&W conversion.

Back to the issue of sharpness: unsharp images from adequate equipment (which you have) usually stem from incorrect focusing, camera motion, or both.

Dan

[rpcrowe]

The shutter speed at which sharp and crisp hand held photos are shot is not carved in granite as the reciprocal of the focal length for full frame cameras or the reciprocal of the shutter speed multiplied by a factor 1.5x or 1.6x for crop DSLR cameras. It is simply a guideline for non stabilized equipment.

Some photographers are able to achieve sharp imagery at slower shutter speeds while other photographers need significantly faster shutter speeds for sharp imagery. In reality, my capability to hand hold a camera steady has a lot to do with my physical condition at the moment of shooting. If I have just run or climbed to get a shot and am panting, I need a faster shutter speed to achieve what I could when my body is in a more sedate moment. Caffeine consumption can impact some photographers ability to achieve a steady hand hold.

The equipment with which you are shooting also contributes to the steadiness of the hold. Very heavy and large lenses are difficult to hand hold, especially in windy conditions or when the footing is not steady as in a boat. This is especially true when you are tired.

Additionally, how one holds the camera has a lot to do with sharp and crisp imagery. A three point hold (two hands and forehead) when sighting through an eye level viewfinder is a more steady way to hold than using the LCD as a viewfinder with either two hands or worse, with a single hand jutted out in front of you. I use the three point hold and additionally tuck my elbows into my belly. I do not jerk the shutter release but, like the trigger of a rifle, I squeeze it steadily.

[paintingwithlight]

Additionally, how one holds the camera has a lot to do with sharp and crisp imagery. A three point hold (two hands and forehead) when sighting through an eye level viewfinder is a more steady way to hold than using the LCD as a viewfinder with either two hands or worse, with a single hand jutted out in front of you. I use the three point hold and additionally tuck my elbows into my belly. I do not jerk the shutter release but, like the trigger of a rifle, I squeeze it steadily.

I have a sharp photo or Parliament Hill at night that I shot "hand-held" with a 1 second exposure. In this case "hand-held" means that I was lying face-down on the steps with the camera braced on the sidewalk and against my forehead as I held my breath.

[Geoff F]

I don't know anything about Photoscape, Sergio, but if I didn't have Adobe Photoshop CC, I would return to Serif and their new Affinity software. Failing that, Gimp has a lot to offer although there may be a bit of a steep learning curve with it.

Lightrooom comes with Adobe CC as part of the package but I have never seen any use for what I find to be a needlessly complex editor with many restrictions. Much the same can be said of my attempts with Elements; which is why I would consider Affinity to be my only alternative option. Although, at the moment, I'm happy with the full Photoshop CC option.

[loosecanon]

If you want to develop your pp technique and don't mind the learning curve then download the photoshop and lightroom package from Adobe - it's cheap per month, compared with what we spend on equipment and used to spend on film.

Lightroom not only develops your raw files, it also catalogues them so you can easily find them. For landscape work the ability of the map module to show on google earth where images were taken will be something you will thank in years to come.

Having the industry standard software opens up all the tutorial files on the internet and many books and magazines.

[Cogito]

Sergio, if cost is a problem why not try either RawTherapee or LightZone ? Both are free and both have a learning curve as intricate as LightRoom or PhotoShop. Both are powerful editors but neither will take the NIK add-ons that are available to Photoshop and LightRoom users. BUT they are both free and so you can take your time evaluating them!

[Hevii Guy]

Further to Tony’s comment, one can indeed run NIK from within Gimp! Simply (or not so simply) invoke the ShellOut plugin. Here’s a link which may provide some guidance: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3983752

In terms of RAW processing, I find Darktable to be absolutely brilliant. Not only is it an extemely powerful program encompassing most if not all of Lightroom’s features -and more-, it’s free-of-charge! Just as you shouldn’t let the Marketers shame you into purchasing a “better” (sic) camera body, neither should you be shamed by those who must justify their exorbitant subscription fees by insisting that niothing beats Adobe’s commercial products.

Here’s a link to Darktable:
http://www.darktable.org/

There are a number of excellent (and terrible) youtube channels providing helpful tutorials in the use of Darktable. The following are 2 of the former camp:
Harry Durgin - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nUV...AsYVqTltmXyBjl
Robert Hutton - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Iiw...UuyWo1B468zEA0

And finally, the following is a valuable resource dedicated to Free/Open Source Photography. It includes tutorials/articles, a blog, forums dedicated to specific software and, a list of relevant software. Have a look; you’ll be amazed at what’s available in terms of competent alternatives at the amazing cost of “free" : https://pixls.us/