What are the best tools for post-processing?

[The Dutchman]

And for that matter, why is it called post-processing instead of just processing? I bought a new Canon EOS M50 yesterday and have already decided to shoot raw. I've shot auto so far as well as various filters using the correct zoom. The only one I like is watercolors!

It sounds like in a general sense, a photographer could sign up for Adobe Creative Cloud, use both Lightroom and Photoshop, then decide which she prefers? I would like to have the option to exhibit at some point so I'll need the appropriate tools if they're not too costly. Thank you, Rich

[DanK]

Lightroom and Photoshop are very different tools. Any of the leading packages, including the Adobe subscription, will be sufficient for you, particularly as a beginner.

I suggest you start by reading about postprocessing using the superb tutorials on this site, https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/ph...-tutorials.htm. You will also find tutorials that will help you learn how to use your camera. I suggest you read them first and then post questions afterwards. it is very inefficient for folks to try to replicate on the fly what is already written in the tutorials.

I would forget about exhibiting for the time being. In all likelihood, that is a long way off, and it needn't influence most of your choices now. If you want to perform piano professionally, you may want a Steinway or Bosendorfer instrument at some point. Buying one when you are a novice will do nothing whatever to get you to that goal more quickly. What gets you to that point is paying attention to nearer-term goals and spending a lot of time studying and practicing. Photography is not that different. Read, study, practice, get critique, repeat.

In the case of postprocessing, the nearer-term goals are things like learning to read a histogram, how to adjust tonality using both the levels sliders and the curve tool, how to deal with sharpening, etc. Some of these are explained in the tutorials.

You will need a raw converter and a "pixel editor" like photoshop. Your camera probably came with Canon Digital Photo Professional, which is a competent raw converter. Lightroom is also, but it has many more functions. Read first, then ask us about the choices you face. The answers will make more sense then.

[Manfred M]

And for that matter, why is it called post-processing instead of just processing? I bought a new Canon EOS M50 yesterday and have already decided to shoot raw. I've shot auto so far as well as various filters using the correct zoom. The only one I like is watercolors!

It sounds like in a general sense, a photographer could sign up for Adobe Creative Cloud, use both Lightroom and Photoshop, then decide which she prefers? I would like to have the option to exhibit at some point so I'll need the appropriate tools if they're not too costly. Thank you, Rich

There are many different tools around and they the costs vary a lot.

The Adobe products are relatively expensive, but are the "gold standard" that all others are compared to. There are many other products from shareware to products you can buy, depending on your budget. I don't know what Canon is doing these days, but at one point all Canon cameras shipped with Digital Photo Professional (DPP). If they still do, that should be a good place to start and once you outgrow its functionality, you can look at other products.

Lightroom and Photoshop are two totally different tools with different purposes. Lightroom started life as digital asset management (DAM) tool and raw convertor with limited editing capabilities. As time went on, more and more editing capabilities were added to it. Lightroom is something we refer to as a Parametric Editor. This means it stores instructions on how to handle in either a database (called the Lightroom Catalog) or in an external "sidecar" file, The actual file has no changes made to it, so it is viewed as a "non-destructive" editor. This also means a somewhat limited functionality, but I know a lot of different photographers that use nothing other than Lightroom for their work. Its two main commercial competitors, that have more functionality are Phase One's Capture One DxO Lab's PhotoLab. I know a lot of people who have switched to Capture One.

Photoshop is a totally different beast. It is a pixel based editor and is called a "destructive editor", as the values of individual pixels are changed. It is an extremely complex and powerful tool, with a very long learning curve. It has tools that allow the user to edit non-destructively. It includes a piece of software called Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), which is functionally identical to the Lightroom Develop module, although it has a different user interface. Most advanced photographers will use Photoshop to do things that they can't do in Lightroom / ACR, including major surgery. Their edits will start in a raw convertor / parametric editor and they will move over to Photoshop at some point in their workflow. There are many schools of thought as to when to do so and the "right" way to use Photoshop.

If you eventually want to become a printer and do the type of quality work found in galleries, you should look at eventually learning Photoshop. There are some good on-line tutorials (as well as a lot of garbage), some excellent books and some colleges offer courses and workshops on a full-time or part-time basis.

[The Dutchman]

Hi Manfred, one article said to use Lightroom “90%” of the time but to spend the rest of your time learning photoshop. Sounds like Lightroom works as an organizational tool as well. I was floored to say the least when it appeared that my iPhone X was the clear winner in color quality yesterday.

Of course, ultimate and now near term goal is to take raw pics and post-process them. Only then will they be as or more pleasing to my eye than the iPhone. All that said, EOS M50 is light, feels good and is super easy to operate. DanK I’ll study up as well. Have already learned a ton on here.

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred, one article said to use Lightroom “90%” of the time but to spend the rest of your time learning photoshop. Sounds like Lightroom works as an organizational tool as well. I was floored to say the least when it appeared that my iPhone X was the clear winner in color quality yesterday.

Of course, ultimate and now near term goal is to take raw pics and post-process them. Only then will they be as or more pleasing to my eye than the iPhone. All that said, EOS M50 is light, feels good and is super easy to operate. DanK I’ll study up as well. Have already learned a ton on here.

Don't believe everything you read. I can point you to some experts that I know that give the exact opposite advice and they do 99% of their work in Photoshop.

It really depends on your standards and what you are trying to do.

If you are a "retail" photographer whose market is primarily people that buy portraits, grad photos or wedding photos. If you are a sports or events photographer that has to turn around the work quickly and you are going through thousands of shots, then yes, Lightroom and related tools are all you are going to need. A friend, an award winning wedding photographer once told me that he spends around 20 - 40 seconds on an image. If you are editing 1000+ images, that works out to hours of work.

Many of the sites that you find on line are written by or for retail photographers and that is why you find that advice.

Another who is a well-known fine art printer tells me he spends less than a minute in Lightroom or ACR doing global adjustments and then flips to Photoshop where he will spend a few minutes (i.e. less than 5 minutes) doing areas adjustments in Photoshop and then will spend hours working the fine details in Photoshop.

Once again, it depends on your output and audience / clientele. Anyone working in the advertising (for large corporate clients) or fine art world, generally follow the second workflow.

[DanK]

one article said to use Lightroom “90%” of the time but to spend the rest of your time learning photoshop.

Ignore this. First of all, you can probably find things on the web that say 10%, 50%, and even 0%. You can find anything you want on the internet. Much of it is silly, and some of it is just plain nonsense. Find reputable sources and study them.

Second, the amount one would use one of those two packages varies. It partly depends not on your editing techniques, but it also depends on the image itself, e.g., how even and well-controlled the lighting is. I have images that were edited entirely in Lightroom, and I have others that weren't edited in Lightoom at all. I know competent postprocessors who do a larger share of their postprocessing in Lightroom than I do, and I know some who do less.

Once you have learned specific skills, you will have a basis for deciding which software to use. For example, all software allows you to control tonality--overall brightness, the range from dark to bright, midtone contrast, and more. To some extent, they do it differently. You'll figure out with practice which of the tools you are able to use most effectively, and you will learn their relative strengths and weaknesses. For example, some people love the region-based tonality sliders in Lightroom. I don't like them and would usually rather use a combination of levels and curves. You don't start by picking a tool. You start by learning what tonality adjustments are and then learning how to use various tools to effect them.

The reason your iPhone photos appear more vibrant is that they have been processed to look more vibrant. All JPEGs out of the camera have been processed using a postprocessing algorithm in the camera. Try setting your new camera to different picture styles while taking the same picture. You will see major differences. A raw file does none of that, leaving it up to you.

[The Dutchman]

If I had .flickr I'd post a couple on here. I took two RAW landscape shots out my window through some trees with a church 50-75 yards away and finally I can tell the difference in quality. Window screen and ageing panes are invisible whereas the church pops a little bit on the Canon. It's kind of a gross shot on my iPhone.

I thought I'd be paying an insane amount a month (I hate subscriptions) but was able to get Adobe Creative Cloud for $9.99 per month on a month to month basis. Have on laptop and phone and have played around w/ Lightroom for a few minutes. I've used the 14-55 lens mostly as the 55-200 is a bit much for our neighborhood.

Once I get a little bit more of this Scottish tea out of my system I'll try the long lens again. Planning on getting out a little bit after 10pm as well. Nice to be making a little headway. Cheers!!

[Manfred M]

One thing to remember about your iPhone versus your new camera shooting raw.

Raw means that there has been no post-processing work done on the file by the camera. Even the basic input sharpening and contrast adjustments we find in the straight out of camera (SOOC) JPEG files has not been done.

Secondly, iPhone photos are meant to be viewed on portable devices in all kinds of viewing environments. The light levels outdoors or even in an office are quite bright, so these cameras will boost contrast and saturation so that they look good to the untrained eye. A common newbie mistake when they first start post-processing is to really crank up the saturation or vibrance (I sure did), but after a while we learn that this is a brute force approach and there is no subtlety in going that way.

Yes, I do use the saturation controls, but virtually never to boost saturation, but rather to knock down colours either locally or sometimes globally. It's a long journey, but in my view, a very rewarding one.

[DanK]

The implications of this is that something taken as a raw capture won't usually look good when first rendered. All of the processing the iPhone would do, and then some, has to be done by you before it looks good. Shooting raw doesn't create a good image; it gives YOU more raw material from which to make one, but it leaves all of that work to you. That's why you will need a lot of time studying postprocessing.

I'll make this concrete. Here's an image I posted for you before to illustrate what can be done with a small sensor. A 13 x 19 print of this is currently for sale in a gallery, even though the final image had probably 10 MPX or so, after cropping from a 12 MPX image.



Now, here is the original raw capture, as rendered by Lightroom, but with no postprocessing by me:



An iPhone photo might well have looked better. This postprocessing took a great deal of time, with editing in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Nik.

So while you are learning to use the camera and until you have learned some post processing, you are better off shooting JPEG. I’d suggest Canon’s “standard” picture style.

[Val Mansfield]

I used Photoshop for years, then it started to become really expensive and I realized it had a lot of stuff that I never used, as it also offers graphic design tools. (Well it did when I used it.)

I swapped to Zoner some years ago, it’s cheaper, is well supported and does all that I want. You can see some of my photos at www.cnxphoto.smugmug.com. Zoner has a free trial period.

Occasionally, very occasionally, I take a photo with my phone. Ninety percent of the time I just delete them. The only ones I find useful are when I need the photo as a memory prop of I want the GPS information as my Canon doesn’t give that.

[davidedric]

Whatever software you use, you'll also need to learn when to stop.
Look at your image, decide what is needed to produce the picture that you want, do it and stop. That's when it helps a lot to understand what the software controls actually do. I'm not saying don't experiment, just be wary of fiddling endlessly.

I can imagine that Dan had a pretty good idea how he wanted the roofs to look, but it took a lot or work to get there. Also, have a look at Manfred's web site. There are some fantastic images there and they certainly weren't SOOC jpegs, but you're looking at a lifetime of experience.

For you, get the basics sorted. I think you'll learn more working on a variety of images than getting one "perfect". That said, if you post process an image today to the best of your ability and then come back to it in a year's time - you'll be surprised how much you've learned in that year.

[DanK]

Dave's point, which I agree with, points to an even more basic one:

Good editing requires much more than mastering tools so that you can change the image. It requires that you figure out how the image should be changed. That decision should guide every step of the editing. If you read comments on this site, you will find many of that sort, that is, suggesting specific changes, sometimes large but often subtle.

When you shoot JPEG either with a phone or a camera and don't do any further editing, there are no decisions to be made about processing other than your initial choice of a "picture style" or the like. How much contrast? It's in the recipe. How much sharpening? It's in the recipe. And all edits are global, affecting the entire image. When you edit yourself, you make all of these decisions based on what the rendered raw capture looks like and what you want it to look like. And often, many of the edits are local, that is, affecting only part of the image.

Look at the initial rendering I posted. Some edits are obvious. I had to crop, for example, to get rid of the uninteresting sky. The image was underexposed. (I can explain why, but that doesn't matter here), so it had to be brightened. A bit less obvious: I wanted to bring out textures. Much less obvious: one of the edits was designed specifically to bring out the reflections in the window on the far left, and another got rid of the annoying white flag at the top. Of course, I fiddled with the severity of many of the edits until I found one that looked the way I wanted. Then I was done.

[Manfred M]

+1 to Dave and Dan's comments.

The one thing I would add to this is that the way we view and edit an image will change as we evolve as a photographer.

Part of this is due to the improvements of our tools and skills, but the other is that we also look at the images quite differently over time.

Two things have happened to me over the past number of months. The first is that due to COVID-19 shutdown, I have not gotten out and photographed very much at all. What I have done instead, I have gone back and reworked some of my "back catalogue". Often the images end up looking quite different from how I handled them just a few years ago. I find that my newest images have more substance and subtlety and for the most part, I like these better than the older ones.

The other thing that I noticed is that there were some images that I hadn't touched, simply because I had not seen their potential. I now see things I missed in the past. I'm glad I did not delete them...

[Acorn]

I see the dominance of postings on this thread are all about Photoshop and Lightroom. I have both pieces of software from Adobe's pre subscription days and they do all I need. But I refuse to be blackmailed into making regular monthly subscriptions, Adobe's present policy. If you are looking for a pretty versatile and much less costly piece of photo-editing software, take a look at AffinityPhoto.

Affinity have in the past year or so introduced a DTP package, Affinity Publisher, that does all that Adobe's costly InDesign software does and more at an affordable price. The many posts I read about the software indicates that professional graphic designers are preferring it.

[davidedric]

I agree that Affinity is a good and extraordinarily affordable package. I also picked up Publisher at half price. I don't need a dtp at the moment, though the ability to modify pdf's seems nice, but the opportunity was too good to miss.

However, I think we should avoid references to "blackmail" or "hostage". Adobe are simply adopting the business model of all the major commercial application vendors (at least all those I have come across) and trying it in the domestic market. From their point of view it seems with considerable success, and I'm pretty happy with it too. No software or software vendor is forever, but I like to think that the main ones I use are on a firm business footing.

Dave

[DanK]

I think it makes sense for a newbie to consider a variety of postprocessing software options. The focus on Adobe products in this thread probably reflects two things: it's what the OP asked about, it's what several of the posters use.

I agree with Dave: a subscription model isn't "blackmail;" it's just another--and increasingly common--way to collect charges for software. I just looked at the non-free software that I have on my laptop, and more programs have subscriptions than permanent licenses:

Subscriptions:

Lightroom & Photoshop
Microsoft Office 365
McAfee
Malawarebytes
Stata (statistical software)
my VPN

Perpetual:

NIK
Zerene
eWallet
Powerdesk Pro
Acrobat Pro

My main concern with a subscription is being able to read the files if I don't maintain the license. Given that numerous alternatives can read both the TIF files I have in Photoshop and the XML code created by Lightoom, that's not an insurmountable obstacle. Indeed, I believe that at least one company now pitches its product as easy to switch to from LR.

I was initially displeased by the switch, but in the end, I like it. I don't think it costs me any more than it used to cost me to update, and it's a lot more convenient.

[Manfred M]

A little off topic, but I also remember complaints from the IT community when the first IBM PC came out in the early 1980s about having to buy software for the machines.

In those days one had to lease software (as well as the hardware) from the computer manufacturers, so everything from the hardware, software and maintenance was taken care of with one monthly payment. That made the accounting easy too; everything was an expense and planning cashflow was easy. Now they had to deal with writing down their purchases, upgrading software and finding some third party to maintain these machines. Talk about a headache!

[The Dutchman]

Sorry, for not being on here in a few days. I've been busy shooting and post-processing! Why the hell is it call post-processing and not just processing?! Post, because it's after you've snapped the raw image (and you're not relying on your iphone to do the work)?

I'd recommend the Canon EOS M50 w/ the 2 lens kit to a beginner. Got down in the weeds and it met my needs. Pun intended. It also sounds like it's tech is a little ahead of Canon's pricier models, at least it was initially. Maybe Canon wanted to demo it on the noobs/guineas before passing it on to the pros?

Am @t_rexpics on Instagram if you want to see my results so far. Not surprisingly, I've been shooting 135mm at night instead of 24 and in general doing things backasswards, just my style/how I've always been. I've also been able to get Adobe's Creative Cloud for $9.99 p/mo as I don't have many storage needs. Maybe they're being forced to compete and lower prices?

I've been shooting raw and using Adobe Lightroom thus far. For my most recent post I shot raw but added Canon's oil painting effect. In Lightroom I generally choose auto, color as shot then increase clarity and sharpness. However, there were a couple including my most recent post where I reduced clarity so debris floating in the water wasn't as noticeable.

I'm hardly scratching the surface and am attempting to goof off w/ bokeh too soon I'm sure but I'm very happy w/ the quality so far. Thanks again, I've got gobs to learn and the tools to practice w/ now...

[Manfred M]

Why the hell is it call post-processing and not just processing?

Like most other endevours, photography has its own jargon. That unfortunately changes over time.

When I first started working in Photoshop, we called it "editing", but that word was moved over to mean going through your shots and selecting the ones you are going to post-process. When I started, we referred to that operation as "culling", but no more. I personally think that people are looking to use bigger, more impressive sounding words. Perhaps it makes them feel important.

Another word that is common use is "pre-composition". I have no idea what that really means because I've heard so many different thoughts on it. I think it is probably what we used to call "shot planning", i.e. figuring out what and how we are going to approach a subject when we shoot it...

[DanK]

I still call culling culling, and I use edit, process, and postprocess interchangeably. No one I know uses edit to refer to culling, but maybe it's regional.

Dutchman: if you call it processing, we'll understand what you mean.

BTW. can you please go to your profile (top right) and add your name and location.