photo editing, what to use

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mike eddleman

mike eddleman

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Jan 1, 2010
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Villa Rica Ga.
Just wondering what people are using to edit their photos . I have
cs3
Lightroom 3
portrait professional
Windows Live photo Gallery
and in the process of downloading cs5

I've dabbled with all of them just a little but not enough to know what's best, I do lean to cs3 just because I have used it longer. I still have a lot to learn about all of them.
 
PS CS4 mostly, cataloging program is Expression Media 2, now Media Pro. I think PS Elements, iPhoto or Lightroom might be as good or better for many, I haven't had occasion to try them. There's extensive commentary about this subject on photo.net.
 
I'm an old school photographer and try to take photos that won't need editing.  We rarely edit our photos, other than the occasional cropping.
 
I used Paint Shop Pro for about 10 years but it was purchased by Corel and they promptly ruined the program. I used Photoshop for 6 or 7 years but it is a behemoth, having zillions of options, 99% of which do not apply to digital photography. It is a great program but it can take a long time to learn. For the last 4 years I have been using Lightroom (since beta) and that is the one I use and love the most. It is a photo editor designed by photographers and the program is specifically for digital photographers. Lightroom especially shines if you take and process a lot of photos. I got started with Lightroom by watching free online video by Michael Tapes. They are a little dated but still the best way to get up to speed with the program.

http://www.whibalhost.com/_Tutorials/Photoshop_LR/01/index.html

Picasa also has photo editing capabilities but it is a bit limited. If you go RAW CS3 won't work with your RAW files, but CS5 will.

But if you really want to get retro the first paint program I used was Deluxe Paint on my IBM PS2 in 1987.

 

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Ned said:
I'm an old school photographer and try to take photos that won't need editing.  We rarely edit our photos, other than the occasional cropping.
Click to expand...
Don't worry Ned, you can't edit slides ;D
 
seilerbird said:
Don't worry Ned, you can't edit slides ;D
Click to expand...

Strangely enough, I never did take slides.  I always preferred prints.  So instead of having boxes of slides that no one looked at, I had boxes of prints that no one looked at :)
 
Ned said:
I'm an old school photographer and try to take photos that won't need editing.  We rarely edit our photos, other than the occasional cropping.
Click to expand...
(slaps myself on forehead)

Boy did I miss a great opportunity here. Here is what I should have responded with:

Don't worry Ned there was no photo editing done on Daguerreotypes.
 
I started out on CS and am now on CS5.  Like MS Excel, it has far more capability than most people will ever use.  I have learned what I need to know and do not care to learn a new application. 
 
Depending on how hard core editing you want to do.  For me I really like Kodak Ezshare.  It allows me to do minor editing and printing multiple pictures with just a few mouse clicks.
 
Picasa and PS Elements 9. I do quite a bit with Picasa but Elements has the ability to lighten dark areas without affecting the lighter areas to any degree. Sometimes saves a photo that would be useless otherwise.
 
I've been using PS since PS 2 and have always updated each new issue. I started with LightRoom 1 beta and am now using LR for almost all my photo processing. PS is more for the graphic artist where LR is designed just for the photographer. I'm not going to get the next PS upgrade. Unless you plan to do some heavy duty processing, I think you'll find LR will do all you need.
 
Chet is correct. At my photography forum they did a poll on what photo editing software we were using and it was Lightroom by a landslide.
 
DPReview.com, the largest online photo forum. Amazon owns them. There was a poll about 6 months ago on the home page and as I remember Lightroom got about 60%. Of course these are all mainly hard core advanced amateurs that hang out there. Not a representative cross sample, but it is the only photo editing poll I have seen in the last few years.
 
That looks like a great site Tom. I guess I will try Lightroom. I'm not planning on trying to do a lot of editing, But just small things if needed most likely more on the cropping and trying to make the color pop a little. But first I have to try to remember how to take pictures. It's been many, many years scene anything but point and shoot
 
mike eddleman said:
That looks like a great site Tom. I guess I will try Lightroom. I'm not planning on trying to do a lot of editing, But just small things if needed most likely more on the cropping and trying to make the color pop a little. But first I have to try to remember how to take pictures. It's been many, many years scene anything but point and shoot
Click to expand...
Digital editing should not include a lot of changes. Just a few small things is all I do 99% of the time. Modern digital cameras produce images that are very close to being right the huge majority of the time. If you shoot RAW then you must sharpen the images. Other than that I don't really compose in the viewfinder, especially with wildlife. I put the main subject in the middle then crop in PP for composition. It is impossible to get wildlife to pose for you. Other than cropping and sharpening I will usually add a bit of contrast and a bit of Vibration (Saturation done properly) and that is all. It takes me less than 30 seconds to PP most all of my shots. It is nice to know how to PP severely just in case you get a one in a million shot and there is something drastically wrong with it.

PP is not about taking a bad photo and making it a great photo. It is about tweaking it to make it a bit better. The whole problem is that it is difficult to get things exactly right in a tiny little viewfinder or LCD screen when you are shooting, especially if you are shooting a few hundred shots in a day. I am going to look at my photos on a computer monitor and PP allows me to make it look it's very best (IMHO) on my monitor.
 
Picasa is great for minor editing. Most of my editing is done in Picasa. If I need more than normal, I use PS Elements 9.
 
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