Photo software

[grubworm]

I looked thru the thread and even used the SEARCH and didn't see anything specific to software, so I'll just start this thread. I'm a low/medium use photographer so I'm basically just looking for a decent program to edit photos. I used Photoshop a LOT back in the 90s and used the different layers, etc, but it got to where I kept having to upgrade everytime a new version of Windows came out or I got a new computer. Now it looks like I can only use Photoshop with a subscription and the last version I got in 2011 won't work with the Windows/laptop I have now, so...does anyone know of a decent software for simple editing? Cropping and changing levels and maybe a little more? Photoshop is great, but seriously overkill for what I'm doing now and I don't want a subscription, so simple and inexpensive is the goal.
Thanks

 

[Bama_Kiwi]

Gimp

 

[grubworm]

Gimp

Thanks. I’ll check it out

 

[joshjunior]

gimp or theres a photoshop app that you can edit using your phone.

 

[grubworm]

that's 2 votes for GIMP....



sorry...couldn't resist a Pulp Fiction reference

 

[Gary Stevens]

www.faststone.org download the viewer from site 2, NOT site 1. Free great program that is simple to use and does what you will need. I mostly use curves for basic adjustment. Has a great feature if your camera has a GPS module to locate each photo on Google Earth by dropping a pin. Get to know the tagging feature, and the lightboard feature for moving photos around and than renaming is the order that you want.

 

[grubworm]

www.faststone.org download the viewer from site 2, NOT site 1. Free great program that is simple to use and does what you will need. I mostly use curves for basic adjustment. Has a great feature if your camera has a GPS module to locate each photo on Google Earth by dropping a pin. Get to know the tagging feature, and the lightboard feature for moving photos around and than renaming is the order that you want.

i just downloaded it...seems pretty good and is very easy to use. thanks!

 

[RainGoat]

How about simple video editing?

 

[Road]

It's really quite amazing what one can do with the native apps on a phone.

I just made a post in the photography thread with four images made with an iPhone X and four with a Nikon D850.

For the four made with an iPhone I used both the native phone app and an app called Camera+. I see there's a Camera+ 2 out now. I'll have to check it out.

For the four made with the Nikon D850 I used Adobe Lightroom. I do a lot of photography, so the subscription for 9.99 a month for both Lightroom and Photoshop is well worth it. I used to buy the new versions every time they came out. This is far less expensive and has free updates.

When I was on a PC, Paint Shop Pro from Corel, was seriously the way to go. It's only $48 bucks for the full version. I liked it so much that for awhile, while they were still developing the early versions of Lightroom, I loaded a Windows thing to my MAC so I could still use it. I had the workflow down so pat I hated to switch it up.



Now though, Lightroom makes it SO much easier to upload, organize, edit, and produce prints.

 

[Tug]

I remember those days. I really had a problem with Adobe when I sent over 50 thousand dollars for our government organization’s upgrades for our multimedia departments. Three weeks later Adobe came back and said they would not be supporting their Creative Suite upgrades or any other Premiere Adobe softwares without paying for a subscriptions on the software we owned. And we owned a lot of graphics, video, publishing and photography Adobe software. Adobe wanted $ 50.00 per seat per month. That would be a lot more money. $$$$$$$$$
Plus not all government computers can be on the internet, specially just to support Abode’s move to the cloud. Most of it is due to the sensitivity of our work. Even reaching out to down load the software would created us all kinds of problems. We loved their software but not their corporate decisions on the total move to subscriptions and cloud based services.

I personally own an older Photoshop and their last Lightroom v6. Adobe just announced no more buying upgrades for Lightroom you must pay a monthly or yearly subscription now. Go figure!

I also don’t want to buy storage for my videos and large image files from Adobe or anyone on a monthly basis too. I’m not sure how this would work out cost wise for us that want to do photography part time $ but I sure like owning the software and a Synology server of my own to store and work on my imaging.

I use the Lightroom v6 and an older photoshop with all my still cameras (D800, D3X,Leica’s).
It’s been a great workhorse.
I guess there is alway film and a darkroom.

 

[HazMatt79]

Check out Affinity Photo software if you want a one-time purchase price fo $49. Maybe with Black Friday, it will drop in price more. It tries to copy Photoshop in many ways and has some decent content aware editing if you ever need it. Gimp is not bad as others mentioned, but I am not as big a fan of the interface. However, it's nice that it's free. Also, if you are looking for good deals on software, which many times includes Affinity products and similar, check out the website Humble Bundle. I first got Affinity through there last year. And no I don't wort for either. I work for the government who buys mostly Adobe lol. Another option is the online photo editing tool Pixlr, but requires a Flash-enabled browser. Some of my colleagues that don't have Adobe CC licenses use it for minor editing.

 

[HazMatt79]

It's really quite amazing what one can do with the native apps on a phone.

I just made a post in the photography thread with four images made with an iPhone X and four with a Nikon D850.

For the four made with an iPhone I used both the native phone app and an app called Camera+. I see there's a Camera+ 2 out now. I'll have to check it out.

For the four made with the Nikon D850 I used Adobe Lightroom. I do a lot of photography, so the subscription for 9.99 a month for both Lightroom and Photoshop is well worth it. I used to buy the new versions every time they came out. This is far less expensive and has free updates.

When I was on a PC, Paint Shop Pro from Corel, was seriously the way to go. It's only $48 bucks for the full version. I liked it so much that for awhile, while they were still developing the early versions of Lightroom, I loaded a Windows thing to my MAC so I could still use it. I had the workflow down so pat I hated to switch it up.



Now though, Lightroom makes it SO much easier to upload, organize, edit, and produce prints.

Lightroom is pretty handy for editing multiple photos. One of my favorite parts is making adjustments to one image and then copying the settings to others easily and tweaking from there. The $9.99 bundle is a good deal for a subscription. I initially hated the subscription model, but now don't mind it as much. I worked major remote-sensing software company as the customer support and quality assurance manager for about 3 years. There is a lot that goes into these modern applications like what I supported and the Adobe products as well. The subscription price is often a bargain if you use it regularly. I use Adobe all day long so my unit gets its money's worth lol.

 

[Joey83]

I like FastStone Image Viewer for simple editing.

 

[1Louder]

Pixelmator is decent. I don’t do heavy editing though. It is what I use though. For quick cleanups if you have an iPad there are lots of good apps.

 

[HuddExpo]

Lightroom CC on desktop/laptop, Snapseed on mobile devices. Doing this for years and it's all been good.

 

[keith.gowan]

Gimp is an amazing photo editor. While it can require a lot of learning to fully utilize - there are a great many tutorials on youtube.

For basic editing, Faststone, or even Windows photo work very well.

I used ACDSee years ago, that was way ahead of the times. I loved using it for batch renaming. (FYI, there's a plugin for GIMP called BIMP that does batch work quite well).

For video (which I've just started getting into), I've been using Shotcut. Seems pretty damn good, but haven't thrown a lot at it yet.

 

[Rolando]

A fourth vote for GIMP.

 

[ScratchHax]

darktable. darktable - the photo workflow software open source, non destructive, works with raw files, does cataloging like lightroom and has most of the lightweight editing features you would want similar to lightroom.

 

[Autism Family Travels]

I vote for affinity as well.

 

[Bodge Garage]

Affinity is a great tool that will rival Photoshop but without the subscription pay to play. Exposure x5 is an easy to use Lightroom clone. Both will do RAW processing.