Processing Software
Keen amateurs who make no money from photography and take pictures for sheer pleasure struggle sometimes to justify great expense on equipment. It may be unfair or a false economy, but it is a struggle to think of spending large sums on processing software when the money could be spent on a lens or a printer (see the article Pictures on My Harddrive).
Some discussion regarding the image Butterfly on Morven Photoblog raised the question of workflow and which software people use.
Currently my chosen processing software is
- RawShooter Essentials - free
- Paintshop Pro 9 - inexpensive
- Gimp 2 - free
Whilst it is no problem to believe that Photoshop is the premiere editing software, parting with £450 is just too hard to do. Paintshop has a good range of functionality and it is reported that there is a new version on the way. Right now, my workflow hardly uses a traditional editor, preferring to use the excellent Raw Shooter to convert my RAW images to their end state and using Paintshop for mundane tasks such as cropping or resizing for web publishing.
It would be great to hear what you use to process your images and why.
September 21st, 2005 at 2:01 pm
In Manila you can easily find Photoshop CS for les than 5 USD. (Not only Photoshop but almost any software…)
I know, I should not buy pirated software…
I am amazed at what Photoshop can do. I know only 20% of PS. I am discovering new things about this software every day.
You can change any horrible picture in something quite acceptable.
I always correct my pictures in Photoshop.
(Crop, levels, curves, contrast & saturation)
I am now discovering the possibilities of RAW.
Between the PS and a lens I would choose Photoshop without any hesitation even at 450 pounds. First, I am afraid to change my lens with my Nikon D70 because of the dust. It is not so easy to clean the D70 and I am afraid to give it to the local shops here. Secondly, I also find it a hassle to carry with me a lot of different lenses. Streets are not unsafe but it is not wise to bring a fortune of equipment with you. I like to concentrate on the people and don’t want to look after a lot of equipment. So normally I use the standard lens with my D70. I have also a telelens that I hardly use.
September 21st, 2005 at 3:54 pm
Thanks to Sidney, I permanently discover coincidences between Paraguay and the Phillipines
In addition to the tropical climate and the facial similarities of the natives; the music, DVD and software piracy is up to date…(besides plain smuggling).
Anyway, though I have access to “inexpensive” PS, and had it even installed in a PC I bought, I use Picasa2 because I’m too lazy too learn all PS effects and possibilities, and Picasa is very easy and fun to use. Obviously it’s not professional, but it fits my needs pretty right. I regularly crop, sharpen and increase saturation. Sometimes I play with filtered B/W conversions (the B/W) pics in my blog are obtained this way. When converting to B/W I don’t intend to preserve the actual tones, I play with filtering, usually distorting the “real” colours. My camera (Sony V-1) doesn’t offer RAW, only TIFF and JPG and I use only the jpg format.
I anyone is interested (and if your spam blocker doesn’t ban me
the Picasa2 soft can be downloaded at www.picasa.com
September 21st, 2005 at 5:15 pm
Ian, I only use a couple of different software packages for post processing.
First, I shoot everything in raw; but I dual capture with a medium quality jpeg that I use as a guide for colors in my raw conversion.
For raw processing I use either Canon’s Digital Photo Professional or Photoshop’s Raw processor.
For the rest of my processing I use Photoshop CS2.
Ian, it has been quite some time since I used Paintshop Pro, but with my limited experience with it I would recommend Photoshop Elements 3. From my again admittedly limited time playing with it I’m impressed. It has all the meat and potatoes of Photoshop CS2, without some of the bells and whistles. If I didn’t need Photoshop CS2 for business I think it would be hard to justify the expense and I would probably use Photoshop Elements. I think it is worth a little bit of time investigating - and the price, at least in the US, is reasonably cheap. Not to long ago I know you could purchase Elements for $49 US when Adobe was running a special.
September 21st, 2005 at 6:41 pm
Ian
I use Nikon capture and Photoshop CS2. I have friends who work in Adobe, so I get PS for a discounted rate, usually there is high demand and there are limits, but I have lucked out so far.
It costs me about US$40, so it does not break the bank.
anand
September 21st, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Ian, as a Mac owner I got iPhoto pre-loaded on my machine - I usually upload my photos direct from the camera into iPhoto for cataloguing, As luck would have it, I also got a free copy of PS Elements II on CD when I purchased my camera. I use this mostly to crop shots and to add my watermark, other than that I don’t really do much post processing.
September 21st, 2005 at 10:58 pm
I use PS 7. My hubby has it for work, otherwise I would have found something else. I have yet to try shooting in RAW, but everyone who does it seems to love it! I’ll have to give it a whirl!
September 22nd, 2005 at 2:31 am
I use Digital Image Pro by Microsoft currently which is cheap and does a fair amount for RAW editing, color correction and any other basic tasks. However when it comes to layers and creating some special effects like getting a b&w really light, it doesn’t work very good… too washed out. I tried RawShooter Essentials that you had actually recommended. I find that it is really contrasty when I use it’s predefined settings but is an excellent program.
We get student pricing on PhotoShop (about 1/4th the original price) so I’m thinking about purchasing it. Funny you had this topic because today I asked the same question on my blog. I ordered a book through Amazon, “Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor’s Guide to the Creative Use of Photoshop” to look through to make sure that I want to invest the funds.
September 22nd, 2005 at 9:25 am
i never use any software for my pictures…
no post-processing done b4…
1) i am lazy…
2) i like things as it is…i think more genuine and real
tht is why…if you see my pictures…some are slanting…some are under-exposed…some are grainy…..may b it is just me…for i like things to be as original as it suppose to be… this apply to all expect of my life….
perhaps i live with the slogan “if is not broken, why mend it?”
September 22nd, 2005 at 1:08 pm
Ian,
I have similar problems with you. I am personally against any illegal use of software. Hence I have the similar options as you mentioned: RAW Shooter Essentials and PaintShop Pro.
However I am a little bit of purist. Photography in my sense is about taking a picture with your lens, not with your software. It’s not making a picture, but taking a picture, as an art of course. I prefer standing for hours to think about compositions, angle, point of interest, aperture, etc., behind my camera, rather than hours in front of computer to try to correct my picture. Thus software for me is just only to transfer/convert my RAW images and maybe a little modification.
By the way, have you had a look into this beautiful free plug-ins: VirtualPhotographer, which is available also for PaintShop Pro ? Here is the link: http://www.optikvervelabs.com/default.asp
September 22nd, 2005 at 3:09 pm
I currently shoot in JPEG format on my D70 and then used PS Elements to tweak levels, saturation, contrast etc. As Rock says - it has all the essentials, without all the stuff you would probably hardly ever use. The only too I really miss is curves for mono, but you can get good result just tweaking the brightness and contrast settings
I am planning to start shooting in RAW soon, but can’t comment as yet on the Nikon Capture software the camera came with. I do hear good things about C1, but it does look a bit pricey - I think I may check out RAW Shooter too and compare it to the Nikon software.
September 22nd, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Thank youall for your comments.
From what I can see, I agree PS CS2 is the best available software - I simply cannot bring myself to part with the cash which may be a false economy.
avan - I agree with you and Zbjernak that it is what you do with the camer that is most important. Indeed most of my shots are not even cropped.
emma - I thorooughly reccommend trying out RAW - it does take a little more time since one must convert to get a jpeg out of it. Raw SHooter Essentials is magic though. At the moment I use Paint Shop Pro only to crop onthe few occasions I do this and to resize to post on my blog - I hear the next version of RS will have these functions so I will not even need to open PSP - perhaps that is why PS CS2 seems so little value to me at the moment - RSE is free!
September 22nd, 2005 at 6:27 pm
avan - thank you for the tip - I will try it.
September 23rd, 2005 at 2:20 am
I currently use PS CS because I got a good deal on it. I could get by with PS Elements, but that would cost more than I’m willing to pay. Ian, I agree with you 100% about the price of software. Some of it seems unreasonable if you don’t make a living or even a little money in photography. If your a pro making a living on your pictures, I’m sure the expense of PS isn’t even a thought.
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:44 am
The costs of a lot of things change when they are the tools of one’s trade Dave - I have a number of expensive items I use to carry out my job such as a powerful light laptop, a blackberry and a couple of other things.
If I were a pro, I would have better lenses first, a good printer second, Photoshop third and a Dx2 fourth - and I would probably get all of them. As it is, I do it for a hobby and cannot justify the expense until I win the lottery (in which I do not participate),
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:52 am
Thats a good point. Back in the peak of telecom, I used to buy my optical tools without a second thought for price. Some were over $10,000, and the size of a laptop. Talk about being nervous checking that stuff at the airport. They would never let me bring it on the plane for some reason. I guess all the buttons and wires scared them.