What is best photography editing software

[awais400]

Dear all members now with yours experence tell that what is best photography editing software.

[Donald]

Now, you're just trying to start a riot!!!

I'll get in first for the open source software camp. Raw Therapee and the GIMP.

Seriously, you will wish to consider a) what your attitudes and views are about the development and availability of open source software, versus the development of software for commercial purposes by private sector companies; b)what money you have available if you wish to purchase commercial packages and, c) what you think you want to do with such software.

As others will no doubt state, the support, advice and guidance available for commercial products is much greater than for open source products.

[arith]

Photoshop Elements for Adobe Canon Raw with Topaz plugins for working in 16 bit with the less hassle than you can shake a stick at Topaz DeNoise 3.
+
OptikVerve Labs for B+W filters;
+
Helicon Filter for cropping and perspective and cloning and saving 16 bit

and

GIMP for artistic stuff. cheers

[RonH]

This is going to develop into an interesting tussle as Donald indicated ... how I loooove riots
Reminds me of my thread Should Digital Photography still be classified in the ‘Arts’ not that i would dare start this all over again!

My vote is for Elements 8 'cause its all I've got. But it does a huge amount of this and that and I reckon I will still be a learner in 10 years time.

Good luck with your choice.

[Crabbe]

Years ago I started with Elements 2. Acquired PS6 sometime later, about 4 years ago, and haven't had the urge to upgrade 'cause I'm still learning. I figure I know about 2% of what it does, and if I upgrade, I'm really lost. What ever you pick, stick with it until it wont do what you want no matter how much you read and research. Good Luck!

[Shadowman]

I think the best photography editing software is a product that is free or given to you under the pretense (such as programs bundled with printers or cameras) that it is free, a program that you feel you need to perfect your photographs, and that you are willing to learn how to use.

[Colin Southern]

Assuming that we're talking about sheer power, then Adobe CS4 ... and it ain't even close!

[carregwen]

CS4. Period.

[Blazing fire]

CS4 is really quite amazing, even after considering that Adobe has been around for years, and this is Photoshop's 11th version. Bridge works well, Camera RAW is really efficient, photoshop give you great control. Cloning, dodge, burn, photomerge, "clarity", vibrance tools, just to name a few, are what makes ACR and PS so good IMO.

I wonder what CS5 holds though. But it will be a long time before it is available, probably next year.

[proseak]

Dear all members now with yours experence tell that what is best photography editing software.

It depends on what you want to do, and how much you're prepared to study. And pay, of course.

For ease of use, Elements - it does quite a lot and is easy to understand.

For power and versatility, Photoshop CS4 has no equal, and I suspect no rival either. There's a LOT to learn, though.

Just now, Amazon UK says c. £50 for Elements, and c.£590 for CS4

Just my 2c-worth

proseak

[Colin Southern]

I

For power and versatility, Photoshop CS4 has no equal, and I suspect no rival either. There's a LOT to learn, though.

In my opinion, yes and no. I often hear this and in my mind it implies that Photoshop is difficult to use, but I think that's misleading; Photoshop has a mind-boggling array of tools that can be used in an infinite number of combinations - but - nothing says that everyone has to use (or even needs to know about) every tool. Sure - it's they're there if you WANT to learn them, but it's by no means mandatory. I would argue that if one limited oneself to what - for example - Photoshop Elements could do then it would be no harder to learn those same functions on PS as it is on PSE.

Reason I mention this is that I think that many people get put off using Photoshop because their perception is that it's too complicated and too hard to learn - heck, a formula 1 car is complicated and difficult to learn, but I bet that even I could cruise around a race track stuck in 1st gear! Whether one would want to go to the expense of buying PS if they don't need that power is another story though.

** Side Note *** Formula 1 Australian GP starting in 1 hour 15 minutes!

[proseak]

"** Side Note *** Formula 1 Australian GP starting in 1 hour 15 minutes! " - Just watching the trailer now. Sunrise soon, though - time to get my camera ready!

Cheers

Peter

[arith]

The only thing that puts me off CS4 is the price and if I was going to buy a car I shouldn't have to buy the garage and a formula 1 team to go with it.

[Shadowman]

In addition to price, CS4 requires specific system requirements. When I used the trial version I met the minimum system requirements (2.0GHZ processor, 512MB memory, 1024 x 768 display, not to mention the harddrive space required) and the program still needed more resources than my Windows based computer could provide. I vowed that I wouldn't try it again until I upgraded my computer and even then the price is a lot for a graphics program.

The only thing that puts me off CS4 is the price and if I was going to buy a car I shouldn't have to buy the garage and a formula 1 team to go with it.

[arith]

In addition to price, CS4 requires specific system requirements. When I used the trial version I met the minimum system requirements (2.0GHZ processor, 512MB memory, 1024 x 768 display, not to mention the harddrive space required) and the program still needed more resources than my Windows based computer could provide. I vowed that I wouldn't try it again until I upgraded my computer and even then the price is a lot for a graphics program.

I'm guilty of running programs simultaneously, recently my pc almost stopped so I investigated what was going on to find PSE7 using 1.57 GB of ram and memory exceeded since I was running Helicon Filter and Skype and the radio plus a whole lot of other things including several tabs in IE8. Now I'm careful with it because it gobbles up RAM.

[Shadowman]

Steve,

Unfortunately this sounds like a restricted workflow. Obviously as you have stated, there are ways to adjust your typical work habits (multiple programs running) to accommodate the requirements of the CS4 program. I am wondering what is the optimal system for running CS4 without restricting your workflow?

I'm guilty of running programs simultaneously, recently my pc almost stopped so I investigated what was going on to find PSE7 using 1.57 GB of ram and memory exceeded since I was running Helicon Filter and Skype and the radio plus a whole lot of other things including several tabs in IE8. Now I'm careful with it because it gobbles up RAM.

[Sai C]

I have always found Nikon Capture NX2 to provide the best rendition of the NEF files. And I have tried CS4, Bibble, GIMP; none of them can reproduce what Capture NX2 is capable of reproducing from the NEF. I do agree that the UI for Capture NX2 is not the best that is out there. For my workflow I use a mix of Capture NX2, Bibble and Photoshop. Although I do have to admit that for batch processing I have found that Bibble Pro v5.0 gives me a much better performance than Photoshop or Capture NX2. I use Photoshop only when I need to use the layers feature. Bibble 5.0 looks like it will give Photoshop a good challenge, but again i'm yet to use all of the features available in Bibble.

Good question by the OP!

[Colin Southern]

Steve,

I am wondering what is the optimal system for running CS4 without restricting your workflow?

I run a Windows 7 PC with 12GB RAM and an i7 extreme edition CPU ... and it goes very nicely

[Shadowman]

Colin,

Are you limited in the number of applications you can run?

I run a Windows 7 PC with 12GB RAM and an i7 extreme edition CPU ... and it goes very nicely

[Colin Southern]

Colin,

Are you limited in the number of applications you can run?

There has to be a limit to everything I guess, but none that I've come across. It really comes down to whether or not there is enough RAM - if there is then no problem, if there isn't then the OS will page files to disk and things slow down dramatically.