Editing software advice/help please guys/girls

[Markbarry1977]

Okay people, I am after some advice about workflow for photo editing and which software to go for.

My current setup.
I use a Nikon d3200 with a few extra lenses, some filters and the onboard flash. I am entirely apple based so I use an iMac/iPhone and use the apple photos app for cataloging and basic editing and use the iCloud to sync between devices. I use a non referenced setup (ie my images are all held within the apple photos package (I know a bad idea but I didn't know any better when I started and apple iCloud requires you to use the non referenced system).

Current photos
My current photo taking skill level is pretty low, I tend to shoot all sorts and have no preference from building to people to motorsports to aircraft. I always shoot in jpeg not raw but would like to experiment with raw and the added benefits that everyone seems to say this brings.

The problem
Whilst apple Photos is good for basic correction and touch up I don't think I am likely to produce really great photos. I am looking for a more advanced editor that will integrate well with the apple photos software. Ideally I would like something that integrates well.

I have been looking at pixlemator and gimp. Ideally I would like a program I can open from within the apple photos app do my editing and return to apple photos like it's all one piece of software.

I know photoshop and Lightroom is the professional standard solution and just ditch the apple photos stuff but I don't want to pay a monthly subscription or hundreds of pounds for software.

Any suggestion for what to do/use. I really am a bit of a newbie to this editing and cataloging of photos.

[Derek Smith]

I've got an older edition of Photoshop, 7, which has all I need to alter my images. However, for some reason, which is denied, Win10 messes around with it. It crashes on occasion, decides it doesn't want to save some images, and is slow loading. Not much, but irritating none the less. I was thinking of Elements 12, but didn't go much on the interface.

I had an offer of Serif PhotoPlus. I thought I'd give it a try. It too does more than I need, but no problems with Win10. I now find it easier to use, despite an, at first, clunky way of saving files.

I'm not a pro and use it mainly for images in books and on websites.

The current one is X8, which I've got, and it is £44 on ebay. I belong to the Serif email marketing list and got it for £25.

I also have PaintShop Pro 9, which I only loaded because Photoshop threw a bit of a wobbly, and that copes with Win10 but the interface is a bit less intuitive. I used a friend's X5 or X6 when thinking of replacing Photoshop, and thought it quite good. I was going to buy it when I got the offer through from Serif.

If you are mid Sussex, you could come around and see all three in operation.

I found Gimp OK but only for the price.

[Lynchie999]

Markbarry1977 said:

The problem
Whilst apple Photos is good for basic correction and touch up I don't think I am likely to produce really great photos. I am looking for a more advanced editor that will integrate well with the apple photos software. Ideally I would like something that integrates well.

some "advanced" editing software isn't the magic bullet for "really great photos" ... in what way are you current photos not very good ? you can get really great photos without doing much editing..

[mike80]

You can get the latest version of Photoshop Elements for £50 on Amazon, which should be more than adequate for what you need.

It was also possible to download CS2 for free last year, not sure if you still can. Although it was pretty old it was still perfectly good enough for a lot of things. Only problem was as has been mentioned it isn't very compatible with Windows 10.

[Derek Smith]

You can see the various interfaces and facilities on YouTube.

If you want to pay around £50 or so the programmes are much of a muchness in what they offer. The main difference for me is how easy they are to use. Or rather how easy you find them to use.

[Markbarry1977]

I suppose the question is do I stay in the apple photos "domain" or do I shift to an alternate solution. I just find the apple photos editor lacking. No layers for example.

[rich888]

As an alternative to the above suggestions on your Mac why not try the free Google Picasa app, it doesn't touch the original pics so no worries about accidentally ruining them, it merely presents you with all the pics on your hard drive in a flat chronological order no matter how many folders and sub-folders down they have been buried. Link is: https://picasa.google.co.uk/

Please note there is no need to upload any of your pics onto the cloud if you don't want to.

I've been using Picasa for several years now on my iMac and MacBook Pro without any problems whatsoever, and have upwards of 2TB of photos and videos on several internal and external hard drives which it has scanned and presented in a flat folder date format. You can use this alongside the Apple or Adobe software.

Note that the original folders and photos remain unchanged unless you choose to move or edit them.

[Derek Smith]

Markbarry1977 said:

I just find the apple photos editor lacking. No layers for example.

OMG. It's 1995 again.

[jmorgan]

If you want to use apple photos then there are one or two programs that have plugins for photos. the new photos removed the external editor option that iPhoto had, messed the process up somewhat and placed the ball in the developers court.

Unless Adobe do a plugin, then it will need to be exported from photos, edited, then re imported. Options are check out reviews on the few that will work within photos if you decide to do that. Affinity is one I think. Tonality another (black and white I think)

Re Picassa, are there copy right issues if you use them?


Edit. I have on program that uses photos plugin, but there are only one or three tools allowed into photos for use. Not sure how integrated they are.

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 3rd January 15:31

Edited by jmorgan on Sunday 3rd January 16:16

[steveatesh]

OP you said you don't want to do subscriptions or pay hundreds for your software, but what about £100 or thereabouts for Lightroom 6 standalone perpetual licence?

I am Mac based too and use LR stand alone with Pixelmator for those more difficult areas such as removing something from the shot ( it really is good at that) plus it has layers too.

The benefit is you would be using the industry standard photo editor (Lightroom) with lots and lots of tutorials on YouTube etc. The ability to edit Raw, lots of free presets and it is none destructive.

Think of the future when you have ditched Apple Photos and shoot in Raw as a matter of course. LR is a proper photo editing software and your workflow can be very smooth and it really enhances photos (although as above the taking of the shot is where that starts of course).

Pixelmator is unique to the Mac and is very cheap for a pixel editor with the capabilities it has. Not so many tutorials but to be honest I only need it's extra features very rarely, nearly all my work is in LR.

Whatever you decide, best of luck with it anyway.

[rich888]

steveatesh said:

OP you said you don't want to do subscriptions or pay hundreds for your software, but what about £100 or thereabouts for Lightroom 6 standalone perpetual licence?

I am Mac based too and use LR stand alone with Pixelmator for those more difficult areas such as removing something from the shot ( it really is good at that) plus it has layers too.

The benefit is you would be using the industry standard photo editor (Lightroom) with lots and lots of tutorials on YouTube etc. The ability to edit Raw, lots of free presets and it is none destructive.

Think of the future when you have ditched Apple Photos and shoot in Raw as a matter of course. LR is a proper photo editing software and your workflow can be very smooth and it really enhances photos (although as above the taking of the shot is where that starts of course).

Pixelmator is unique to the Mac and is very cheap for a pixel editor with the capabilities it has. Not so many tutorials but to be honest I only need it's extra features very rarely, nearly all my work is in LR.

Whatever you decide, best of luck with it anyway.

This looks very interesting indeed, where can I download Lightroom 6 standalone perpetual licence for approx £100 for my Mac, because although Google Picasa is pretty good with basic editing tasks, it doesn't offer layers and LR6 might be a more powerful alternative option for me when editing photos.

[steveatesh]

rich888 said:

This looks very interesting indeed, where can I download Lightroom 6 standalone perpetual licence for approx £100 for my Mac, because although Google Picasa is pretty good with basic editing tasks, it doesn't offer layers and LR6 might be a more powerful alternative option for me when editing photos.

This link should take you to all Adobe products. Scroll down to Lightroom and it shows the price of £103.88 click the buy button, select your product (I went for Mac/PC as I have a Windows laptop too, 1 licence allows use on both machines) set the item to full licence rather than upgrade, get plastic from wallet, enjoy

https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/catalog/software...

[jmorgan]

Going to show my ignorance, I thought L/R was a workflow with a few adjustments available whereas PS elements (or the full monty) was the editor. So LR will do what iPhoto and Photo and Elements organiser (at differing levels)?

Think I need to go look at it again.

[percy]

I know that you said you don't want to subscribe, but the Adobe Photographer Plan is good value - Photoshop CC and Lightroom for £8.57/month. I've been using this for about 18 months now - you get all the updates as they are released too. Allows you to install both programs onto 2 machines.
https://www.adobe.com/uk/creativecloud/photography...

Edited by percy on Monday 4th January 18:02

[steveatesh]

jmorgan said:

Going to show my ignorance, I thought L/R was a workflow with a few adjustments available whereas PS elements (or the full monty) was the editor. So LR will do what iPhoto and Photo and Elements organiser (at differing levels)?

Think I need to go look at it again.

Yes you probably do! LR has considerable adjustments available to it and is in a different league to Apples offering. Various bruishes including gradient, radial and adjustment, spot removal, colour changes, split tone, al your different levels including highlights and shadows, clarity, skin softening, eye improvements etc etc.
It even does HDR and panoramic stitching now in RAW.

The editors come in if you have something complex to remove from a photo or you may want to merge or blend two photos together for example. As in my previous post I rarely need to use the editor at all, LR is very versatile. If you want to see more check out some of Serge Ramelli tutorials on YouTube, (other tutors are available of course).

[rich888]

steveatesh said:

jmorgan said:

Going to show my ignorance, I thought L/R was a workflow with a few adjustments available whereas PS elements (or the full monty) was the editor. So LR will do what iPhoto and Photo and Elements organiser (at differing levels)?

Think I need to go look at it again.

Yes you probably do! LR has considerable adjustments available to it and is in a different league to Apples offering. Various bruishes including gradient, radial and adjustment, spot removal, colour changes, split tone, al your different levels including highlights and shadows, clarity, skin softening, eye improvements etc etc.
It even does HDR and panoramic stitching now in RAW.

The editors come in if you have something complex to remove from a photo or you may want to merge or blend two photos together for example. As in my previous post I rarely need to use the editor at all, LR is very versatile. If you want to see more check out some of Serge Ramelli tutorials on YouTube, (other tutors are available of course).

Hey Steve thank you for the link to buy LR and also the info above on what it can do plus the YouTube tutorials which are always very informative.

[rottie102]

lightroom is cheaper on Amazon. I think I paid £89

[steveatesh]

rottie102 said:

lightroom is cheaper on Amazon. I think I paid £89

Currently showing £108 on Amazon. It was actually a few quid cheaper on Amazon when I went for it but some of the Lightroom forums had people posting that they had bought from Amazon and could not activate the software but Adobe were reluctant to help as it had not been purchased from them.

Personally I didn't want to take the risk so went straight to the horses mouth.

[rich888]

steveatesh said:

rottie102 said:

lightroom is cheaper on Amazon. I think I paid £89

Currently showing £108 on Amazon. It was actually a few quid cheaper on Amazon when I went for it but some of the Lightroom forums had people posting that they had bought from Amazon and could not activate the software but Adobe were reluctant to help as it had not been purchased from them.

Personally I didn't want to take the risk so went straight to the horses mouth.

I recollect this happening a few years ago of software being sold cheap on the likes of various auction sites, only for many disgruntled buyers to discover that although the software was legitimate it wasn't sold with a key to unlock it for use on their computer which they then had to go out and buy!

Must say that with all the dodgy spyware trojan software around nowadays I would be very hesitant from buying and downloading from anywhere apart from the genuine software company. Plus if you do buy from the manufacturer they will log your details which must be a bonus in the future.

[Markbarry1977]

I would like to thank all of you that have made helpful and informative comments comment and advice. I am thinking about LR now. I too was under the impression that Lightroom was more a cataloging/management tool. If it has such editing tools I will have to look at it again.