Best photo software out there??????

[kingfisher62]

I was thinking of puchasing some sort of photo shop software and was wondering what people can recommend.

I am not looking for anything too technical but something I can grow with.

Just throw some at me And if you could tell me an estimated price
because i want to try get a good deal on ebay.
Thanks in advance

[BlueCorn]

Lightroom is a great place to start. Most of my images go from camera to print without evening needing photoshop.

[kingfisher62]

Wow, that is expensive software for an amature. Although i do see it on ebay for about $ 180 looks like a good deal. I still dont know if i want to invest that much.

[BlueCorn]

Lightroom is cheap, have your priced photoshop CS3? :lol:

Photoshop Elements might be more appropriate if you're trying to save money.

There's also The Gimp, which is free.

[Homereef]

Microsoft recommends Paint.net (Weird name for a program)
Which is free and I found it very effective.
Before
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii296/Homereef/021.jpg

After
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii296/Homereef/021q.jpg

[Tremelle]

You can also try Corel PaintShop Pro Photo X2. It is regular price $100. You can also catch it on sale from time to time. I use it and like.

[zmckenzie]

This will be the first time i post in this part of reefcentral so take my advice with a grain of salt. If you don't want to spend the money for software but be able to edit photos with many options i would highly suggested gimp which as stated above is free. You can do most of the things you will ever need to edit photo's at a recreational level. Much of what you can do in Photoshop you can do in gimp. You can actually even download a file that will set up gimp like Photoshop. Here is the link to GIMP website. (http://www.gimp.org/) I would give this a try before buying any software for it will most likely handle anything you need to touch up your pictures.

[kingfisher62]

Thanks for all the feed back everyone!
Any more thought would be appreciated.
Welcome to the RC zmckenzie, hey wait a minute ,you have been registered since august 2007 .Boy you have been lurking around a long time before you said anything,LOL.

[kingfisher62]

Hey that gimp looks pretty good i will have to try that, thanks!

[Poseidon]

I'll second Lightroom if you can spend the cash, works GREAT!

[snorvich]

I have Photoshop. It can do a LOT of stuff but the learning curve on it is steep. It is more for professional photographers. For what we do on Reefcentral, I think Lightroom is the better product. Not cheap but high value for the price.

[BlueCorn]

Actually Steve, Lightroom is geared more towards Processional Photographers than Photoshop. That's really the target audience for the product; much like Apple Aperture. Photoshop is like a giant swiss army knife for graphic design. Lightroom is a, well thought out subset of tools, that photographers need wrapped around a DAM (digital archive management) system.

I still use CS3 for some things like noise reduction (if necessary), targeted sharpening and targeted adjustments but most of my editing, and review is done in LR.

Cheers

[eharper2]

I'm still new in photography, just bought a Canon Rebel Xti. I have been using google picasa. Its not too complacated and best of all its free. It automatically makes my images crisper and more clear. Try it before you go and spend money.

[snorvich]

Thanks Doug. I just became accustomed to doing everything in Photoshop but I recall that it took a long time to learn and I have just brushed the surface. I will look again at Lightroom.

[snorvich]

Well I just took the Lightroom tutorial and must say it is really slick. For photographs much better and easier than Photoshop. Curves in Photoshop is rich in features but a pain to use. Curves in Lightroom is simply a piece of cake. And management of multiple images is just some much better. Adobe has a winner with this one. You just cost me some money.

[BlueCorn]

One of the best things about LR is the fact that it makes shooting RAW completely transparent. It requires zero additional work so you can get the best images possible while having a workflow that's no more complicated than if you were working with JPG.

[Saiyan]

Does anyone know how long it will be until lightroom 2.0 comes out, and, if you buy 1.4, can it be upgraded for cheap?

[BlueCorn]

The 2.0 beta expires in August I believe. My hunch is that is pretty close to release time. If it follows standard Adobe trends I'd expect that it'll cost ~ $100 to upgrade.

It's totally worth the money now if that's a concern.