# Photography Editing Software Advice....



## ncon (Sep 14, 2005)

Hi Guys,

I know a few of you are into your photography, so thought somebody here would be able to offer some input.

In the next month or two (maybe three, but imminent enough) I will be moving from PC to Mac. With that in mind, I will be after a software package for editing/amending photos (bearing in mind I am aware it is obviously better to take the best picture you can, and avoid post-production if it can be helped)

Most of the work will be in JPEG, though would prefer to have the option to work well with RAW from time to time.

The files will be pretty big (18mp camera) so the software needs to be snappy.

I am very familiar with Photoshop Elements, would that suffice for my needs? Any other suggestions?

Cheers Guys!


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

ncon said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> I know a few of you are into your photography, so thought somebody here would be able to offer some input.
> 
> ...


Elements with Adobe RAW will be fine, although you may need to download the latest RAW codec thingy. Obviously the full Photoshop is better but very expensive. CS5 is being released soon, so you may find a cheap CS4 disk somewhere if someone is upgrading.

Adobe lightroom is also very good, and actualy iPhoto that comes with the mac isnt bad either althouth the RAW support isnt great.


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## oubaas56 (Nov 23, 2008)

Most professional graphic artists tend to use Mac computers and the full Adobe graphics suite. So Photoshop Elements for Mac should do fine although if you're seriously into it then an upgrade to Photoshop number whatever is the latest might be an idea. Macs handle their memory differently to windows and are notably faster at handling big files hence the pro's preference for them.

There is a free open source graphics programme called Gimp. Don't know if there is a Mac version though.


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## ncon (Sep 14, 2005)

Thanks for the heads up guys.

Pretty sure that the full Photoshop will be a bit of overkill for my needs. Going over to CS suite, I was always under the impression that had more of a multi-media type lean rather than dedicated graphics?

Anyone had any experience of Aperture?


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## PaulBoy (Dec 2, 2007)

If you happen to have a Nikon (as I did) I can recommend Capture which I much preferred over Paintshop Pro, Elements etc

Paul


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## Tom Radford (Apr 28, 2009)

Ah thats it.. I was trying to remember what it was called. Yes I have used aperture aswell. Its not bad, but I found it quite clunky and slow, however it was an early version, so may be better now. I was using Nikon d700 RAW files at between 30-50MB a pop.

I guess you best bet is to download the trial versions and see which you like the best.

Lightroom is more geared towards storage and archiving, but does have some editing. Aperture is more geared towards editing, but I found Adobe RAW do be the best interface and also provide the best conversions to Jpg. The colours were always better.

Also look out for your cameras native program. Nikon have one called Capture NX. It was ok, but very slow, and again I prefered Adobe RAW's end result.


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

It sounds like all you need is Elements and the Photoshop RAW codecs from the Adobe site to make sure your up to date, not sure about MAC and compatability with Elements (I assume it is fine).....not all graphics/photo pros use MACs, they look cute and as sure as eggs is eggs they perform well......but are soooo mamby pamby flipsy flopsy limp wristed machines! :rofl:


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## foztex (Nov 6, 2005)

Good advice sofar Neal,

I am on both Mac and PC and use photoshop on both for editing (but mainly because I have it and have used it for 18 years). For organising my photos on the mac I use Aperture and am very happy with it, I've not used its editing capabilities much but when I have they have been more than adequate and have improved enormously since v1.

All the Elements software is available in mac versions as are the adobe RAW capabilities.

Gimp is a splendid piece of work and if you have an intel mac it now runs native (rather than under Xwindows/X11). It is however essentially a straight copy of PS and as such is very complex and could be overkill with a very steep learning curve for day to day image tweaks.

As you are familiar with elements I would say stick with it, depending on your elements cd you may already have a mac version on it, if not it is easy to get hold of. iPhoto will be preinstalled on your Mac and it is certainly worth giving it a go. It has sufficient editing features for day to day stuff, is a good organiser and the faces feature is a great enhancement. Personally Aperture is my preference as it is souped up iPhoto, has good RAW capabilities and an excellent backup/archival feature for safeguarding your library.

hope this helps

Andy


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## ncon (Sep 14, 2005)

Thanks Foz...

I had heard of Gimp, but didn't know much about it. Certainly didn't realise that it was as high-quality as it actually is!

Done a bit of reading up and a lot of people rate it almost on a par with the full version of Photoshop; although not used by the Pro's it doesn't seem to be far off...

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!


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## mattbeef (Jul 17, 2008)

Gimp is as good as CS but it just doesnt have the colour profiles that pro's need for printing, thats why CS costs as much as it does.

I use Aperture and iPhoto myself but both only offer simple editing like red-eye, retouch and Aperture will correct technical issues like exposure and tint. When you get your machine it will come with iPhoto and you can get a trial of Aperture so give it a go and see how you get on with it


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## Chromejob (Jul 28, 2006)

foztex said:


> ... Gimp is a splendid piece of work and if you have an intel mac it now runs native (rather than under Xwindows/X11). It is however essentially a straight copy of PS and as such is very complex and could be overkill with a very steep learning curve for day to day image tweaks.
> 
> As you are familiar with elements I would say stick with it, depending on your elements cd you may already have a mac version on it, if not it is easy to get hold of.





ncon said:


> Thanks Foz...
> 
> I had heard of Gimp, but didn't know much about it. Certainly didn't realise that it was as high-quality as it actually is!
> 
> ...


I have to use The Gimp at work (on a Linux box), and where it seems powerful, it misses a few things that I can only do in PHotoshop. It drives me bonkers on a regular basis. The usability is not quite there IMHO either.

The Adobe Elements wares are good, I use Premiere Elements (very old version). There are those who say Photoshop Elements is "75% of Photoshop for $75."

You might also look at Picasa, which is free, and might give you what you need for simple photo retouching.


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## JTW (Jun 14, 2007)

David Spalding said:


> foztex said:
> 
> 
> > ... Gimp is a splendid piece of work and if you have an intel mac it now runs native (rather than under Xwindows/X11). It is however essentially a straight copy of PS and as such is very complex and could be overkill with a very steep learning curve for day to day image tweaks.
> ...


I find Gimp to be good but don't use it often as i have an old version pf photoshop which I'm used to.

Has anybody mentioned paint.net which is free and I've heard good things about, doesn't do Raw though as far as i know.


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## malus65 (Dec 23, 2009)

I don't know Gimp, but I work with Lightroom, wich is in my opinion a very usefull program, especially when you work with RAW. Basically it contains three moduls: catalog, develop en export. I work also with mac and Photoshop as well, but I do 75% of all the work with Lightroom.


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