Photo editing/processing: Photoshop or???

[SunnyD]

My wife is starting to get fairly heavily into digital photography, but one place she struggles is the post-processing of images. Yes yes, I know - take good pictures and you'll need minimal if any post work, she knows this too, but everyone has to start somewhere.

Now my question for her is - is Photoshop the end-all be-all for quality post-processing? I have my issues with Adobe bloatware in general, not to mention the price of trying to keep up-to-date (or even just getting into Photoshop). Where should I have her start? She's probably just under intermediate level for computer know-how, but watching her get frustrated with Photoshop in the past makes me wonder if there's something better for her out there. Will GIMP be even worse? What other options are there?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Lightroom. Definitely Lightroom.

 

[angry hampster]

GIMP is a pain. Lightroom is very streamlined and easy to use.

 

[shortylickens]

Photoshop is expensive and requires lots of know-how. If you dont know what you're getting in to I'd say its a waste of money.
GIMP is not nearly as nice as many fanboys claim. I dont like the interface at all. But its free, which is probably why so many people know how to use it.

I use Corel Photo Paint. Not because its the best, or the best deal. But because thats what I started with in Windows 3.0 and have been using ever since. Up until very recently the interface and tool names had been pretty standard. But with the latest version they changed the name of the program and pretty much everything about how it works. I hated it. Luckily I got a free trial and learned before paying.

Anyway, for you I guess I'd recommend Lightroom or Photoshop Elements.
It would be better if you told us exactly which tools you've been using, and what you think you need.

 

[Billb2]

For the nivice, Paint Shop Pro v7.04.

It'll take 1/2 hour to learn to use and you won't run out of new stuff to try for years.

 

[olds]

If you already have photoshop, have her watch some tutorials on youtube.
That's what my wife does.

And I think gimp is horribly unintuitive.

 

[soydios]

Lightroom is intuitive enough, but is a really efficient workflow / basic editing / batch processing program.

 

[elitejp]

in my experience none of them are intuitive. Theres just too much you can do with any program which makes them both great and hard to learn at the same time. If you dont have any program than use gimp for now as its very similar to ps except you cant work with 16 bit images. Not a huge deal unless you do major reconstructive surgery on your photo again and again and again. Else your eye will never see the difference between the two. If your willing to fork out the money for ps than thats fine as its all a learning process, and these two programs both have tons of vid tutorials which is what you will need to learn any program. I dont recommend lightroom as its expensive and it seems to offer less than what ps does with the only benefit of having batch processing, so you might as well get ps.

 

[GoSharks]

in my experience none of them are intuitive. Theres just too much you can do with any program which makes them both great and hard to learn at the same time. If you dont have any program than use gimp for now as its very similar to ps except you cant work with 16 bit images. Not a huge deal unless you do major reconstructive surgery on your photo again and again and again. Else your eye will never see the difference between the two. If your willing to fork out the money for ps than thats fine as its all a learning process, and these two programs both have tons of vid tutorials which is what you will need to learn any program. I dont recommend lightroom as its expensive and it seems to offer less than what ps does with the only benefit of having batch processing, so you might as well get ps.

I disagree. If you don't plan on doing much retouching beyond color, exposure, sharpening, etc, Lightroom is far better for working with photos than Photoshop. LR is much more streamlined and faster for the stuff you will use day to day.

I haven't had the need to us PS since I started with LR. It is just so much faster.

 

[tenthumbs]

Where Does Aperature 2 fit into all this? How does it rate?

 

[GoSharks]

Aperture and Lightroom are competing products - ie, they are going for the exact same market, whereas Photoshop and Lightroom are not so much.

 

[pennylane]

I've always had the impression (from limited use) that Lightroom is basically the same thing as Bridge (which comes with Photoshop) except you can make edits without opening the picture you want to look at. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I've never been completely clear on what. Can somebody explain?

 

[alfa147x]

Where Does Aperature 2 fit into all this? How does it rate?

Aperture 3 > better then lightroom IMO

Lightroom > Aperture 2

I say this because Aperture 3 and lightroom do about the same thing but on OS X Aperture 3 kicks ass (Performance wise)! Honestly just try out both demos and choose what YOU like best. They are too close for you to just go by people's reviews

 

[angry hampster]

I've always had the impression (from limited use) that Lightroom is basically the same thing as Bridge (which comes with Photoshop) except you can make edits without opening the picture you want to look at. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I've never been completely clear on what. Can somebody explain?

That's basically it. Lightroom is basically like Bridge + some editing features. To simplify even further, it's photoshop without layers or channels.

 

[elitejp]

All these programs are great. I was just about to say that ps has an edge though because there are so many great plugins for it until I dbl checked Imagenomic's website and see they make plugins for aperture, lightroom and ps. In any case I chose photoshop and thats what I what I know how use now.

 

[GoSharks]

If you are looking to purchase the full priced software, Lightroom (or Aperture) is really all you will need. Photoshop will likely be a waste of money and definitely be less convenient and user friendly.

 

[akugami]

Lightroom 2 (3 is in beta) will do 99% of the post processing you need. You might need a few edits in something like Photoshop, in which case it might make sense to have her learn GIMP since you'll only be doing a few very basic stuff. Most of it will be in Lightroom. Aperture is Mac only and I'm not sure SunnyD has a Mac. But as others say, Aperture and Lightroom cover the same areas.

 

[Need4Speed]

Aperture 3 > better then lightroom IMO

Lightroom > Aperture 2

I say this because Aperture 3 and lightroom do about the same thing but on OS X Aperture 3 kicks ass (Performance wise)! Honestly just try out both demos and choose what YOU like best. They are too close for you to just go by people's reviews

+1 This has been my experience too.

 

[pennylane]

That's basically it. Lightroom is basically like Bridge + some editing features. To simplify even further, it's photoshop without layers or channels.

When I was looking for an editing program, I went with Photoshop because Bridge seemed to do what Lightroom could except slower, while Photoshop could do just a little more. While it's true that Lightroom does everything you need for 99% of all pictures, usually it's that 1% that ends up being the ones you really like and might want to do more.

I mean, I suck at editing and I certainly don't take full advantage of Photoshop, but that's the rationale I took when deciding.

 

[pdo]

I would spend $25 a month subscribing lynda.com if she's serious about it. Takes years to really master photoshop.

 

[foghorn67]

Aperture 3 > better then lightroom IMO

Lightroom > Aperture 2

I say this because Aperture 3 and lightroom do about the same thing but on OS X Aperture 3 kicks ass (Performance wise)! Honestly just try out both demos and choose what YOU like best. They are too close for you to just go by people's reviews

There are few optimizations you can run to make LR fly.

 

[twistedlogic]

There are few optimizations you can run to make LR fly.

May I ask how?

Lightroom is much more than bridge, all edits are non-destructive so no files are actually touched keeping all originals in tact. LR is a database used to import, catalog, and add keywords to photos for easy searching. You can rate photos, sort photos by certain exif criteria (lens used, body used), create virtual albums, apply presets upon import, and much more.

I think the biggest plus for LR over PS is the time it can save you. Try converting a batch of 200 files from RAW to JPEG while applying a custom tone curve, WB, and crop using Photoshop.

 

[elitejp]

I have canon dpp software that came with buying a dslr and can do all that batch conversion. However people on the canon form that I frequent also tend to love Lightroom. So I really dont think that there is any bad software out there. Most of it is just preference on what you like to use.

 

[alexruiz]

I would suggest to hunt for one of the Fry's FAR.

Serif PhotoPlus X3 or Corel PaintShop Pro X3 will fit the bill nicely. As added bonus, their rebates are fairly fast

 

[Muadib]

I'm going to throw Picasa into the mix. It's free, and not bad.