What editing software you guys use?

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shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
For file management and basic editing I've been using ACDSee since Windows 95.

For serious editing I've used Corel Photo Paint since Windows 3.0.

It just works.
 

Skybound Photographer

Junior Member
Feb 4, 2018
5
0
1
What editing software you guys use? I am likely the only one that don't use Adobe lightroom/PS, it is because of the price and I don't like the way light room handle albums.

This is what I have
DXO Optic for RAW - have been using it since v9, just used to it. Yet I paid for it.
Corel PaintShop Pro X9 Ultimate - Come with bunch of stuff for dirty cheap, easy to use and powerful. Yet I paid for it.
Photo Matrix - For HDR merge, easy to use and powerful. Yet I paid for it.
I think I paid less than $200 for all those.

Print.net - for simple resize and corp. Free
A old version of PS - When I need more local adj, Adobe offered it for free at one point



Photoshop and Lightroom, and Nik Software
 

jhansman

Platinum Member
Feb 5, 2004
2,768
29
91
What editing software you guys use? I am likely the only one that don't use Adobe lightroom/PS, it is because of the price and I don't like the way light room handle albums.

LR6 with the free Google plug-ins for 90% of my post production, with the other 10% handled by PS6. Correction: Earlier versions of LR use collections, not albums. LR CC now uses "albums." I'm still on LR6 (classic) because the CC concept has never appealed to me, nor the monthly fee that goes with it.
Whatever program you choose, stick with it (assuming it works for you) and learn it, top to bottom. I chose Adobe's products because I have access to a Lynda.com account, so I can train on LR & PS to my heart's content.
 
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NAC

Golden Member
Dec 30, 2000
1,105
11
81
I was using LR 4 for a while, but just transitioned to ACDSee Ultimate. I needed to upgrade because my new camera wasn't supported, and am happy with the change.
 

Paladin3

Diamond Member
Mar 5, 2004
4,933
877
126
I've used Photoshop since forever. Currently using Photoshop CC 2015 on my desktop.

I just started using Lightroom, but so far only for tethered capture when I shoot photos on location. From there I open them in Photoshop to process and print. I keep telling myself to learn Lightroom better and see how much of that processing I can do without having to go to Photoshop, but I'm lazy and it's still on my to do list since like last November.
 
Dec 10, 2005
24,049
6,848
136
Sorry to bump this somewhat older thread, but I was wondering what people use with newer cameras.

I currently have Lightroom v5.7.1, which I had upgraded to many years ago in order to process RAW photos off my T5i. But now with Lightroom being subscription only and my habit of maybe using it once a month, I was thinking about switching to another program to process photos from my new 77d.

I was looking around and came across On1. It seems to have a similar feature set, comes with a permanent license, and there are numerous coupons floating about. Has anyone used ON1, and have any thoughts to share?
 

YuliApp

Senior member
Dec 27, 2017
457
149
116
desirehive.com
I moved to lightroom from Capture One which i liked more. Reason was price. Adobe gives you quite badass incentives when you cancel your membership. I was able to stretch it for like a year free and now am paying 15€ for Premiere, Photoshop and Lightroom together until end of the year. I think that is fair. The software is really good and well comes out cheaper then fixed price. If you do not need load of photos at once, then use just Affinity. It is crazy good and cheap for relatively unknown brand.
 
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IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
69,007
26,885
136
For very basic stuff like cropping, whole photo contrast/brightness/saturation/sharpness adjustments, I mostly use Thumbs Plus. This is about 95% of any editing I do. For more detailed work I use Affinity Photo and GIMP.
 

JimKiler

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 2002
3,558
205
106
I moved to lightroom from Capture One which i liked more. Reason was price. Adobe gives you quite badass incentives when you cancel your membership. I was able to stretch it for like a year free and now am paying 15€ for Premiere, Photoshop and Lightroom together until end of the year. I think that is fair. The software is really good and well comes out cheaper then fixed price. If you do not need load of photos at once, then use just Affinity. It is crazy good and cheap for relatively unknown brand.

I love all these deals companies will give us! I don't pay full price for any streaming service except YouTube TV which my wife wants.
 

lakedude

Platinum Member
Mar 14, 2009
2,549
262
126
I went to a computer class in which the instructor was partial to anything expensive. He had a special printer that used special ink that printed on special paper. The results were "archive" quality said to last a good long time. Of course he bought and paid for the most expensive software to match the rest of his investment. One day during lunch loaded up GIMP for his inspection. At first he assumed it was missing many features but after looking longer he found everything he was looking for. Eventually he asked how much such nice software cost...

Despite being a perfect value GIMP is too much for me. Paint Shop Pro was my go to but IrfanView has replaced it because free.

For video I like AviDemux. On mobile my favorite is Audio Video Factory by Keerby.

If I need to do anything fancier I'll hunt up the free video editor that came with my video camera...
 
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mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
Heh, I also use ACDSee, Paint Shop Pro, and AviDemux... though it's always bugged me that AviDemux doesn't put full load on my GPU or CPU.

I can literally process 3 files simultaneously (3 running instances of AviDemux), over twice as fast as doing one after the other. With a newer GPU that would become 4 simultaneously. There was no bottleneck, plenty of memory and data rate far below the SSD source and destination drives. I asked about it in AviDemux's forum and received a nonsensical reply from a mod or developer, I forget which.
 

shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
If you like ACDSee keep going back to the site. They have frequent sales, mostly because they are desperate for money. (Not as famous as all the other brands.)
Keep in mind, they are worried about piracy so even though you need to login to down the install programs you also have to register to actually run the install. And I think their apps call home frequently.
 

mindless1

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2001
8,052
1,442
126
One thing I find myself using FAR more than I ever thought i would when I got it, is Ulead Smartsaver Pro plugin for Photoshop/Paint Shop Pro.

Back in the day it was useful to save storage space, and make high res images just small enough file size that my email provider wouldn't reject them, but in more recent years it is great to use to tweak something posted to forums so it is as high quality a pic as possible while just small enough file size to not be rejected... then again I am sometimes thwarted by forum code that assumes a pic above certain dimensions is automagically too big, so the forum code resizes it smaller dimensions, sometimes at an increase in file size. DOH!

This is especially true in some of the more technical forums I participate in, where there are diagrams you kinda need to be able to read the text on, but don't need a 24+ bit palette so some bits can be saved without useful visual information loss, going 8bit, optimized palette PNG. I use JPG a lot less than I used to.
 

gradoman

Senior member
Mar 19, 2007
879
534
136
Capture One for 99% of everything I shoot. Tried some of the other stuff, like ACDSee, LR Classic -- nothing really compares if you want speed and functionality and ease of use. Also, you can buy a lifetime license and there are regular sales -- 50% off sale is running right now.

Obviously, more complicated stuff requires PS and on occasion, LR Classic is needed (specifically for old lens profiles), but we get access through my wife's job.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
18,237
4,755
136
What kind of editing do you guys do on your shots?
I work in raw but only do:
WB
Exposure
Shadow/lightning protection
Crop
Tilt
 

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
67,335
12,099
126
www.anyf.ca
Still using Darktable for raw photo editing, as in, adjusting colours etc. And then exporting to uncompressed jpg for general storage. For things like trips I will usually keep the raw files too but for general photography I just export as full quality jpeg and call it a day.

For true editing, Gimp, but honestly I find it so limiting at times, really wish there was something better for Linux. Even doing something as simple as a meme where you want to add text, Gimp sucks for that. There's no easy way to do things like text outlines etc.
 

IronWing

No Lifer
Jul 20, 2001
69,007
26,885
136
Still using Darktable for raw photo editing, as in, adjusting colours etc. And then exporting to uncompressed jpg for general storage. For things like trips I will usually keep the raw files too but for general photography I just export as full quality jpeg and call it a day.

For true editing, Gimp, but honestly I find it so limiting at times, really wish there was something better for Linux. Even doing something as simple as a meme where you want to add text, Gimp sucks for that. There's no easy way to do things like text outlines etc.
RealDraw, for all your meme needs.
 

tcsenter

Lifer
Sep 7, 2001
18,349
259
126
For basics I have used Faststone Image Viewer for several years now. It's free (I registered with a donation) for personal and educational use. Supports all major image formats including vendor specific RAW and has all the basic editing features. Importing (acquiring) images from a scanner is a little clunky and a few other weaknesses but everything works. It gets updated a few times per year.
 

MrSquished

Lifer
Jan 14, 2013
21,168
19,644
136
The latest Lightroom update is really good. Much stronger and sophisticated masking abilities and a context-aware healing brush. Very good stuff. Need to use PS less and less. Still need it to work with layers but then I can export back to LR and do the rest much faster and easier.
 
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YuliApp

Senior member
Dec 27, 2017
457
149
116
desirehive.com
The latest Lightroom update is really good. Much stronger and sophisticated masking abilities and a context-aware healing brush. Very good stuff. Need to use PS less and less. Still need it to work with layers but then I can export back to LR and do the rest much faster and easier.

still have to analyze that. I noticed that it is much faster on browsing which i welcome a lot.
 

A///

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2017
4,352
3,154
136
Lightroom is all I've ever needed. I'm not sure i see a point in photoshop going forward for the casual or even professional photog. maybe if you want crazy manipulations.
 
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