Well love it or hate the birth of digital photography means that using software as a post-processing tool has become more common than tap water even for the average joe (or julie) in the street. People either use their choice of software for simple tweaks like cropping and colour correction or they unleash the beast and use it to take a image to new levels, compositing various images into one masterpiece and letting their imagination run wild with the available tools.
Since taking up photography as a major hobby (obsession?) I’ve switched over time from mad and crazy post processing experiments to something of a lighter touch. I now try and make better use of my subjects, camera, environment, and accessories and strive to get the image I want straight out of the camera but it’s still common for me to tweak images and apply colour treatments and crops. For this reason my main post processing tool of choice is adobe lightroom. I do still have photoshop installed for those moments when I want to let my imagination run wild! So what is your software of choice when is comes to post-processing?
We are interested in what tools you use the most. There are lots of choices out on the market these days from free online tools like picnik all the way through to fully loaded costly applications such as photoshop. I’ve tried to list what I expect will be common answers to this question for you to vote on below but please leave a comment with a bit more detail of how and why you use your choice of software and also let me know if I’ve left any out.
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I use Picasa a lot. Mostly for organisation of photos and minor tweaking. I also really like the ease at which you can create albums on my PC and then you can publish them to a web album at a touch of a button. Also, the new sync web album is a great feature.
For the more serious stuff (when I actually take a great photo), I’ll use Photoshop.
I use photoshop if I’m using my laptop, or picasa if I’m in a rush. If I’m using the mac I use iphoto, because altho I have photoshop on their it’s so slow it’s not worth the time and effort.
I like the usability of both iphoto and picasa (my mum adores picasa because it’s so easy to use and has really encouraged her to take more photos), and the way they organise your photos so they’re easy to find makes them a really handy tool to have around.
I’ve never used lightroom or apeture so I can’t comment on those, but if I want to do something ambitious I’ll always plump for PS because of it’s versatility.
Up until about a year ago I was Photoshop all the way – I used it for everything. Then a flickr friend convinced me to try Lightroom – and I haven’t looked back since! I now use it for about 95% of my processing – and only have to resort to Photoshop when it comes to using Layers and other more complex manipulation.
Mostly LR, but also some Photoshop. LR really changed my workflow and what goes into PS is now only about 10-20% of the images, if so much.
I usually do almost all of my PP work in Photoshop, but I have recently discovered how easy Lightroom is! As this year progresses, I’m sure I will find myself using Lightroom more and more for everyday tweaks, and Photoshop when I wanna get crazy.
After I bought Lightroom, I have been shooting in RAW 100% of the time and rarely ever open Photoshop anymore unless I need to use layers. I’m like you, I’ve been working really hard to get the shot I want straight out of the camera, which means minimal fuss later unless I’m just wanting to play.
Lightroom rocks! I do 99% of my processing in Lightroom and couldn’t live without it.
I don’t do much complicated stuff, just tweaking colours and making things black & white sometimes. I use XN View because it was free, it works on Windows ’98 (old computers ftw!), and I got used to it. Plus it has a browser which is really easy to use and is good with EXIF data.
mostly photoshop, and aperture if i’m in a rush. kinda wish i had gotten lightroom, though – i hardly use any of the fancy shmancy photoshop stuff, coulda saved myself loads of money!
I use PhotoImpact for most of my graphics needs and for when I really need to edit a photo but normally I just use Windows Vista’s simple tools in the photo gallery.
I dislike highly editing my photos and all I normally do is adjust colour and exposure to make it better.
I’m a dedicated Lightroom user. I love the amount of control it gives over every element of PP. And I love creating my own presets to use on different images. For my 365days I developed a bunch of presets that worked for different parts of my house and the light conditions – Kitchen Magic + Front Step Friday to name but two. It saved me so much time. Though I still use PS for things like layering or if the image still needs some levels/curves adjustment that i can’t quite nail in LR.
I’m not entirely sure what I use… Photoshop for sure, but since I shoot almost exclusively in RAW format, I must use the conversion ‘software’ (?) in Bridge… or is that Photoshop…
(my first post on your funtabulous site! yay!!!)
For minor stuff (cropping and straightening) I use Picasa, otherwise, I’ll go with Gimp. I guess I will consider paid software when the free options are not able to meet my needs and when my needs can be justified with a ROI. I can’t imagine spending hundreds of $$$ to touch up pictures for the family photo album, but if I have paying clients and some program helps me attract, or keep those clients, then that makes sense.
I honestly didn’t realise how far Lightroom had progressed in its dominance over the market! This poll has been quite enlightening to me. I mean, I’m not surprised it’s popular – I love it. It’s a great tool, easy and fast to use, versatile, plus the library component is really intuitive. It’s just incredible that something Adobe were almost forced to develop and release (after being surprised by the success of Aperture) has swept to power.