I can get any editing software for free. Which one do you suggest?

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adamandbean

Senior Member
Hello,
I work at a uiversity here in Japan which allows the teaching staff to have any software for free. I can get anyhting from photoshop -prenierpro to lightroom.
Which one for my d7000?
I am also going to get into video too.
My pc is windows. 500 GB hardrive and 2 gb memory, Windows 8.
Please advise,

Adam
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Lightroom
Photoshop
Photomatix pro

With these 3 you'll be good to go and have enough to learn but you'll be able to work for a long long time.

​
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
My recommendation alters Marcel's and substitutes the Nik Complete Collection for Photomatix Pro. In addition to the great HDR tools in the Nik Collection you get some extremely versatile editing programs and probably the best B&W conversion tool out there.

I suspect the 2GB you have may cause issues with Photoshop. That said, CS6 lists a minimum of 1GB RAM as a requirement, so it'll run, it just may run slowly. That said, you can always upgrade RAM, but Adobe may not always sell Photoshop as a standalone with the Creative Cloud offering floating out there, so I say grab it while you can.

So my list would be:

Adobe Lightroom 5
Adobe Photoshop CS6
Nik Complete Collection
 
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DraganDL

Senior Member
You would do yourself a favor by upgrading your machine's hardware - at least 8GB of RAM, dedicated HDD (or SSD, maybe, for so-called "scratch disk"), and a good 4-core CPU (preferably Intel's newer generation).
Then get yourself a Photoshop with all plugins that are obtainable...
 
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Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Another vote for Photoshop, Lightroom and Nik Tools (properly known as Google Nik Collection). And yeah, do yourself a favor and drop in another 2GB memory stick for you computer. Memory is cheap and if you can tie your own shoes you should be able to install it yourself.

.....
 
J

Jonathan

Senior Member
Okay folks, time to flush this one out once and for all: last year I bought Aperture for my Macbook (and also have Snapseed, which I use as a quick way of doing things, and I have it on my iPad as well) - was this a dud buy? I don't have time for a lost of post stuff and often just select the "auto-improve" button. Three of the things I like about Aperture, other than it's pretty simple to use simply, are (1) it uses the iPhoto library (so I don't need to sets of everything), (2) I can reverse any changes at any time in the future and (3) it has a camera control function (which I think I might use at some stage). It does not, though, manage stacking.

(This is not a hijack as this is, of course, in the interests of the OP as this a question about a particular editing software.)
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Jonathan said:
Okay folks, time to flush this one out once and for all: last year I bought Aperture for my Macbook (and also have Snapseed, which I use as a quick way of doing things, and I have it on my iPad as well) - was this a dud buy? I don't have time for a lost of post stuff and often just select the "auto-improve" button. Three of the things I like about Aperture, other than it's pretty simple to use simply, are (1) it uses the iPhoto library (so I don't need to sets of everything), (2) I can reverse any changes at any time in the future and (3) it has a camera control function (which I think I might use at some stage). It does not, though, manage stacking.

(This is not a hijack as this is, of course, in the interests of the OP as this a question about a particular editing software.)
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I'm not a Mac user but I *am* surrounded by them and I've seen Aperture in action and have used it from time to time. That being said, I certainly wouldn't consider it a "dud buy"; it strikes me as a very capable digital photo application and, based on my admittedly limited use of both, I'd put Aperture about on par with Adobe Lightroom, personally.

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J

Jonathan

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
I'm not a Mac user but I am surrounded by them and I've seen Aperture in action. I certainly wouldn't consider it a "dud buy"; it strikes me as a very capable digital photo application. I'd put Aperture on par with Adobe Lightroom, personally.

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Click to expand...
Thank you - that is nice to hear from a forward-looking ichthyic thing.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I've not used it, and there are a sufficient number of users out there that companies like onOne and Google/Nik make sure that their tool collections are compatible with Aperture as well as the Adobe products, so no, I think it's far from a "dud buy". The fact is, there are many people out there who aren't big fans of Adobe and support Aperture as much for spite as for liking it, and it's hard to use something that's unusable just to spite someone. I wouldn't worry - if a tool works for you then it's a good tool.
 
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fotojack

Senior Member
As others have already mentioned, I would definitely add more RAM to your computer. The more the better. So, the questions are: which Windows OS? Which computer...lap top or PC? If lap top, are you able to add more RAM? Some lap tops put a limit on the amount of memory you can add. 4 would be good...8 would be great! :) Yeah, I know...it rhymes! :)
 
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DraganDL

Senior Member
@Many thanks to fotojack! His post reminded me of what I did not mention (and it should have been emphasized): if it isn't already done so, install the win7 or 8.1 64bit. That is a MUST, in order for machine to be able to use more than 4GB of RAM (among the other benefits of having a 64bit OS instead of 32bit OS)...
 
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