editing software for newbie

P

paul04

Senior Member
Hi, Quite a few use lightroom or photoshop,

Do you want to pay for the software, or are you looking for free software?
 
cwgrizz

cwgrizz

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Free in order of easy to more difficult to use:

Nikon View NX-i , Nikon Capture NX-D , GIMP , Raw Therapee

And the many others that have been mentioned. Also there are some for MAC and some for Windows only.
 
Marcel

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
Whatever software you decide to go with, there will be a learning curve. With some the curve is steeper than others, but on the long run you will be ahead.

The thing you must learn and understand to start with is basic photography, understanding exposure, depth of field, shutter speed, contrast, and not least what the camera sees compared to what your eyes see. Camera sensors do not catch and decode light signals the same way our eyes do. This is where the post-processing softwares come into play, making the scene captured rendered to your taste. And even the rendering can be different wether you plan on viewing the image on a screen (transparency) or on a print (reflection). So image editing softwares are just tools that you can use to improve the light caught by your camera and make it better looking on the screen or on paper.

LightRoom and Photoshop are not free, but there are so many tutorials that you can access that these are the two I recommend.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
I would suggest you decide on either Lightroom or Photoshop and then start digging in. I've never seen the point of constantly putting myself back at the beginning of a new learning curve by starting with software I know I'm going to outgrow.

Can you tie your own shoes? Can you find your own ass with both hands if provided a flashlight? Can you boil water without hurting yourself, or those around you? Are you willing to send me large quantities of cash in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills, on weekly or monthly basis?

If you answered, "Yes!" to some of those questions, and even if you didn't, congratulations...

You HAVE what it takes to Master Photoshop!!
....
 
rattan1467

rattan1467

New member
Hey, awesome suggestions here! Really helpful seeing all the free options like GIMP and Nikon's ViewNX2 laid out. As a beginner myself, feeling less overwhelmed now. Might try Picasa first since people say it's easy. Also cool idea about learning to create live photo from video later once I get the basics down. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Needa

Needa

Senior Member
Challenge Team
rattan1467 said:
Hey, awesome suggestions here! Really helpful seeing all the free options like GIMP and Nikon's ViewNX2 laid out. As a beginner myself, feeling less overwhelmed now. Might try Picasa first since people say it's easy. Also cool idea about learning to create live photo from video later once I get the basics down. Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences!
Click to expand...
Google stopped supporting Picasa3 on March 15, 2016. There are various place on the web it can still be downloaded though, but be wary of neofarious sites. You may be better off with another choice.
 
Clovishound

Clovishound

Senior Member
One nice thing about Nikon's software is that it is laid out somewhat similarly to Lightroom. That should make the transition to LR easier, if you decide to move to it later down the road.

I will second the idea that learning editing software is a journey, and switching from one to another takes some time to unlearn and then relearn a new process.
 
Top