Editing software

[Bilverstone]

What editing software do people recommend for photos?
Looking for something that's easy to use.

 

[jwischka]

What editing software do people recommend for photos?
Looking for something that's easy to use.

Lightroom is the gold standard, but is basically only available as a subscription ($120/year, with Photoshop included).

There are a variety of programs in the $50-150 range, but I would steer clear of most of them. If you're going to keep up with the latest updates on most of those packages, you're going to still be spending an average of $50-80 / year, which makes the price difference between Adobe's LR/PS package a lot closer than it may initially seem. The one package in this range I would consider using would be DxO's PhotoLab. Two packages that will often come up in this range are ON1 Photo Raw and Skylum's Luminar. I've not been impressed with either, frankly.

There are also a variety of free alternatives - I'd look at Darktable and RawTherapee - though their user interfaces can be somewhat more daunting. They are certainly worth looking at, though, for the price.

 

[SoCalDude]

Try GIMP. It's a very viable alternative to Photoshop. It's open source (free).

 

[jwischka]

One other standout that's worth mentioning is Affinity Photo - which falls into the $50-150 category I mentioned above, but is actually a very good and highly regarded piece of software.

 

[Lady Rover]

Absolutely big + for Affinity! Does also panorama editing, RAW development and HDR batch processing.

 

[MikeC]

I have been using Lightroom since it first came out. Like the cataloging feature and ease of editing. Not happy with how bloated it has become.

 

[Lady Rover]

Maybe Darktable is an option Mike?
It's an open source alternative...

 

[Kilrah]

Darktable is a good start but IMO it's still got a long way to go to really be "production-ready" aka to allow you to work efficiently. All the technical stuff is there but the user experience is meh.
Would love an open alternative to LR indeed, but "unfortunately" there's so much cool stuff in LR that replicating it is a monstrous task.

 

[Storyline]

Try GIMP. It's a very viable alternative to Photoshop. It's open source (free).

+ 1

 

[jwischka]

I have been using Lightroom since it first came out. Like the cataloging feature and ease of editing. Not happy with how bloated it has become.

I feel like 7.5 did a lot to improve the performance - though to be fair, I have a fairly high end computer, so it may not have helped as much on lower end machines. That said after a couple of weeks of use, 8.0 seems like a huge step back. I've encountered significant slowdowns and more than a few crashes.

 

[Bernie_S]

Another vote for Affinity Photo - I have just moved to it from the Photoshop / Lightroom combo, & so far I haven't come across anything that I could do before that I can't now.

It has a 10 day free trial, so give it a go!

 

[Cymruflyer]

All depends on whether you are prepared for a longer learning curve to get good, or want quick and easy one touch plus sliders control, and what your budget is, if you are happy to pay rent for the rest of your life (Adobe stuff), what you want to eventually do with your finished images as in, look at them on your computer, do medium size enlargements and send to others to see via a computer. If you want high end, huge enlargement quality and viewing on big, big 4K screens, then you want Photohop/Light room. If any of the others is what you want, then you can get some free month tryouts of On1 and Topaz Labs. Some people love these, some don't, you decide for yourself.

All easy to use and give some nice quality images, but may not be what a top Pro Photographer wants, though many top Pro Photographers do use those company products. Go to their websites and check them out, or look at some work samples and tutorials on YouTube, then make your decision. But do what feels right for you and not what others are pushing you to use.

 

[JDawg]

I am just getting into editing and was going to subscribe to LR but I saw your thread and just downloaded On1 and I think for a beginner like me this will work great, at least for the 30 day free trial.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Yes this should serve you well and also look at Topaz Labs, because you can buy just a few modules and that is often all someone needs to edit their images. I have Photoshop for example but only scratch maybe 15% of the surface of what it can do, I just don't need it to do those other things for me, yet I had to pay for all of it.

With Topaz you can sift through and see what the different parts do to a photo and decide if that is what you need or not. and if so just buy that part. Coming up on the holidays I am sure they will all be offering special pricing, so sign up for their emails and you might see a nice offer in there.