Best editing software?

Hi All
My digital photo experience has for a long time been limited to a Lumix set mostly on auto and tweaking the jpegs with Picasa. I have just bought a K50 as I miss slr and applying long-forgotten manual controls; so far so good. Everything I read says Photoshop is the go-to software but the first thing I do is (if needed) straighten - in Picasa and the freebie Silkypix this is a slide control on a grid with automatic cropping; great for fine-tuning. Photoshop's draw a line, trial and error followed by manual cropping is medieval by comparison. What are your thoughts? Is it worth straightening first in one software and then opening Photoshop for more editing?

I use Lightroom for 99% of all my editing needs. LR's cataloguing and image management features are superb too, not to mention it's map module for adding GPS data if needed.

It's easy to open an image in an external editor ( like Photoshop ) if needed and works pretty seamlessly with the workflow.

Hope that helps

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[i]Bodies: 1x K-5IIs, 2x K-5, Sony TX-5, Nokia 808
Lenses: Pentax DA 10-17mm ED(IF) Fish Eye, Pentax DA 14mm f/2.8, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8, Pentax-A 28mm f/2.8, Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.2, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8, Sigma 135-400mm APO DG, and more ..
Flash: AF-540FGZ, Vivitar 283

I do 99% of everything in Lightroom too. Once in a blue moon I drop into PS for something Lightroom won't do, but not often.

K.

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Kris Lockyear
It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head. Henri Cartier-Bresson
Lots of film bodies, a couple of digital ones, too many lenses (mainly older glass) and a Horseman LE 5x4.
My website

I use Photoshop Elements (+ Nik Plug-ins) - this does everything that I need at a lot lower cost that the full blown Photoshop CC. I don't use Lightroom at all.

Phil

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K-5iiS; K-r; ME Super; ME; DA* 16-50 f2.8; DA 18-135 WR; DA 55-300 WR; HD DA 15mm F4 ED AL Limited; FA 50mm f1.4; A50mm f1.7; DAL 18-55mm; M40mm f2.8; + assorted non-Pentax lenses

My Flikr Page link

Given both photoshop and lightroom are adobe products, they are both often capable of the same things. Photoshop handles layers which in my mind is probably the biggest difference between the two, but fundamentally they are similar, but each focussed around different tasks.

Lightroom is intended to mimic the darkroom development concept of yesteryear. The development section is even called the development module. It's far more targeted towards photography than photoshop, where you can work with all sorts of graphical material, with no requirement to start from a photo at all.

I use Lightroom for the bulk of my photographic work, and photoshop for anything Lightroom can't do. Even then I still prepare the photos in lightroom before sending to photoshop to complete the task. So yes, with regards to swapping software for different tasks, then absolutely. HDR is another example of this, where you can jump to whatever program works best for your needs.

Personally, if you are a photographer and want to improve your photos, then I'd go for Lightroom. Photoshop is extremely powerful, but if photos are your real focus, I'd start with Lightroom.

Lightroom 99% of the time, Elements 1% for clone tool.

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Flickr link

We use Photoshop CS5 and find no need for Lightroom. We do use Photomatix and Pictures2Exe, for specific purposes. Photoshop is the "industry standard" and there are some tools in there that are not replicated in Lightroom or Elements.

Don't forget that just because a program will do something, it doesn't mean it will do it as well as some other program, so tools in some may well not be as effective as Photoshop. Many will be much simpler though!

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Best regards, John

Lightroom 99% of the time. Elements rarely for layers/masks

Andrew

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Flickr photostream

What do these things cost these days?
Historically the full photoshop has cost a lot unless you were a student.
Lightroom is usually quite a bit cheaper, and is now offered as a fairly cheap monthly subscription from memory.
I've never bothered with the elements versions, typically having been frustrated with them early on.

Generally I think if you are fully photo orientated then Lightroom is an easier/quicker mix, generally...

example youtube link
I think some of these examples could have been done in either program, but it's not a bad summary of the tow programs.

Lightroom is £57. Incredibly cheap for it's power.

Photoshop ( most of it's functionality is wasted for 99.9% of photographic editing ) can't be bought now and only rented at nearly £9 a month ( £108 a year )

Lightroom does what it does just as well as Photoshop does it, in fact it does it identically as it's the same Camera RAW code/module.

The beauty of lightroom is that you can apply the same edits for multiple images and it's non destructive. For example if you take multiple similar shots of the same scene you can apply all the basic edits to the shots at once to get them 90% up to scratch before choosing the best to do the final tweaking for.

As richandfleur says Lightroom is designed for Photographers. You come back from a shoot, load the images to your computer, import them into your chosen Lightroom catalog and they are all their ready to be Edited, keyworded, GPS tagged, etc either singly or in multiples. Editing is all real time, non destructive so you can go back and alter anything at any time.

Once you've happy with your edits, select all keepers in the film strip and export them all while you go and do something else

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[i]Bodies: 1x K-5IIs, 2x K-5, Sony TX-5, Nokia 808
Lenses: Pentax DA 10-17mm ED(IF) Fish Eye, Pentax DA 14mm f/2.8, Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8, Pentax-A 28mm f/2.8, Sigma 30mm F1.4 EX DC, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.2, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, Pentax DA* 50-135mm f/2.8, Sigma 135-400mm APO DG, and more ..
Flash: AF-540FGZ, Vivitar 283

Thanks all for your considered advice. I should add that the Photoshop I have at present is Elements 8 which was free with some other software; I might have upgraded for a one-off purchase but definitely not a monthly sub. My editing is at present 'light touch'. Some of the articles in magazines have left me a bit dismayed at the amount of tweaking and touching up involved in getting those stunning National Geographic type pics by professionals- are the results an accurate record of what was seen or designed to generate a fee? But that's another topic methinks.

I am new to both DSLR and so photo edit has been the next area to sample. Been trying out the ZONER studio 16 package this month on free trail after seeing a post on this site. It covers all the related work steps one needs from management of RAW to sharing. It has bag of tools to play with from what I can see lots of options but most too advanced for me yet to make proper use of, guess its step by step. Its about £ 60 and the industry & user reviews come out very high. Not used the Adobe photoshop/lightroom/elements packages but which works best as most things its a subjective matter. Photoshop seems potentially a rip off on license and monthly charges so will rule that out. Anyone else using Zoner feel its best system to buy although lesser profile ? Might test PSE 12/13 if you get free trail too. Cheers, Patrick

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Pentax : KP + K 5 iis : M 28 mm , M 50 mm , K 135 mm , DA F 100 mm , DA 12 - 24 mm DA 16 - 85 mm & DA 55- 300 mm .
Lumix : LX100

I've used elements 7, and CS3.
Zoner Studio 16 PRO was being given away free for one day only a couple of weeks ago, (worth keeping an eye open in case they do it again) it's an excellent alternative (even the free version) to Photoshop, as is 'Faststone Image Viewer'

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Regards,
Michael
My new website:link

Another 99% light room user here. I haven't opened PS in over a year and I think I have used my copy of elements twice this year.

I downloaded the free version of Zoner mentioned by Michael but after a quick look - decided it was very good for the price but could not compete with LR

Carl

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No matter how many lenses I have owned - I have always needed just one more

Another 99% LR-er
I use Photoshop for anything 'serious' like major cloning or editing, but that's on the image output from LR.

But Lightroom is brilliant at getting the best quality image - especially when it includes lens profile corrections, CA removal, and camera calibration. Those things alone make a massive difference.

LR also allows output presets - which I use extensively - so I can quickly throw out 1600 or 1000 pixel screen sharpened versions, and full size AdobeRGB images.

I'm not a fan of the cataloging features, but use the colour tags and stars for quick culling of a photoshoot.

My kids use Pixelmator and Elements 8 on the Mac along with LR4.


The upgrade is £57, as is the student/teacher version.
Full version is around £100

Matt

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http://www.mattmatic.co.uk
(For gallery, tips and links)