Best photo editing software

[donnman]

Currently I use Picasa to do most of my editing. It works ok for what I need at the moment which is to post pics to facebook or create an online album for many to see. However, as I get more into some freelance sports work and possible individual photo shoots Im thinking Im going to need something better than Picasa.


Any suggestions?

[adrian mandea]

photoshop cant be beat

[banman1]

Hi donnman,try this to http://www.dxo.com/intl/photoive messed around with it for a while u can use the free version for 31 days.

[clemmb]

Gimp is powerful and free. Hard to learn IMO but that may be because my brain is geared for Photoshop Elements. All the Adobe photoshop applications are available for 30 day free trial. Photoshop Elements is very powerful for under $100.


Mark

[Fast Glass]

DXO is the best RAW processing software out there, for digital manipulating and design photo shop CS5 is one of the best if not the best.


John.

[Kamelot]

I agree with Fast Glass, DxO is the best for Raw file processing, for me especialy in noise correction, but a bit slow comparing with Digital Photo Professional.


For photo editing like: croping, contrast correction, retouching, adding some filters or effects the Photoshop is the best []

[TakahiroW4047]

All the softwares listed are great. But if you are planning to have an increase in the number of photos taken (especially sports when you often take hundreds to get the right moment), you

[erno james]

what a loaded question. the topic of Photoshop vs lightroom vs aperture can nearly cause wars. for sports gigs, you might be building huge libraries and both of these programs are good at not only photo-editing but are also great organization tools. try 30-day download trials of each and get your hands on them. one will eventually feel "right" to you.

[TakahiroW4047]

what a loaded question. the topic of Photoshop vs lightroom vs aperture can nearly cause wars......one will eventually feel "right to you.

I agree, between Lightroom and Aperture it's mostly just personal preference. As for Photoshop, one can't deny that for doing custom individual image editing, it comes second to none in the range of editing features.


I went from managing my photos in Aperture, then switched to Lightroom. I personally liked that fact that Lightroom and Photoshop are both Adobe so transfering photos between the two was very smooth. I didn't have to export my images out of Aperture then open in Photoshop anymore. You can open the file in Photoshop directly out of Lightroom!! []


It greatly increased the pace of my workflow! Something to keep in mind when you're testing different software. Good Luck!!

[Sheiky]

My workflow is I manage all my photos with Lightroom 3 and do my heavy duty editing in Photoshop. It's essentially a set.


Lightroom 3 is ideal for photo management and great for mass editing. You can mass sync user defined presets to hundreds of photos at a time. It's got excellent photo editing, and if you need to do more precise editing (multiple layers, masking etc) you can directly upload the image from Lightroom into Photoshop for editing. Once you save in Photoshop, the change will be directly reflected in Lightroom.

+1, I have the exact same workflow and I love it [] I also like the improved plug-inns in Lightroom 3. For example the Flickr and Facebook quick-exporting and also the way programs like Photoshop and Protomatix are `linked` to the program.