Post production software / wich is the best?

[Wheatfield]

Originally Posted by Eruditass

Lightroom is great for 99.999% of images and I find it very easy to use and non-destructive - even better for beginners. I recommend it over PS.

I've always wondered why non destructive editing was a big deal.
All it means is that you are leaving the source file intact, IE: saving under a new filename.
Lightroom is excellent as a first step to editing, it's got a nice, big button interface, and the same raw converter is hidden behind it as is used in Photoshop.
However, it's primary goal is image management, not image editing, and any even semi advanced editing is beyond it.
The two programs work really well hand in hand, and while I appreciate Lightroom and use it as a first stage of my image management/editing, almost everything I do hit's Photoshop as well.
I could live without Lightroom, my work would grind to a halt without Photoshop.
I'm not sure where the hard to use aspect of Photoshop is, it has the standard Windows style drop down menus as well as a host of keyboard shortcuts if you prefer to work that way.
It is a big program with a lot of possibilities, so it isn't a program that lends itself to poking around until you find out what it can do. It does require a somewhat formalized approach to learning it (read a textbook for example).

[Spotmatic]

People that have been using Photoshop a long time have been through the learning curve....so why change. However, if you are new to digital PP and understand or learned in a wet darkroom other programs are just as good and much more intuitive. I am not saying PS is bad.

Nik plugins and LR is where I may end up.

[pb_red]

mba1971, the answer to your question is "it depends"

is price an issue?
what are your goals for the software?
how much time are you willing to spend learning it?
how much time do you expect to spend using it?
how much support would you need?

depending on the answers to those questions the "best" alternative could be anything from free paint.net, to lightroom which has very basic PP tools, to full blown photoshop suite.

[clmonk]

I have used many of those already mentioned. I have both Elements 7 and PSCS3 on my machine, but I find I can do vitually I want to do with Elements 7 with PLENTY of room for more understanding. I would anticipate Elements will be my primary post-processing tool for a long time. If/When I decide to move up, the good thing about Elements is that the same basic command structure appears in Elements and its bigger brother. Also, you can ask a question on ANY photographic forum and always get an answer if you have a PS or Elements question. Some of the other programs you might have to wait a bit for an answer.

[Marc Sabatella]

Originally Posted by Wheatfield

I've always wondered why non destructive editing was a big deal.
All it means is that you are leaving the source file intact, IE: saving under a new filename.

It's true that this is what it literally means, and it would be possible to implement non-destructive editing in such a way that it provided no other advantages (eg, PPL, RT, the GIMP, other RAW processing programs whose main function is to *convert* to another format). But when people speak glowingly of non-destructive editing, they normally mean something much more than that - what is sometimes called "parametric image editing" (PIE). With PIE, you don't even necessarily under a new filename; the program saves the settings you used for each of the editing operations you invoked, leaving your original file unchanged. then when you go to view the file later, or edit it further, the program reapplies those settings to the original file on the fly (although in practice, it usually generates a preview and caches it for quicker display).

This is what allows you to do some edits to a file, move on, then later (perhaps much later) return to that file and find all controls right where you left them, ready for you to continue editing, or revisit some of the changes you made earlier, and perhaps back off the sharpening, going back to the channel mixer and altering the balance on an image you've convert to grayscale, etc. It's also what allows you, for instance, have a preset that just sets white balance to some particular value and turns up the NR, and quickly apply that preset to all images from a given low light shoot, whiole still leaving the images "open" for further editing - meaning you can go in and fix exposure and forth individually. And if you get one image looking just how you want, and have a bunch more images of that same subject taken with that same exposure, you can just copy *all* settings from that one image to to the others in just a couple of clicks - again, while still leaving open the possibility of further custom processing the others if you like.

All in all, it's a huge time saver when processing large numbers of similar images. Of course, you don't need Lightroom for that - ACR in Photoshop does this too (although the user interface for a lot of those batch operations isn't as slick). So it's also "non-destructive editing" (really, PIE) in the same sense.

I say all this not for your benefit (because presumably you're already taking advantage of these features in both LR and Photoshop, or else find they don't matter because you are doing most of your editing in Photoshop proper rather than ACR); I say it for the benefit of the OP or anyone else wondering that the fuss is over "non-destructive editing". It's quite a major time saver *if* the tiype of editing you typically do is the sort of stuff that can be done within the world of PIE (exposure and color adjustments, etc). It's not at all useful for extensive retouching of individual photos or other editing that can't be accomplished by just moving some sliders.

[jlamorie]

Photoshop CS4 is the one if you can justify the price, I was able to get one through an employee discount other wise I'd still be drooling. I find it has great tools for photographers and the plug ins are endless. I have Corel paint shop pro X2, Elements 7, Bibble 4.10/5 all good programs at reasonable prices but CS4 is the top of the heap in terms of functionality and editing power.
Regards

[Glen]

Originally Posted by mba1971

So lest suppose I want to buy a post processin program. Wich one is worth the money and investment in time ( to master it)?

I started out not so long ago so I know what you are going through in trying to decide which, if any, of the programs to invest in. The free try out downloads help a little bit but if you are totally new to the world of post processing, it is hard to evaluate them. I can tell you of my experience that learning to use the software has made me a better photographer and made it more enjoyable as well. Here are my recommendations:

If price isn't too big of an issue, get Adobe Lightroom. It is reasonably easy to learn, there are endless resources to help you learn, (books, podcasts, websites and more) you can use it without fully understanding all of its capabilities and grow with it as you learn. It was designed for photographers rather than Photoshop which is designed more for graphic arts. Also, Lightroom will provide you with a very powerful way to organize your photos so that you don't have to buy another program to view or catalogue them. A bonus with Lightroom is that you don't have to even know the difference between jpg and raw photos as it treats them the same way.

If the price is an issue, try photoshop Elements or Corel's offerings. I can't say too much about them but they are not very expensive and will do a lot for you (although I don't know if they can handle raw conversion).

As to whether or not is is worth the effort, I can say from my experience that yes it is. My favourite photo is one that came out of the camera with the subject almost totally black! With Lightroom it was not at all difficult to fix it and make it into an awesome photo.

[mba1971]

Thanks to everyone for the input.

Verdict up to date:

Photoshop is the most powefull, but Lightroom is good. Both can edit RAW. Lightroom can help organise photos (like acdsee?).

I seem to sense that for me, the newbie, Ligthouse would probably be better, and I could always upgrde to photoshop if I need serious photo editing.

[Canada_Rockies]

Originally Posted by mba1971

Thanks to everyone for the input.

Verdict up to date:

Photoshop is the most powefull, but Lightroom is good. Both can edit RAW. Lightroom can help organise photos (like acdsee?).

I seem to sense that for me, the newbie, Ligthouse would probably be better, and I could always upgrde to photoshop if I need serious photo editing.

My RAW to finished image path is:

1. Copy files from card to hard drive
2. Put all the files through DxO. Any that need keystoning correction, I apply it here.
3. Import DxO output into Lightroom, keyword, sort, put into collections, etc. and any exposure/colour corrections that DxO didn't do for me automatically, or that I don't like.
4. If I need to do any removals, such as power poles and lines, garbage bins, etc. I go out to Elements.
5. The Panorama Factory for panoramas
6. Photomatix for HDR - usually a two image highlight and shadow treatment.

Any Adobe product can be purchased with an educational discount. Court your local university student.

[Class A]

Originally Posted by Wheatfield

I've always wondered why non destructive editing was a big deal.

As Marc said, it isn't really about "non-destructive" but about being able to come back later and readjust some of the editing one has done.

Picasa can be used to work non-destructively as well, but the only operation one can readjust at a later point is cropping. You cannot slightly increase or decrease sharpening, for instance. You can undo it and start from scratch and while this is better than having lost the original, the real value lies in being able to reconsider editing decisions later on in any order and using the latest editing decisions as a starting point.

Originally Posted by Wheatfield

I'm not sure where the hard to use aspect of Photoshop is,...

When I used it, simple things zooming were different to how all other programs worked. I used a couple of other editing programs and they were very similar to use. Photoshop had a different approach in almost everything. I believe the reason for that was that early versions of it were developed by and for a completely different bunch of people, i.e., graphic designers, rather than Windows programmers/users. I'm not saying it was necessarily harder to use than other programs (although some things definitely felt more cumbersome) but things were definitely different.

[ennacac]

Aperture is a good program if you have a Mac, although I do use Photoshop for some things Aperture doesn't do well, but that is only about 10% of my processing.

Tom

[Wheatfield]

Originally Posted by Class A

As Marc said, it isn't really about "non-destructive" but about being able to come back later and readjust some of the editing one has done.

Fair enough. For my workflow, I'm pretty much just using Lightroom for raw conversion. I generally do everything else in Photoshop.

[Clicker]

Light Room beta 3 is free for now give that a spin, you'll most likely stick with Light Room

LightRoom labs, LR3 download

[deejjjaaaa]

Originally Posted by Class A

I had not intentions to "fool" but I also don't think it is useful to count the n-th version of a "water ripple effect" plugin that no one in their right mind would actually use.

no - "water ripple effect" is rather the kind where most of gimp plugins belong... I am talking about the likes of Imagenomic Plugins for example

[deejjjaaaa]

Originally Posted by Class A

AFAIK, there is a 16-bit branch of GIMP, but it is less capable. I believe there is work being done on expanding GIMP to 16-bit but I don't know how far they are.

sure, so we can get back to that issue once GIMP will be a grown up package