[Schraubstock]

Has anybody tested "Ashampoo Photo Commander" ?

https://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/pde/1918/multimedia-software/photo-commander-14

When I get back from my travels I might download a free trial. From what I have heard it is particularly good for image management.

[atupdate]

I just posted this in another thread:

Corel Paint Shop Pro X7 fully supports the K-x and can do 90+% of what Photoshop does (I use PSP X4 with my K-r). Since X8 just came out, X7 Ultimate is available at Amazon for less than $40.

Amazon.com: Corel PaintShop Pro X7 Ultimate [Old Version]: Software

I have never used Corel Aftershot 2 from the post above but you probably can survive without it.

Tim

[newmikey]

Gimp is powerful as well as free. Some people are still complaining about its interface but that was corrected years ago. The current single-window interface is perfectly fine. Gimpphoto is something to stay away from as it is based on a very old Gimp version merely with some different icons end a rearrangement ow the menus. The current stable version of Gimp is 2.8.16 and there already is a preview of Gimp 2.10 out (called 2.9.2) which is near-stable.

There is a multitude of scripts as well as plugins available for Gimp, covering all kinds of image-related tasks such as contrast-management, content-aware fill and anything else you can shake a stick at.

Darktable is extremely powerful both for image management as well as raw conversion and that applies to Digikam as well. Rawtherapee is also a solid option.

I've been using Linux for photography for at least the last 10 years and have seen evolution take place before my eyes. Where 10 years ago there was still a struggle to come to good results and the software was indeed somewhat complicated/technical in nature, nowadays it is just a doddle.

I like Silkypix. Tried the free sample (v 3) and bought the current version (v 6).

[aleonx3]

I like Silkypix. Tried the free sample (v 3) and bought the current version (v 6).

+1, I prefer Silkypix (current version 6) over LR. Even the standard version is good enough for most of the RAW development process. The auto-NR, white balance, perspective corrections handling are much easier than LR IMHO. And best of all, it is probably one of the best at the current sales price until Feb.

[jgnfld]

I like Silkypix. Tried the free sample (v 3) and bought the current version (v 6).

+1, I prefer Silkypix (current version 6) over LR. Even the standard version is good enough for most of the RAW development process. The auto-NR, white balance, perspective corrections handling are much easier than LR IMHO. And best of all, it is probably one of the best at the current sales price until Feb.

Silkypix just released version 7. It contains a rather major enhancement with its new partial correction tool to act as a graduated filter (circular or linear). Lightroom has had this previously, of course.

In some initial play I'm not entirely sure how much it adds over the v6 Pro HDR tool (if additional contrast and sharpening is used), but of course it emulates standard physical filters more exactly.

I think you need to go pro to get the HDR and partial correction tools.

For a quick and dirty comparison, below is an original and a comparison of the three tools on a land, sky, sea shot. No additional processing over SilkyPix default settings whatever is done, and the partial correction tools are used only once though the program allows overlaying successive tools which of course would be better for a final print.

Original


HDR tool (available in v6 Pro)


Linear Graduated Partial correction tool (available v7 Pro)


Circular graduated partial correction tool (available v7 Pro)

[aleonx3]

Silkypix just released version 7. It contains a rather major enhancement with its new partial correction tool to act as a graduated filter (circular or linear). Lightroom has had this previously, of course.

In some initial play I'm not entirely sure how much it adds over the v6 Pro HDR tool (if additional contrast and sharpening is used), but of course it emulates standard physical filters more exactly.

I think you need to go pro to get the HDR and partial correction tools.

For a quick and dirty comparison, below is an original and a comparison of the three tools on a land, sky, sea shot. No additional processing over SilkyPix default settings whatever is done, and the partial correction tools are used only once though the program allows overlaying successive tools which of course would be better for a final print.

Thanks for sharing that information; without further investigation, I would have to agree with you on that feature. If I were a landscape photographer, I would definitely look into that more closely and perhaps purchase the "pro" version. Since my work is mainly on events, I would have to have more of that usage to justify the upgrade to pro. But sure thanks for that...

[fotograffiti]

I'm very happy with Photoshop Elements 13. It does everything I need, RAW and/or JPEG. I don't use the organizer, just the editor, for stills and video. You can find PSE 13 plus Premiere for around $60 on ebay... and you'll have to by it there in disc form, since only PSE 14 is everywhere else for download (PSE 14 has been dumbed-down too much).

Silkypix is okay, and free for most Pentax users, because it's part of the included software. I've used it for years, but I find PSE 13 easier to use.

[jgnfld]

... If I were a landscape photographer,...

If you lived in Newfoundland instead of Brampton, you would be!

Landscape totally dominates everything here.

[clockworkrat]

Another fan of Darktable here. Whenever I've considered moving to Windows for whatever reason, Darktable has been the reason I've stuck with Linux. I don't even use GIMP these days.

Someone above said you need Linux to run Darktable, but I'm sure it runs on Mac as well.

[arkav]

I know others will not agree with this but your camera came with a capable software, Digital Camera Utility 5, that's free and calibrated for processing your cameras raw or jpeg files. So if you don't want to spend a lot of time on your photo processing it has a lot of automated features designed to match Pentax camera output for quick processing.

I agree with this as far as RAW conversion. I really like the output from PDCU. I've never been a big fan of the PDCU interface however.

This topic has been hashed out many times in this forum. Much depends on your preferred workflow. Some software will likely mesh better with the way you like to manage and work with your images than others.
Software praised by one person will be anathema to another.

I personally don't want my software to manage my images. If the software has to "load" an entire folder before it allows me to look at an image in the folder that's an instant deal breaker.

My own recommendation would be to get FastStone Image Viewer ( free/donation ) as a very lightweight image browser and simple editor. Use it to invoke your RAW converter of choice when you need to do RAW conversion ( eg. PDCU ).
Because this program is my default starting point, I have a hard requirement that any RAW converter I try must work in such a way that when I invoke it for an image I'm viewing in FastStone, that converter must come up with ONLY the image
in question loaded. If it attempts to render or catalogue the entire folder, it gets uninstalled.

In this way, I'm only doing RAW conversion on an as needed basis. For simple cropping/resizing and other minor editing, FastStone rocks. If you need to do more complicated edits, involving layers, etc., then you can use Gimp ( free )
or Photo Shop Elements ( inexpensive ).

I've tried RAWtherapee, but I found it has so many options, it ends up being a bit of a rabbit hole. 4 hrs later you come up for air and you're still not sure you've got the best results from the one image you started with.

I do like the Silkypix interface ( after acclimatizing to it ), but I found that in A/B comparisons, I preferred the output from PDCU and DxO. I don't think there's a free version that will work for K3 images.

Summary:

Browsing/culling/simple editing = FastStone ( free/donation )
RAW converter = PDCU, Rawtherapee ( free ) or DxO ( potentially free )
Complex editor = Gimp ( free ), PSE ( cheap )

[k22]

I'm a noob with my first DSLR. So far I've been importing into iPhoto on a Mac. How would I use Darktable or the PDCU with iPhoto?

[fs999]

+1 for Corel PaintShop Pro X8 with TopazLabs addons.

Examples

[MJSfoto1956]

if you are on a Mac, one should take a serious look at Affinity Photo: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/

Michael

P.S. I have Affinity Designer and it is well worth the price.

[k22]

Thanks for the suggestions. Did a quick visit to the Affinity website and it looks interesting. I'll take a deeper look at both.