digital photography software for beginners

heywood

what is the most sensible software for a beginner of photo manipulation

Photobug

Nikon NX2.

WestEndBoy

Just bite the bullet and get Lightroom. It is not that hard.

PB_PM

Nikon NX2.

No point in suggesting dead end software that will not be supported beyond this summer.

sevencrossing

what is the most sensible software for a beginner of photo manipulation

Can you define photo manipulation

for general editing post production and doing all the things you did in the Darkroom, try a 30 day free, sample of Adobe Lightroom
but for true "photo manipulation" you need something with layers eg Photoshop CS6

bland

I'd suggest Photoshop Elements.

Golf007sd

What operating system...Windows or OS X?

dissent

Before I got into DSLR, I was using an (admittedly very dated) early version of PaintShop Pro. I can't tell you how happy I was when I got Lightroom and started to learn how to use it (still learning). Makes basic photo manipulation and editing (and output and organization) a snap.

What WestEndBoy said. Well worth the dough. (Even though I'm sure PSP is much more capable now).

paulr

Just enrole in Adobe CC plus you get Lighroom free, Adobe have made them accessible to everyone with their monthly payment scheme, Adobe are the industry standard and you can use as much or as little of Adobe as you want, if your PP skills are not great plus there are 100's if not 1000's of free education videos on how to use Adobe CS6/CC, It's a total none Brainer. Welcome to the learning curve.

Msmoto

For Apple folks, Aperture is quick and easy, but Lightroom is pretty easy and can be mastered in a few days for general work.

In simple terms, if an old person can learn it, most likely anyone can….. LOL

MikeGunter

Hi all,

PaintShopPro is a terrific app. Another good app is Cyberlink's Photo Director. I prefer Adobe Creative Suite CC.

Lightroom allows for most users the opportunity to get a good experience and get what they need to do for their photography.

Lynda and Kelby offers training as does other companies. Free tutorials are available, too. Resident training is available at Adobe Training Centers (ATCs) in countries world wide. (Full disclosure - until I retired a couple of years ago, we had one here.)

You can teach yourself a lot, but you'll get a magnitude more out of the training if you are professionally taught. Of course, so many here are not professionals and that need doesn't bear the cost.

It's the same as the dilemma in the 'free' verses 'cost' topic in payment of services for photographer services discussion.

That's when the "I can do what I need to do" generally is voiced. :-)

IOW, no one has asked them to do them much.

My very best,

Mike

MininMission

I've downloaded the "capture NX2" free trial.
Haven't tried anything with it, got to take a few pictures first!!!!!

MininMission

I am considering purchasing CS6. Standalone, if I can.

I am often "out of range" for WiFi and would like to be able to continue "playing" without depending on a connection.

Ade

If you do subscribe to Adobe CC, you don't need to be "online" or in WiFi range to use it.

In fact you can be "offline" for up to four months (one calendar month + 99 days grace period) before you must re-verify your license with Adobe servers. If you don't have an annual commitment, you still have a 30-day grace period where you can be offline before mandatory re-verification.

MininMission

Thanks Ade.
I will investigate that.

spraynpray

@heywood: What is your actual experience? If zero. take a look at the editing tools available on the average on-line site like flickr. Really basic, but they may give you the confidence to give one of the others above a try. There are so many free training tips on Youtube, that you can get going again easily if you get confused.

Ironheart

I'm trying to go tablet as much as possible, things like snapseed, camera+, and filterstorm have 90% of what you need and are cheap cheap cheap. There are now mobile versions of some of the adobe apps, but I haven't tried them yet.

MikeGunter

Hi all,

@Ironheart - Photoshop Touch is quite nice. I is $10, pricey for a tablet/phone app, but really full-featured. It syncs with your Adobe Cloud account (depending if that's what you want to do ;-) ), and offers layers and host of Photoshop features.

Most tablets have a means - I use a Samsung Note 10.3, but a current iPad works - by using a USB card adapter to either plug the card in for reading or the cable into the camera, assuming jpg or jpg+RAW (I don't want use space for RAW on the tablet for RAW or RAW conversion).

End results, can be saved as PNG or JPG.

My best,

Mike

HipShot

I've never edited photos via an iPad. Is that even practical?

sevencrossing

The OP might just as well have asked
"what is the most sensible camera for a beginner"
To be of help we really need a lot more information

Ironheart

@hipshot, in a word, yes. There are tons of things you can do on a tablet that are easy, fast and cheap. Depends on your needs.

MikeGunter

Hi all,

I've never edited photos via an iPad. Is that even practical?

7C has the right idea - it really depends.

The OP is asked about beginning software, which is really about downloading images, and, perhaps, making the basic levels and curves and white balance and exposure adjustments.

That would be all I would suggest the beginner jump into.

First.

There is a lot more to do afterwards. A lot more.

Photoshop Touch is a robust app that can really satisfy some uses for quality images. But its practicality for everyday use is well, ah... If you shoot a lot of pictures - a lot - filling a 32GB card, you'd be hard pressed to find a place to download them on a 64GB iPad. Much less a 16GB Android tablet. :-)

If, OTOH, you shoot JPG and limit that shooting to the space you have available and have little adjustment needs, it might not be taxing.

Touch is intended to appeal to a user that is going to plug in a camera or an SD card and choose a few images to download and work and share.

It could also be something to work on as a project on site, perhaps with other materials to composite for a client or collaborate with colleagues using the Cloud or to save in the PDSX format and retrieve to desktop.

My best,

Mike

sevencrossing

One thing I would strongly recommend any beginner doing is to stop and think about how he intends to file and catalog all the images, they are likely to take over the coming years
Particularly if they take several hundred shots a day and keep all of them

mikep

nothing beats lightroom + photoshop

lightroom is really easy to pick up, and is great just on its own.

if you want to really takes your pictures as far as they can go, then photoshop is the tool. photoshop takes a little longer to learn, but there are plenty of courses available online, both free and paid, that will give you the photoshop you need in just a few days. really worth the effort imo.

lightroom to organise and catalogue your pictures, and photoshop to edit them = win

spraynpray

The key word is 'Beginner' folks.

kenadams

... and before you spend thousands of $currency without even knowing whether you like it or not, try gimp. It's free and it's pretty great, like a freeware photoshop. Not as powerful obviously though, but it will give you an insight.

Other than that, you can't possibly go wrong with Lightroom, maybe additionally the Nik Software tools.