I was wondering: where should I go to edit a photo? I love my pictures, but I want to try to edit them a little and make them look more professional. Any ideas would be amazing! Thanks!
Free, quick, easy, online options: Picmonkey and Ribbet are the best in my opinion, but there are others like Picasa.
Free Photoshop-esque software: Try Gimp although I believe you van download some older versions of Photoshop free now.
Apps: Try Snapseed, although if your browse through the boards there are a ton of discussions about available apps.
Photoshops: I use Elements 11 but I also have Lightroom and CS5. Whilst they're often revered as the best option, you have to learn. A lot. But put in the graft and its worth it.
I always shoot in RAW and so have to use Photoshop to view my photos and download them to ny 'library '
I do most of my tweaking when downloading into Photoshop as it gives you a little pop up box to easily amend the contrast etc...
Sometimes, if time is tight, I'll just download my shots and use one of the online ones for the sake of speed and they're good. The only issue I find is they knock the quality of my shots down, I presume something to do with the uploading and downloading of the image.
I would recommend Photoshop Elements as a starter, and then as you gorw in confidence and experience you will learn about more software and processing techniques that will see you having multyiple software and plugins.
I favour Photoshop over the free stuff because you can buy books and find tutorials on Youtube, and most magazines when they have tutorials are written in Photoshop Elements. It is always pretty cheap from Amazon!
What you have from everyone so far is a range of options, I hope that some of them help you.
Picmonkey is great to start with but you are limited in some ways to what you can do. GIMP is great for a free programme and is a good way to see if you like to go that bit further editing your photos than say somewhere like picmonkey allows you to and there are plenty of online tutorials to follow although it can be a little frustrating at times. And then you have photoshop. I use Elements 11 which is great and the price is not too bad either.
You can also start with the software that came with your Nikon Camera. That will certainly get you started with raw processing too. It is as good as most of the free stuff out there, which isn't saying a great deal. :) If you get the bug, then I would suggest you dive into Lightroom from Adobe. Personally knowing what I know now, I would bypass Photoshop Elements.
@frankhymus Hi Frank. I have Photoshop Elements 10. What is the difference between that and Lightroom? Do they work together or are they completely separate programs? So if I got Lightroom would I have to remove Elements from my computer?
@tahoemb Separate programs. Elements works fine of course, as you know, I believe that Lightroom 5.3, the latest release does a lot more, a lot more simply and more intuitively and with state of the art modern algorithms. It also has a great cataloging and workflow module that even big Photoshop does not have. No you can leave Elements as it is. Adobe has a free 30 day trial of Lightroom. You might want to try that and see what you think, although it might not be long enough to get the hang of it and appreciate how great it really is. I use both Photoshop CC and Lightroom under the Photographers' subscription package from Adobe. $9.99 a month but well worth it. But no hurry if you are new to this. One step at a time is always the way to go. All the best and look forward to seeing you here on 365 in 2014.
A number of packages spring to mind, Phase One, Fireworks, PS express and View NX2 from Nikon, each has it's merit, it depends what kind of processing you wish to do.... Phase One is particularly good for B&W pictures, Fireworks is fantastic for cropping and exporting and PS Express is great for simple uplifting etc.... View NX2 is prefect for manipulating RAW pictures from Nikon cameras!
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Free Photoshop-esque software: Try Gimp although I believe you van download some older versions of Photoshop free now.
Apps: Try Snapseed, although if your browse through the boards there are a ton of discussions about available apps.
Photoshops: I use Elements 11 but I also have Lightroom and CS5. Whilst they're often revered as the best option, you have to learn. A lot. But put in the graft and its worth it.
I always shoot in RAW and so have to use Photoshop to view my photos and download them to ny 'library '
I do most of my tweaking when downloading into Photoshop as it gives you a little pop up box to easily amend the contrast etc...
Sometimes, if time is tight, I'll just download my shots and use one of the online ones for the sake of speed and they're good. The only issue I find is they knock the quality of my shots down, I presume something to do with the uploading and downloading of the image.
I favour Photoshop over the free stuff because you can buy books and find tutorials on Youtube, and most magazines when they have tutorials are written in Photoshop Elements. It is always pretty cheap from Amazon!
What you have from everyone so far is a range of options, I hope that some of them help you.
A number of packages spring to mind, Phase One, Fireworks, PS express and View NX2 from Nikon, each has it's merit, it depends what kind of processing you wish to do.... Phase One is particularly good for B&W pictures, Fireworks is fantastic for cropping and exporting and PS Express is great for simple uplifting etc.... View NX2 is prefect for manipulating RAW pictures from Nikon cameras!