Laura during lockdown I took up the free, three months offer for Affinity and the one-off half-price life time purchase offer. I don't regret the purchase ( now!!!)
It took me months and months to get to grips with, and understand, layers. It was when I realised Snapseed ( I do so love Snapseed!!!) uses layers that Affinity ( or Effinity) started to click.
I regret buying the manual, I worked through a couple of chapters, but it's now gathering dust!
The online camera club I'm in has a fabulous Affinity support group and James Ritson's been a guest speaker and his YouTubes are very good ( but fast!)
I still have PhotoScapeX, my first proper editting program, on my computer for adding light leaks, some textures and for collages if I can't be bothered to build them on Affinity.
I for one, hold on to the computers that work. Unfortunately, that means that I fall out of all the fancy bells and whistles that the future brings. But how much of a particular editing program do you use?
When I started here six years ago, I asked the same question. I was a total newbie to everything, even photography. I had no pc but did have a cell phone and Snapseed, that's all. After much thought and trials, I chose Topaz Studio and have never regretted it. In the meantime I have all their software and do 90% of my editing with it. I also have PS for layers etc. I love playing around with Smart Photo Editor when I have time. There is just too much out there and too many new ones. Hope you find something that suits you.
My background is in graphic design, so I have an iMac Pro, running Monterey. I have 2 external hard drives running, just for my photographs.
For editing I use photoshop and lightroom cloud based, as I have the whole Adobe Creative suite.
Oh! I put it in my profile the editing apps I use. I still use my old version of Photoshop that came with the Adobe Creative Suite, but I love On1 and the new On1 Raw is supposed to be excellent. You can review it and let me know. My computer is too old to use On1 Raw. I haven't even used all there is to use with my old version of On1-10, but I love the different filters and effects that can be added.
@wakelys@30pics4jackiesdiamond@byrdlip@yorkshirekiwi@marlboromaam Thanks very much for indulging my curiousity and all the great info. I am due for a computer upgrade and want to get well set up for my photo habit. 😁 There are so many options I get overwhelmed.
I use the Adobe Creative Cloud versions of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, the monthly subscription version. In UK I have a windows 10 PC but in Thailand, I use a Macbook Pro laptop linked to an HP monitor. Over the years I have probably spent a lot on the Adobe Creative Cloud monthly subscription but the way Lightroom and Photoshop are updated extended and improved I am happy with the monthly spend.
Fortunately, Olympus has a mobile app and I can transfer easily from camera direct to mobile, where Snapseed awaits. I need to mention that I only shoot jpeg, as both oly app and snapseed only manipulate these files on the mobile (at least). And to post here on 365 and an occasional print for my own keeping, it is more than enough. If you want to sell your work, then you probably need more sophisticated software. But remember that even on shutterstock, you can not upload raw files.
I edit RAW files on a Windows desktop or laptop using DxO Photolab and the NIK Collection add-ons. The NIK Collection programs were developed by the same people that did Snapseed. They were acquired by Google and qbout 6 years qgo were offered free as standalone programs. Later they were sold as plug-ins for Lightroom and I used them like that. Later Google sold the NIK Collection to DxO and I changed from Lightroom to PhotoLab because it uses the same u-point technology for editing, which I like.
I use my iPhone to fill my albums. Hipstamatic, Layout and Snapseed are the apps I use for editing. On rare occasions I use some other apps, like Slow Shutter, Burstio, Halftone and lately iColorama S and Kino Glitch. And from time to time I use PS for the real edits for challenges and such. I'm lucky I need PS for my work so, full version.
I take my photos with iphone exclusively. I airdrop the ones I think are worth looking at more closely to my ipad. The ones on my ipad are also stored on iCloud, but the ones on my iphone are NOT. I use Snapseed and Lightroom CC. For fun and to create cards, I also use iColorama. It has a lot of flexibility for adding text.
I use a Dell found dumped on the stoop of an abandoned pizza shop. It's running on Slackware Linux software. I use GIMP to edit pictures. https://www.gimp.org/
In other words, it's all free. You can do the GIMP part and skip the other parts if you don't have a boyfriend who likes to mess with computers and writes code for fun.
GIMP is pretty good for messing with most image files, but is still lacking when it comes to RAW files.
I do everything on my iPad. Until recently I was using Lightroom CC, but for a number of reasons (mainly consolidating my libraries and various storage spaces) moved over to using Darkroom which has been really enjoyable so far.
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It took me months and months to get to grips with, and understand, layers. It was when I realised Snapseed ( I do so love Snapseed!!!) uses layers that Affinity ( or Effinity) started to click.
I regret buying the manual, I worked through a couple of chapters, but it's now gathering dust!
The online camera club I'm in has a fabulous Affinity support group and James Ritson's been a guest speaker and his YouTubes are very good ( but fast!)
I still have PhotoScapeX, my first proper editting program, on my computer for adding light leaks, some textures and for collages if I can't be bothered to build them on Affinity.
Hope I've not rambled on too much!!
More that what you might want to know:
Adobe Photoshop Elements Version: 15.0
Photomatix 5.5.1
Sequator 1.5.3
Startrails 2.3
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit SP1
AMD FX(tm) - 6300 Six-core processor 3.50 GHZ
Physical processor count: 3
Logical processor count: 6
16.0 GB RAM
???Where did this come from (so says system info ) ?????
Fortran Compiler 12.0
Intel(r) Fortran Compiler 12.0
For editing I use photoshop and lightroom cloud based, as I have the whole Adobe Creative suite.
In other words, it's all free. You can do the GIMP part and skip the other parts if you don't have a boyfriend who likes to mess with computers and writes code for fun.
GIMP is pretty good for messing with most image files, but is still lacking when it comes to RAW files.
I also use Topaz Denoise and Topaz Studio for post processing.