Which software?

Llamaman

Llamaman

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This has probably been asked a million times in the past, so apologies if you're already groaning...

I've had my SLR for a few months now and decided to stop being pathetic/lazy and start shooting RAW (NEF to be precise) rather than JPEG.

However, since I've never used any of the photo editing packages before, I have no idea which to go for. :help: I gather that the main players are;
Photoshop Elements - about £60
Adobe Lightroom - about £220
Photoshop CS - about £600

I can't justify spending £600 on CS, so I'm limited for the time being to the other two. I understand that Lightroom is considered easiest to use and setup workflows etc in, but I'm a bit reluctant to spend £220 (which is more than my prime lens!). Is Elements a pain in the sitting region to use?

Another related point is that at some point I'd quite like to have a go at IR photography. As I understand it, things like swapping red and blue channels can just about be done in Elements by splitting into layers and then recombining, and can be done very easily in the Channel Mixer in CS, but cannot be done in Lightroom. Is this correct?

A final question - I see 2nd-hand copies of Photoshop being sold online: can these actually be used? Most software licenses I've used before can only be activated once and are non-transferable?
 
Re IR conversion - Elements 7 and 8 both have a pre set converter built in to the B&W conversion and that allows a certain amount of slider fiddling to fine tune the effect.

Elements isn't a PITA to use. It does most things any amateur would want it to do but lacks a few of the bells and whistles of the full CS package.

There are also some free pieces of software around but I've never been able to get on with the Gimp.
 
Nod said:
Re IR conversion - Elements 7 and 8 both have a pre set converter built in to the B&W conversion and that allows a certain amount of slider fiddling to fine tune the effect.

Elements isn't a PITA to use. It does most things any amateur would want it to do but lacks a few of the bells and whistles of the full CS package.

There are also some free pieces of software around but I've never been able to get on with the Gimp.
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Thanks for the help!

Pleased to hear that I should be able to do some IR processing without CS - it looks expensive enough already with a conversion costing ~£250! :eek:
 
Another one to try out is ACDSee - they have a free trial, and it is very easy to use, or so I think !
 
Alternatively if you have children at school (or are a student of some sort) you can get Lightroom or Photoshop at much reduced rates (around £65 for LR). Some people have been known to sign up for evening classes just to get the reduced rates, and you might even enjoy the course :)
 
maninsuitcase said:
Really cheap too via the App store, £44 IRRC. I downloaded a trial to give it a go but not got round to it yet.
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How are you getting on with it?? Thats a great price have been thinking about it myself.
 
Richiex1 said:
How are you getting on with it?? Thats a great price have been thinking about it myself.
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Had a poke with a couple images last night. Seems pretty similar to LR in use. Fairly easy to use very similar to iPhoto as far as how stuff is laid out. Results seems quite good. Uses the same package library style as iPhoto so no easy access to the raw files if you need that.

If I was starting now I'd probably use it in a heart beat. At full price (so not edu) LR is what £180 more now? Seems tough for them to justify that now with there's this at £44. Maybe they need a home and student reduced cost license similar to what Microsoft do with office.
 
PSILVERMAN said:
If you're shooting NEF then unless you've got thousands of shots to process you could do a lot worse than capture NX2.
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I have found NX view gets conically slow/crashes after even quite a short amount of time editing/viewing. Seems it's memory usage policy is grab all of it then die.
 
maninsuitcase said:
I have found NX view gets conically slow/crashes after even quite a short amount of time editing/viewing. Seems it's memory usage policy is grab all of it then die.
Click to expand...

View NX is the free viewing / basic edit and conversion software provided with every Nikon camera.

Capture NX2 is the full editing software product developed by Nik Software, and will cost around £130.

Capture NX2 will get the best results from your nef raw files, it will allow you to adjust any camera setting in the software. It is not the fastest, and it does not have a clone tool ( just a simple retouch tool ), however it's u-point selection system is superb.

I use Capture NX2 for adjustment and raw conversion, and Elements for any cloning.
 
Although View NX2 has basic editing of NEF & other files it uses the same algorithms as Capture NX2 for what it does do.
I do not find it slow at all, it is faster than Capture NX2 for many tasks particularly batch processing.
Do not confuse View NX2 with View NX. View NX was not that good.
 
I find Photoshop Elements c/w the Dummies Book quite easy to use and understand.
 
Capture NX2 (approx £120) with "U-point" system. You can "tweak" all or just selected areas (single or many) quickly and easily with lots of options
. No need for layers, masks etc.
 
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LR3 is great but like said, at £180ish (look on Amazon) it now has big competition from aperture at a quarter if the cost. Still, it's probably the easiest to jump straight into IMO.

Another option might be to get a used copy of CS2/3. Don't know how far raw support can be updated on these older versions, but by and large they carry more than enough functions to suit general photography.
 
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