Recommended Photo Editing Software

Fergmiester Jun 30, 2006

  1. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    I'm headed for the northern parts of Alaska for four weeks starting in August! All Nikon equipment.
     
  2. MK

    MK TrainBoard Member

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    My first digital was the 950 to Alaska. Took 450+ pics on a one week Inside Passage cruise. I need to redo the trip and this time take the additional week to stay at a lodge at the base of Denali.

    I can't fanthom the number of pictures with my D70! (1000+?) :)
     
  3. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    My first digital trip was 2003 to Alaska with a D100. In three weeks I shot 2000 images. With only 1 Gbyte of cards, I was always looking for a place to transfer them to CDs. This time I'm bringing a lot more cards, and a portable disk. I'm not sure about a laptop--we really play hard, then sleep.
     
  4. MK

    MK TrainBoard Member

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    I'm so jealous Pete!! When we went in 1999, my jaws literally dropped to the floor with the amazing scenary. Being someone one who spent his entire growing up years in NYC, I couldn't imagine that what I saw was part of the US! :)

    No other trip could top Alaska with the possibility of Egypt and the Valley of the Kings along the Nile river.

    Have a great trip and please please post pics when you come back.
     
  5. Colonel

    Colonel Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    One software package that is free but hasnt been mentioned is Googles Picasa, here is a link to the site

    Picasa
     
  6. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    Alaska is a place where you think, "I've never seen anything so beautiful," and then you round a bend and think it all over again. We took the Alaska RR from Anchorage to Seward--a spectacular trip. I figure we can do the Inner Passage sometime later. We will be taking a multi-day canoe voyage with some friends, probably on the Yukon. Since we don't have dry suits, it will be pretty mild. I'm not sure about the haul road up to Prudhoe Bay. I'm told it has some of the most spectacular scenery in Alaska, but it's also something that can wreck a car.
     
  7. Flash Blackman

    Flash Blackman TrainBoard Member

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    Has there been any particular changes in the recommended photo editing software? I can get Photoshop Elements at Sam's Club. I will try gimp if it is still around.
     
  8. Mark Watson

    Mark Watson TrainBoard Member

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    I'm a student of the film industry. Photoshop CS4 is just... wow. The only downside is the fact that there are just so many uses. I think in all of my experience since maybe version 4 in early high school, I've only ever touched about 20% of the world that is Photoshop. For just photo editing, Elements is definitely the way to go since it focuses on just that aspect of tools. No need to pay 8 times more for a package that you will only use 8% of.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 6, 2010
  9. Flash Blackman

    Flash Blackman TrainBoard Member

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    I'm trying to learn Gimp right now and it is all I can handle. I now realize that I just don't know anything about this type of software. After I learn more maybe I will get one of the other applications. My intention is to create decals from photographs using my ink jet printer.
     
  10. Mark Watson

    Mark Watson TrainBoard Member

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    I understand that nothing beats free, and I've used gimp a few years ago, it's well developed.

    However for decals, if you plan on purchasing something down the road after gimp, I'd highly recommend Adobe Illustrator. It's a vector based program which means your decals are 100% scalable up and down. You can create the design 10 feet large then scale it down to perfect scale size with out loosing a pixel of quality.
     
  11. rclanger

    rclanger TrainBoard Member

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    You may have found a program to your liking. If not take a look at this free program. FastStone Image Viewer. It is much more than a viewer.
     
  12. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    Looks interesting. But I'm on a Mac. I have Virtual PC. I bought it because Helicon was originally Windows only. It worked well enough in emulation, but much better in native code. The code for Helicon is fairly simple; I would think the code for this would be far more complex, so a native Mac application would be better.
     
  13. CNW 1518

    CNW 1518 TrainBoard Member

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    Photoshop is still the best.
     
  14. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    I agree. I use the full version of Photoshop because I do (did) some heavy production editing of images. But where it really shines for me is not the photo tricks you can do, but the preparation of images (after the tricks) for publication, whether print, Internet or other. It's these back-end capabilities that make it the choice of professionals. I think we'd be interested in hearing a few reasons from you about why it is the best. The full version, especially in the Creative Suite package, is expensive. I've never used Photoshop Elements, so I can't comment on that. Just a few words might help members here understand more about why it is best.
     
  15. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    Mark,

    If you've grown up with Photoshop as I have, you eat up the new features of every new release, because they addressed a capability needed for production work. My earlier post addressed that. Photoshop today is vast, but not for me because I grew up with it, and had years to assimilate new features. So I use perhaps 75% of it although, I must confess, I have problems with the 65% of capabilities that I use once in a blue moon. So you are correct!:tb-biggrin:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 6, 2010
  16. Lenny53

    Lenny53 TrainBoard Member

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    I have CS2 and have been using Photoshop for 3 years, unfortunately this version is old and no longer supported by Adobe. As a result Adobe Camera Raw does not recognize images from my current model SLR. I've recently acquired Nik Software's Color Efex Pro and I am very pleased this far. So, I'll most likely will get into Capture NX2 (co-produced by Nikon and Nik Software) in the coming year as an additional software package for digital imaging processing. Nik Software also now offers Viveza for non-Nikon user raw files.
     
  17. Mark Watson

    Mark Watson TrainBoard Member

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    Lenny-

    There might be a plug-in that can support your SLR. That is another great thing about Photoshop. It has a great user-base and you can find numerous websites and tutorials for most every feature.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 6, 2010
  18. BuddyBurton

    BuddyBurton TrainBoard Supporter

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    I use Picasa to edit my photos with. I also use Microsoft Office Picture Manager to reduce my photo sizes to the 1024x768 size(smaller kb's). :thumbs_up:

    You can also use Picasa Web Albums to upload the photos after they have been edited.
     
  19. Lenny53

    Lenny53 TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Mark;

    The plug-in works only with CS3 or later, there's nothing like planned obsolesence. Adobe does a DNG converter which I looked at but decided it was not what I was after. I currently
    use Nikon ViewNX to convert my RAW files to TIFF files for Photoshop processing. Capture NX2 allows one to have access all edits to an image including those from a previous work session using Nikon's NEF format. The Control Point technology also looks intriguing as opposed to working with layer masks in Photoshop.

    Cheers,
    Lenny
     
  20. Pete Nolan

    Pete Nolan TrainBoard Supporter

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    In the 90s and 00s we had the UNIX wars. Now we are having the Plug-in Wars in conjunction with the Photoshop Wars. I have CS2, and have refused to upgrade, because I don't need any added capabilities! Eventually I'll get frozen out of an upgrade path, if that hasn't already happened. I do not like this path. I guess I'll have to look at open source image editing.

    I can see Adobe going down in flames in five years. Oh, the horror!
     

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