Photo software

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paul5186

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Hi

My Gf just bought the 600D special with 2 x lens, sd card, bag for R7999inc at Makro.

Now she needs some "basic" i.e not overly complicated photo retouching, editing, effects software.
She does not want to work with layers etc, maybe in the future though.

I was thinking of Lightroom for her? Is it intuitive? Any other suggestions?

Thanks
 
paul5186 said:
Hi

My Gf just bought the 600D special with 2 x lens, sd card, bag for R7999inc at Makro.

Now she needs some "basic" i.e not overly complicated photo retouching, editing, effects software.
She does not want to work with layers etc, maybe in the future though.

I was thinking of Lightroom for her? Is it intuitive? Any other suggestions?

Thanks
Click to expand...
If she has the good fortune to be a Mac user I'd recommend Aperture, otherwise Lightroom is still a very good app. :)

For heavy lifting though have a look at Photoshop elements. It does 90% or more of what photographers need in terms of editing but it far more affordable than the full blown Photoshop.
 
I recently started using Lightroom on my pc, but before I even used it I watched the lynda tutorials on it to make sure i wasn't missing anything, it should have most if not all the things she will need! It's a nice application in terms of "archiving" your photos too! But yea haven't had it for very long so still playing around in it!
 
+1 for photoshop elements or try paintshop pro. they are programs that have the depth should she eventually want to move onto more complex tasks, but they also have the one click editing functions like red eye removal etc.
 
I also like PSE actually.

Edits I do are basic though : crop, straighten, levels, colours (desaturate etc), correct skin tone, noise reduction and sharpen ... Picassa can almost do it for me ;)
 
I find Adobe Lightroom is the best for Photo editing. And I envy her so much! I wanted to get that deal but don't get paid until the 18th of November :(
 
Lightroom is more a photo management tool, where you can arrange, sort and prioritise the photos.
It does have a nice simple editing tool, which is pretty fair for retouching and minor alterations.

I don't really see lightroom as a beginner set, it is like photoshop, Gimp and others a specialised bits of software.
What you probably want is something along the lines of Adobe Elements.
 
+1 for Lightroom

I've been using it for about 3 years now and absolutely love it.
+No need to open-edit-close each individual photo. All photos are instantly available in the library. You can also create virtual copies of photos and apply different effects to the same photo (or copy and paste adjustments from one photo to another)
+The original photo is not never altered. All changes are applied in a database and only when you export the photo does it create a new picture with the effects applied. The original is still as it was, so it's easy to rollback.

LR has all the tools you need to get the best out of your photos (adjusting exposure, crop, saturation, straighten etc.etc.), which is all I want.

If you want to change the content of a phot ( ie. edit a flying saucer into the background or fireworks over a skyline), look elsewhere. However, Photoshop does integrate into LR, so from within LR you have the option to edit the photo in PS, and have the changes automatically brought back into LR.

If you have a lot of photos, you will love the workflow of LR for checking, flagging, adjusting your pictures - Quickly
 
DGremlin said:
Lightroom is more a photo management tool, where you can arrange, sort and prioritise the photos.
It does have a nice simple editing tool, which is pretty fair for retouching and minor alterations.

I don't really see lightroom as a beginner set, it is like photoshop, Gimp and others a specialised bits of software.
What you probably want is something along the lines of Adobe Elements.
Click to expand...

I actually find LR much easier to use than PSE, and since it's non-destructive, you can always re-visit older photos as your editing skills improve. LR also supports dual-screens, so you can do your edits on one, while having a full-screen image on the other.
 
Lightroom all the way. It's actually amazing what you can do with it and as an added benefit to which no-one has yet mentioned, there are plenty of plug-ins that interface with LR which in turn make life easier on the PP.

If you're not convinced, check out this thread and you soon will be.
 
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