which photography software to use

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Hi all,

I'm just starting to get into photography as a hobby. I'm looking for a decent peice of software that i can learn with and will develop as I do?

I've been looking and asking around, from what I can gather its between Aperture, Photoshop Elements 9 and Pixelmator.

Now i'm new to a mac and to photography but iphoto doesnt seem to offer much and i really need something that is ideal for a beginner.

So over to you, any suggestions?

cheers in advance!
 
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What camera are you using? Programs like Aperture and Lightroom are designed to work with DSLR cameras that put out RAW/DNG files. If you are wanting to play around and are using a point and shoot - try Photoshop Elements. Does a lot of stuff that Photoshop does in the same manner. Pretty easy to use and a lot of help/books out there.

If you don't want to invest in anything you can always try GIMP
GIMP - Downloads
I have used it and if you have never used any photo manipulation program - this is a good place to start.
There is a more Mac like port called seashore
Seashore
I would recommend trying both those out as they are Free/Open Source so they don't cost you anything.
 
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i've got a bridge camera, panasonic lumix, it does raw4 and jpeg files, not up to full strength yet so didnt want to start with a dslr and get too confused!
 
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wow wow wee that comes up really expensive via amazon, was thinking more a cheaper option for the less professional of us out there!?
 
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I would go with photoshop elements, you can do a lot of editing with it, then down the road if you want it, you can always get lightroom.
 
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chas_m

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There are image editors (pixelmator, photoshop, pse, etc).

There are image managers that usually offer some level of image editing (iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, ACDSee Pro for Mac)

There are some that are aimed at pros, some aimed at consumers and some sorta in-between.

At your current level I see no reason why you shouldn't stick with the basics: iPhoto, maybe Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator as well. Keep an eye on the more "pro" programs and when you get to the point you feel you need them, evaluate them more seriously.
 
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cheers for all your help, think the last post makes sense and kinda confirms what i was thinking.
a mate of mine has commented that adobe is £80 ish and aperture £130 ish and it might be better to get the more expensive and learn as i go, any agree on that angle?

cheers again for your help!
 
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I disagree. More expensive doesn't mean that it's a better program for you. Sometime when you are starting out, simpler is better. Programs like Elements or Pixelmator are imo a little easier to learn and do exactly what I want them to do.
So as someone else suggested, before spending ANY money download the free trials and see which one you feel more comfortable with. Why spend more money than you have to?
 

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cheers for all your help, think the last post makes sense and kinda confirms what i was thinking.
a mate of mine has commented that adobe is £80 ish and aperture £130 ish and it might be better to get the more expensive and learn as i go, any agree on that angle?

cheers again for your help!

I am assuming by Adobe here you mean Photoshop Elements (PSE). You should realize that Aperture is not a competing program to PSE (as ChasM explained above). I have both and they work together well.
If you want to play with Post Processing then Adobe PSE is a fairly inexpensive way to get started. I paid $69 USD for PSE 9.0 recently. I don't have any experience with the other packages reccomended but it makes sense to me to try the free versions first.
Also, be aware that most packages (including Aperture and Lightroom) can be download as Demos for a free trial period.

For what it is worth, unless you plan to get heavily into graphics editing (as in Adobe CS) I would invest in a DSLR before I spent much money on a software package, in the long run I think it will do more for your photography.

You can spend many fruitless hours trying to correct in Post Processing what could have been easily overcome by better planning of the shoot, control of lighting and proper equipment selection.
 
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cheers for all your help boys and girls!

Defo going for the trial/demo's first and will take it from there. thanks again for all the replies!
 
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I have a different suggestion. I use Lightroom, but as you said, you are only starting out with a bridge camera (like I did) and getting to know any piece of software, whether more or less complicated, is still a matter of learning.

My suggestion is to stick with a piece of FREE software like Google's Picasa. It will manage all of your photo's in a way which I find to be a lot more intuitive than how iPhoto does things, and you also have editing tools if/when you need them.

Until you learn more about photography and what you want to do with it, I think that Picasa can be a great tool. Just keep your photos in some logical order which YOU understand, on an external HD (I prefer external drives for storage than my internal one for several reasons) and let it do the rest.

Doug

Edit: http://picasa.google.com/mac/
 
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Stick with PSE9 but start to use iPhoto. Not for editing but it has lots of easy to use ways of manipulating your files & as an organiser it's pretty good. Faces & Places eg are worth using.
If you do go with RAW the big 2 Aperture & Lightroom slug it out with Aperture seeming to just shade it at the moment. Finally there is no 'best' in this field, people try them all & settle on a fav which they then seem to defend to the death!!
Try everything you can afford then choose what suits you. I know lots of people who happily shoot in jpg, only edit with PSE or not at all & use Picasa, Smugmug, Flikr etc etc.
 
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learn now

Riding a bike is a lot harder to learn than riding a tricycle... But riding bikes is a lot more fun and you can do more with them, on top of that, people will take you seriously...


Figure out what your long term goals are and choose the appropriate program.. for instance, if you are going to be doing serious photo manipulation then I would go with PhotoShop.. (the full program ...PhotoShop Extended CS5) there is a full version 30 day free trial at the Adobe site. If it's more than a hobby most professionals (at least in my field) use it... If you pick up a magazine, photoshop is all over it... Same for logo design, packaging, movie posters, etc. etc.... If you are getting into the Graphics Design field get the CS5 suite...either premium or pro...

There are two things that are VERY common in graphics...Macs and Adobe Creative Suites.
 
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i'm kinda late on this thread but I'll chime in. Lots of people here are recommending lightroom and aperture. I don't recommend these things for you because they are more of photo management softwares. Yes the do have some photo editing campabilities but they are more for managing your work flow. It really sounds like you are trying to do more editing I would go with Photoshop elements. Its more of a toned down photoshop. There are tons of elements tutorials, videos etc online. Since it is pretty much photoshop when you have mastered elements you can move on to photoshop. They are very similar so your transition should be easy. I think Iphoto should be good enough for you as far as photo management goes. If you really want a new photo management software I'd go with lightroom3. Its a great program and its really easy to use. To be completely honest Aperture is just as good maybe even better than lightroom 3. But you might run into confusion with which library your photos are in with multiple management sofwares. I would just stick with iphoto and buy elements. just my .2 cents
 
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I just downloaded PhotoShop Elements 9 and while it has some nice new features, it is less intuitive than previous versions and my iMac 2.66GHz is way too slow to run it - I spend a lot of time watching the pin wheel. Fortunately I didn't unload PSE 7 and I have gone back to using that.
 
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Just starting out too

I've had my macbook pro 17 just a month or so. I just ordered pse9. I'm now looking to if that was smart. Kind of backwards. I downloaded aperture 3 but it is not what I had hoped. I have a canon 60D dslr. I've been a PC user 30 years, know trying something new. Thanks for sharing. I look forward to learning more.

Nipomo
 

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