Help me choose the right photoshop program software?

[John Lentz]

I need help/advise on what is the best and most appropriate digital photo software program for me. I have a HP ENVY dv6 laptop with Windows 8. I have a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and I want to use more than JPEG when working with my pictures. I'd like to use RAW and have more options to work with. Getting to the point, what software program would you recommend that I buy considering I'm a new/novice photographer who is mainly interested in shooting nature/wildlife, landscapes and macro photography? Thank you all in advance.

[DickLudwig]

Lightroom 4 would be a good place to start looking at RAW converters.
I do about 90-95% of my post processing in Lightroom.

[John Lentz]

Thank you Dick

[Diane Miller]

Lightroom is a sports car, and has the editing abilities for probably 95% of nature shots for someone just getting into it. And the price has come down recently. I couldn't live without it, for the organizational features (keywording, etc), and the RAW converter is, for me, wonderful. I've tried others and keep coming back to this one, with apologies to those who love DPP.

At some point you might want to add Photoshop, but it's expensive. PS Elements can do quite a bit.

Although laptop screens don't calibrate well, I'd also consider that step, or, better, add a good external monitor. Others here can give good recommendations in that department.

You'll find several tutorials on Lightroom on my web site, http://www.DianeDMiller.com. The ones on LR3 lay out the big picture and are still relevant to v4.

[John Lentz]

Thank you Diane, I really appreciate your help. I've saved your website for future reference on this software. Have a great evening.

[PhilCook]

Lightroom is very good as mentioned, but so are the Photoshop Elements programs. PS Elements from version 7 to the current one are very good and can do 99% of anything you may wish to do now or down the track. The one main advantage of buying one of the Elements programs is the layout and the way it works is very similar to the very advanced, and expensive Adobe CS series. So should you one day decide to be more involved with even more creative CS editing programs then Elements is a good starting platform to get started

[John Lentz]

Thank you Phil, I'll definitely look into this program

[John Lentz]

I bought the Light House 4 software and have downloaded it on my computer. Haven't done squat with it so far but I have it now. thanks for the advise from you all.

[manddrivale]

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[Diane Miller]

Putting the two pieces together here: Lightroom (now v5) is a very sophisticated "front end" with an excellent workflow. When you need to go beyond its capabilities Photoshop Elements is a good substitute for "real" Photoshop, especially for someone just getting into digital darkroom work. The Elements Organizer module (I think its called that) has some of the capabilities of LR but not nearly as sophisticated. I'd ignore it in favor of LR, but the Elements image processing module has many of the basic capabilities of PS.

Photoshop is now a monthly subscription-based "CC" (Creative Cloud) which has many pro photographers screaming bloody murder. (Lots of info online about being sucked into the subscription thing and what happens to your files if you ever decide to bail out -- if you decide to revert to your old CS6 you can't access things in a file that you created with newer features in CC. You can only work on a flattened version. It works well for those for whom a finished piece is product that goes out the door never to be seen again, and is a problem for a photographer who wants to be able to access all features in their files for future improvement -- those who don't want the paint to dry, because next year they will have a better eye, better tools, etc.)

As of a couple of weeks ago, PS CS6 was still available but not easy to find. Many photographers feel as of now that they will stay with CS6 and hope Adobe changes the CC subscription model somewhat. For someone new, since CS6 is $650, Elements makes sense. As you are forced to upgrade computers every so often, there will be a point at which CS6 won't even run.

[John Chardine]

Well, not so much a sports car as a tractor, Lightroom is very capable, but fast and nimble it is not, even on power-computers. There are some tweaks to the Preferences you can make to speed it up but if you don't, it can be ponderous, especially with large catalogues.

I will add an important element to what you need to think about John. Selecting, organising, key wording and generally managing your ever-growing collection of images is as important as processing them and you want software that does this well too. Lightroom does a pretty good job but fails on a number of fronts, which Adobe seems to refuse to fix. Anyway, if you stick with Lightroom, I think you have almost everything you will need.

[manddrivale]

Thanks for such an informative discussion. I am glad to be part of this very informative thread. Specially the web site link you shared I like the most.

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