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[P.N.N 0]

What program do you Recommend for editing? 
 

[rwe 4]

I use Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 but I am under the impression that most people on this site are using Adobe Lightroom.  I have been using Elements for a very long time and don't want to give up 'spot healing' or relearn a new system so have never changed to Lightroom.  I think some people use Lightroom and then use full Photoshop if they need additional items but the full Photoshop is expensive and I don't use any of the full Photoshop/Lightroom photo storage/management options.

[TimG 62]

Hi P.N.N

Yeah, as ewe suggests, a lot of the Wetpixel crowd use Lightroom (me included) - although there are a few that object to the cost and prefer other things.

For some years now I have been using the Adobe package which bundles Lightroom (LR) and Photoshop (PS) for about £10 a month. You automatically get upgrades included. For about £120 a year I think it's pretty good. I use LR for about 95% of all the importing, indexing, cataloguing and editing - and only occasionally use PS for the serious removal of unwanted elements of an image. Generally LR can do most things - and do it well. For indexing and cataloguing I think it's terrific. I've got about 46,000 images on LR.

I reckon I have been using LR since its first inception and have found the investment in time and effort to learn it well worthwhile. Compared to PS it is highly intuitive.

 

 

[ChrisRoss 150]

In addition to cost, my objection to Lightroom is being tied in with proprietary formats.  The catalogue and your edits are stored in a way that only Lightroom can access them and if you stop paying you can't get to them.  You don't lose your images - the Raw images remain but you lose your edits unless you have exported it as a tiff file or similar format.

There are many alternatives to PS emerging these days - affinity photo is one that gets good reviews and is reasonably priced.  I use PS CS6 have not gone to CC and Capture One Pro.   Capture One pro has many of the capabilities of lightroom in catalogueing images though the learning curve is a little steeper and these days it has many but not all the functions of PS.

Whatever you choose be sure it allows 16 bit editing of at the very minimum the raw file.  8 Bit editing is quite prone to banding and posterisation - most common in UW images in similar tone blue water that gradually brightens towards the surface like a gradient.  All the options discussed so far allow 16 bit except maybe PS elements which among other things will not allow layers in 16 bit - you can work around it by setting your levels as the first step then converting but it's not ideal.  Elements does RAW conversions in 16 bit so you are OK there.

[adamhanlon 0]

(I've moved this thread to the editing forum!)

Actually Chris, if you stop paying your subscription, you retain everything except the edit module in Lightroom. You will still have a fully functional image browser indefinitely (or as long a your OS supports it).

Any edits you have made up until the subscription lapses are available indefinitely via this browser and can still be exported as JPEGs. TIFFs etc. Obviously, you will no longer be able to access the edit pane to do any more...

There are lots of ways of extracting Lightroom catalogs into other programs if required (Capture One have just refined theirs).

Economically, the Adobe photography subscription plan at just under $10/month compares favorably with other options. Capture One is $299, so about 30 months of Lightroom + Photoshop. Its monthly plan is $20/month..

Adam

[Interceptor121 843]

I have a mixed approach

I use Lightroom 6.14 non subscription (probably will die when I change camera again) together with DxO PhotoLab 3 and a bunch of other programs I bought for land photos.

Now that I know better I found that at least for MFT format the RAW engine of Adobe is average and the colour rendition quite average too. So I use lightroom as a catalog and then when there is an image I really like I do the RAW processing in PhotoLab this creates a TIFF that I can further process in Lightroom or other plug-ins.

One things that I particularly like of other plug ins is the ability to change the colour rendering of the camera or to overlay an xrite calibrate rendering that eliminates what the manufacturer or adobe think is correct from the mix

In terms of catalog management and metadata edit lightroom is unbeatable so it will stay there for sure for a long time

[Algwyn 12]

I use Adobe Bridge + Camera Raw + Photoshop.

I never was a big fan of Lightroom centralised catalogue approach. Bridge is slower as a catalogue, search engine for photos. What I like is that Bridge follows how pictures are organised on disk. All the information is saved on side cart files, and to copy the full library you just need to copy the directory. I find that simpler, and I don't have to worry about what is stored in Lightroom central database which might be lost.

I'm testing regularly alternative to Adobe, but so far Adobe Camera Raw (or Lightroom are they are using the same Raw engine) is way better when it comes to adjusting white balance of underwater photos, which is for me a critical feature. Other solutions that I have tested are really far behind Adobe when it comes to retrieving natural colours from ambient light underwater raw files (Nikon).

 

[Architeuthis 187]

I use the abo version of LR first and after importing and first processing I continue to edit the image in the abo version of PS. Previously I had the latest non-abo versions of LR and PS, but I needed to reinstall PS after the computer shut down itself in Raja Ampat because of high temperature and humidity there and th eprogram crashed. I just could not find the original discs any more (probably I lended them to someone who did not give them back ).

In retrospective I believe that the 11 Euros per month are well invested and not cheaper than buying a software package every couple of years (not to speak about learning to work with new software, what I personally do not enjoy)...

Just a pity that Premiere Pro requires an additional subscription that is too expensive for the few video sequences I produce. Currentyl I use Premiere Elements, but this is not really professional video editing software...

 

Wolfgang

[hyp 115]

DaVinci Resolve has a bit of a learning curve but is powerful and free for video.

I use LR on iPad to import and do first edits while on a trip. At home I refine in LR Classic. If I need to make pixel level edits I use affinity Photo.

[SwiftFF5 136]

For video, I use Pinnacle Studio Ultimate.  I know that it isn't all that popular here, but it works well for me.

[phxazcraig 123]

I used to use the 'best of breed' idea - use Nikon Capture to edit my Nikon raw files, DPP to edit Canon raw files and Sony Playmemories (or whatever it's called) to do Sony raw files.  It just go to be too much of a pain, and I went to Lightroom some years back.  Even renamed all my digital files to organize them and eliminate possibility of duplicates.   

As you must know by now, underwater images can often use a lot of post-processing.   I've gotten quite used to using Lightroom after a few years now.  I'm still with 6.14 standalone, and the only issue I've seen so far is there is no lens correction info for my new 500F5.6 PF lens - which has been on the market 2 years.

[Architeuthis 187]

21 hours ago, hyp said:

DaVinci Resolve has a bit of a learning curve but is powerful and free for video.

I use LR on iPad to import and do first edits while on a trip. At home I refine in LR Classic. If I need to make pixel level edits I use affinity Photo.

I downloaded the free version of DaVinci Resolve, when I read in DpReview that the company distributes the software for free (DpReview did not state that this is a crippled version; I would not have downloaded the software in case I would have known this). When I started to edit my videos, I found out that many important functions are not available in the free version and I would have to buy the real version in order to process my videos as I am used to it (I remember something around 300$ plus the money for eventual upgrades)...

=> Many lost hours to get a little bit familiar with the pogram that was new for me (I use Computers a lot, also for my profession, but I fear I am already a little bit too old and am tired to learn new ritial spells how to tell programs to do what I like ). In case I would have to pay for video editing I would go for Adobe Premiere Pro, since I already know a little how to operate Premiere Elements...

=> I prefer to show stills in slide shows and talk while I am showing the slides. Just some slides have moving content, when I think that the movement is important information and nice to show. I do not produce real videos. I use the Adobe Premiere Elements standalone version that I once bougth in a package together with LR. Not really worth to upgrade to professional software for 20$ a month (or 300$ once) for me...

 

Wolfgang

Edited July 24, 2020 by Architeuthis

[hyp 115]

As far as I know it is „crippled“ in only a small number of features that are only important for serious Pros (networked project management and stuff like that). What features did you find missing?

[Architeuthis 187]

25 minutes ago, hyp said:

As far as I know it is „crippled“ in only a small number of features that are only important for serious Pros (networked project management and stuff like that). What features did you find missing?

I cannot remember now exactly, but it was much more than networking. It were almost all advanced functions for adjusting IQ of the video by filtering, similar to "dehaze" etc. I cannot try out now since I already have deinstalled the program from my computer...

Wolfgang

 

[hyp 115]

I found a list of the missing features. Some FX are indeed missing although I didn’t miss them when I recently edited some footage from Lembeh. 
 

The big one that is indeed annoying is that Noise Reduction is only in the Studio version, but I believe you need third party plugins for that in other software too. 
 

Resolve is certainly not like other free versions of software that is basically unusable. Depending on your needs it will get you most or even all of the way there.