~ Which photo software do you like to use the most? ~

Echosphere

Well-Known Member
Could be iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Photoshop, or any others.
Or, a combination of importers, manipulation, cataloging, exporting/printing, or even online ones.

Also, what tricks and tweaks do you like to use with them?

I think this would be very useful to share, especially for those just starting out.

Please no PC/Mac/Linux debates, that's just
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okay... Photoshop CS and Aperture 2.


I just do the basics with Photoshop. Correcting color, contrast, and levels and turning images into B/W.
 
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I loved the Lightroom 3 Beta and will eventually have LR3. For now though it is the Canon Raw converter and PS 7.
 
At work we have all kinds of production studios and type, but I don't want to talk about work.
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At home I have a simple point-and-shoot Casio digital camera.

I use iPhoto 100% at home. I just love "Enhance" "Effects" & "Adjust" options and play with them all the time. If I don't like it a week later, I can just revert. Very cool.

I use flickr.com free posting account which has a 100 image limit. Easy to use and can post directly from iPhoto, edit and delete.

For my Gallery I use iWeb.
http://web.me.com/elliotts/photography/Home.html

(Handy.....
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Also curious why folks like one over the other?

I never thought of using Corel. What do you folks like about it?

For the more recent ones aimed at old school darkroom printers, any thoughts on Apple's Aperture vs Adobe's Lightroom?
 
I have been using Photoshop CS2 for many years, and have grown so used to it that it will be hard for me to switch, if ever I have to. Photoshop can be crazy complicated to learn, because there are just so darn many features and so many different ways to do the same thing. But you can do pretty much anything with it, and once you get the hang of it there is usually a very quick way to complete standard tasks.

Since I generally prefer open source freeware, I'd love to move to GIMP. I recently checked it out, but I have gotten used to the way PS allows you to switch effortlessly between different color spaces. For example I routinely switch to LAB mode for the very last step of my photo processing, in which I apply USM to the L channel of LAB. In GIMP that seems like a complete hassle to do.

A great book to get into digital photo processing is Dan Margulis' Professional Photoshop: The Classic Guide to Color Correction. Despite the title, the book keeps tips about photo processing quite general, and will be useful not only to Photoshop users.
 
All I have ever used is Photoshop. Started with Photoshop 3 (NOT CS3) and am using CS5 (Photoshop 12) now.

Once you get comfortable with a piece of software you do not go looking to learn something new just to waste time.

I am sure that there are a lot of good image editing software out there and you will get a different opinion from everyone.
 
Lesseee.....Photoshop 4, Photoshop 6, CS3, iPhoto, Aperture, Picassa, Photoshop Elements. But my favorite photo editing setup is the traditional darkroom! I just love that smell.
 
Lets see, I have about 5-6 photo editing programs. For quick editing where I just need to crop, resize, tweak colors, contrast and sharpness I use FastStone Image viewer which is an excellent free down loadable program. It's quick, easy to learn and use. For more involved editing like using layers and masking I like to use Photo Shop. The other programs I have, I just use to play around with, as some of them let you put your pics in cards, magazine covers and other various projects.
 
I've been using Paint Shop Pro version 5.3(!) for years and it does all I need and then some. I only paid $5 for it second hand :D

Tom
 
I use Photoshop and never really used anything but Photoshop. But it can be awfully expensive unless you are making money with it. I like using a lot of the 3rd party filters like EyeCandy stuff for cool effects.

There are free opensource Mac alternatives to Photoshop like Gimp and SeaShore. I'm sure there's Windoze alternatives too but no self-respecting designer or artist would ever use a Windoze PC.
 
There was a free seminar for CS5 at the Abode headquarters tonight. Including free pizza! I went climbing instead. :D
 
Lets see, I have about 5-6 photo editing programs. For quick editing where I just need to crop, resize, tweak colors, contrast and sharpness I use FastStone Image viewer which is an excellent free down loadable program. It's quick, easy to learn and use. For more involved editing like using layers and masking I like to use Photo Shop. The other programs I have, I just use to play around with, as some of them let you put your pics in cards, magazine covers and other various projects.

I grabbed FastStone after reading one of your other posts. It is great. I was having a hard time getting anything to show RAW thumbnails with Vista. The FastStone viewer also seems to transfer files faster than Windows viewer.
 
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