What’s the best photography editing software out there for beginners?

Christy Strickland: What’s the best photography editing software out there for beginners?
I have a Nikon D40 and I am fairly new to photography. I use a MacBook Pro, and I have experimented with Aperture and Abode Lightroom. I really like Aperture. Any advice? Any advice for someone dabbling in photography would be greatly appreciated!

Answers and Views:

Answer by kateg
You know, you could spend a fortune on other programs, stay with what you have, get to work with them both and know them well. You could try Photoshop Elements for mac, Adobe offers a 30-day trial. If after a time you really want to take it up a whole bunch, there’s Adobe Photoshop, but that’s the expensive program 700. There’s also GIMP, a free software that’s similar to Photoshop – both are a high learning curve, they are hard, you just can’t jump in.

Answer by word
Based on what I’m seeing from Aperture… Well, I’m wishing I had a Mac right now.

Answer by setaian
At the risk of offering unwelcome advice, my personal opinion is that the best editing software for a beginner is all in your camera. Take your time before you press the shutter and you generally won’t need to do much more than crop your photo.
I think it’s important to develop your skills as a photographer before you start playing with things like photoshop.

Answer by i love my freinds
if you go to a website called piknik u can do watever you want with the photo

Answer by 　☥♡☮　
Nikon D40
https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d40/
Capture NX 2 / ViewNX 2
https://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/software/
__________

MacBook Pro
https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/

if you have tried Aperture and Lightroom, then those would be best with camera and software,
both help adjust and correct images, you can trial Photoshop and Elements, and a few others that work on Mac,

Apple – Aperture – Pro performance with iPhoto simplicity.
https://www.apple.com/aperture/
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

DxO Optics Pro

Phase One Capture One 5 PRO

Bibble Labs: Bibble
https://www.corel.com/corel/pages/index.jsp?pgid=12800164

Adobe – Photoshop CS5
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopfamily/buying-guide-version-comparison.html
ArcSoft PhotoStudio
https://www.arcsoft.com/photostudio/
..

Answer by ?
You can use Photo scape an amazing photo editing software and it’s also free to use. All the basic photo editing features available.

You can download it from website. The download link is:
https://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/download.php

VRD

Answer by screwdriver
The most useful thing in any Photo Editing software are Layers, neither Aperture nor Lightroom have them, once you have Layers then true creativity can be accomplished. Aperture and Lightroom are very good ‘work-flow’ tools for busy Event or wedding photographers, they can virtually automate the work-flow and catalogue their images, all very efficiently. If that’s all you want to do then either will work well.

My view is that a camera is a data recording device, if two photographers take the same scene from the same position their pictures will be pretty much the same, there’s no room for interpretation. You can get the light right, you can frame your shot with the ‘rules of composition’ in mind, get the focus where you want it and the exposure correct, important though these things are that’s about as far as you can go in camera.

To go any further then you need a program with Layers, Gimp is free to download and use, my advice would be to get Elements as that works the same way that Photoshop does which you may aspire to later.

Once your images are opened in any of these programs then what you do to them is only limited by your imagination, you can interpret, your shot will not be the same as everyone else’s will be.

You can add parts of other images, you can selectively or globally perfect contrast, exposure, saturation, colour temperature and a myriad of other things. A quick example, in a portrait you may want the eyes to be sharp, but everything else to be soft, with Layers and Layer masks you can do that with total control, you can control not only where the sharpening is, but how much and it can be different in different parts of the image. Photoshop takes much longer to learn than photography does, there are just so many permutations.

It really depends on you, if all you want are quick corrections, then either Aperture or Lighroom work well, I use Lightroom all the time, but if you want to take it further, to any level you want, for some people taking the image and getting it right is just the start of the procedure, for some it’s the end of the procedure, to finish the job you need Photoshop or Elements.

People who say it can all be done in camera are just learning half the procedure and the easy half at that, creativity has always been in the darkroom, this is where your vision can be realised, sad to say not all people have any vision.

Chris

Answer by techguru
Without a doubt, the best and most effective software combination for the price is Adobe Lightroom 3 together with Photoshop Elements 9

The first for the workflow and management, and the second for more advanced pixel-level editing. You could go Photoshop CS5 too (instead), it’s the industry gold-standard editor.

Either way, they integrate and work well together and complementarily, and Adobe offers 30-day free trials of all