Corel Paint Shop? Photoshop? Lightroom??

[eurowing]

hi,

i want to get serious about editing my pictures to get the best out of them. i am shooting with an 80D (RAW&JPG).

i am having a hard time deciding which software to purchase. reading reviews around the web just makes that decision even more difficult.

i am certainly looking for a one time investment rather than one of those subscription based plans that Adobe is trying to sell you.

what do you guys think is the best software for editing of -mainly- airliner pictures? any input would be appreciated!

thanks,

Denis
Gilbert, AZ, US

[dlowwa]

hi,

i want to get serious about editing my pictures to get the best out of them. i am shooting with an 80D (RAW&JPG).

i am having a hard time deciding which software to purchase. reading reviews around the web just makes that decision even more difficult.

i am certainly looking for a one time investment rather than one of those subscription based plans that Adobe is trying to sell you.

what do you guys think is the best software for editing of -mainly- airliner pictures? any input would be appreciated!

thanks,

Denis
Gilbert, AZ, US

I use a 10-year old version of PS myself (CS5); more than adequate for the job, and should be easy enough to find a cheap used copy.

[glidescopeAviation]

I use Photoshop 6 and I've also got Lightroom. Of the 2 I find Photoshop to be the better program. I purchased the full software but since adobe introduced the subscription idea I get constant reminders that my software needs validating. I get around it by disconnecting wi-fi when loading. However this does mean i don't get any of the updates. I suppose the upside to the subscription is you can short term try rather than paying out big money and being stuck with it.

[eurowing]

thanks for the replies!

[Quebec Golf]

While you're deciding... why not just try GIMP? There is neither a one-time fee nor a subscription as it is completely free.

[eurowing]

i wasn’t aware of that one. will look into it!

maybe a dumb question: what is the best way to educate myself about how to properly edit pictures? watch a ton of videos on youtube? or just experiment? there are so many functions in these programs but i have no clue what 95% of them actually do!

[Quebec Golf]

i wasn’t aware of that one. will look into it!

maybe a dumb question: what is the best way to educate myself about how to properly edit pictures? watch a ton of videos on youtube? or just experiment? there are so many functions in these programs but i have no clue what 95% of them actually do!

In my opinion the practical approach would be to find a tutorial to get a basic idea for workflow and then start experimenting and researching more in depth those aspects that interest/challenge you the most. Experimenting is essential - I remember using a well regarded tutorial years ago and later realizing that the person who was nice enough to make it didn't know how to use the unsharp mask filter effectively.

Your comment about the large amount of tools in the graphics editing software has got me thinking. I tried to come up with a list of the tools I actually use regularly, which I assume are only a small percentage of the available tools. The list looks something like this (hardly exhaustive or authoritative, not in a specific order):

Transform and related:
1. Rotate
2. Show grid
3. Configure grid
4. Crop

Exposure/contrast:
5. Curves
6. Levels (not needed if using above)

Colour:
7. Hue/saturation (rarely needed in my opinion... would not use without first reading wiki articles on RGB colour space etc.)

Selection:
8. Select by colour
9. Free select
10. Shrink/grow selection
11. Feather selection

Image:
12. Scale image

Filters:
13. Unsharp mask (USM)
14. Selective Gaussian blur
15. Gaussian blur (not needed if using above)

Layers:
16. Duplicate layer
17. Add alpha channel
18. Flatten

Paint:
19. Erase

Saving:
20. Export as (jpeg)

Plus some other paint tools for dust spot removals but it's been a while since I've needed those.

So something like 17-20 tools out of 200+

[Ellx]

When I started to develop aircraft pictures, I took a course (lesson) just one day to learn how to manage photoshop.
I think it is the best way, because you learn the basics.
The use of the Camera Raw.
How to work with Layers, merge, fill etc.
How to use Histogram, and to work with curves and levels.
What way to sharpen a photo.
And not to forget, just installing photoshop is not enough, you need to do the right setup in PS.

[eurowing]

thanks for the useful replies!

now if someone could just tell me how to find the time for all this....... oh well i guess good things take time!