Photography Software

faceman

Can you recommend good photography/photo edit software for the mac that wont cost an arm and a leg?

Is Aperture the way to go? Are there any freeware or shareware options?

Chardee MacDennis

faceman wrote: »

Can you recommend good photography/photo edit software for the mac that wont cost an arm and a leg?

Is Aperture the way to go? Are there any freeware or shareware options?

I have heard good things about Adobe Lightroom, but it seems Aperture is still where it's at.

I think they were talking about it on This Week in Photography podcast.

Type 17

I haven't used Lightroom, but I can certify that Aperture is well worth the (new, lower) price, and that Aperture 2.x is far superior to version 1.5 so, if reading reviews, be sure that the comments are about 2.x, as 1.5 did have some issues.

You do need a good bit of memory to make it work well, though.
For example, my iMac is currently running Mail, Camino, and Aperture and has 2314Mb of RAM in use out of a total of 4096Mb. It did run ok with 2GB, but now runs noticeably faster with 4GB.

Ham'nd'egger

God be with the olden days when you got Graphic Converter bundled with OS X. I doubt if it will hold up to Aperture but at €29.95 and a free demo, it may do enough for OP.

http://www.lemkesoft.com/content/193/key-features.html

huggs2

You could also try Pixelmator. I have read good things about it.and its 40 euro.
http://www.pixelmator.com/company/

babypink

i'd second pixelmator as a good choice

MarkoF

Don't forget iPhoto - some decent colour and sharpening tools in there along with reasonable asset management

irishcrazyhorse

Lightroom all the way, especially if you are batch processing.... and you can easily skip between lightroom and photoshop when editing.The raw converter is one of the best I have worked with as well

cornbb

I really hope Google do a version of Picasa for Mac someday. In the meantime its nice to see some recommendations here

440Hz

What are you planning/hoping to do with the software? I use both Aperture and Lightroom, they both have their strong points. Do you want to sort/edit/advance edit your photos? All depends on these answers tbh.

faceman

Im just looking for something to do some amateur editing of photos. Colour, effects touch ups etc. But not something that makes it look fake or doctored.

dmohalloran

I have heard photoshop elements is a nice piece of kit, and adobe have just released version Photoshop elements 6
Have not seen reviews of it yet so, have no idea if it is suitable. On the plus side it is relatively cheap (under 100 euro) and has a good feature set.
Although, you can never go wrong with iPhoto

Type 17

dmohalloran wrote: »

I have heard photoshop elements is a nice piece of kit, and adobe have just released version Photoshop elements 6
Have not seen reviews of it yet so, have no idea if it is suitable. On the plus side it is relatively cheap (under 100 euro) and has a good feature set.
Although, you can never go wrong with iPhoto

Just installing my pre-ordered copy which arrived today - I'll let you know shortly how it compares to Elements 2.0(!)

440Hz

faceman wrote: »

Im just looking for something to do some amateur editing of photos. Colour, effects touch ups etc. But not something that makes it look fake or doctored.

In that case yeah, I would agree, something like Elements would be a good idea. Photoshop itself will be too advanced for your needs, and applications like Lightroom and Aperture are more for people who want to process RAW images and carry out specific adjustments that usually require some photographic knowledge (generally speaking). Elements is a good all-round general package to do the kind of things you want to do, and it is reasonably priced as well.

Chardee MacDennis

i;ve been playing around with Aperture over the last few days and i have to say its great fun, didnt realise i could do so much with my photos, can really clean them up - although i haven't been able to get the red eye filter working properly. Gonna have to start playing around with Lightroom soon too.

cant wait to get my dslr to run some of the photos through that.

and btw i have no clue what i am doing just messing around until i get the photo to where i want to, anyone recommend any reading to learn more on either Lightroom or Aperture?

Type 17

Call_me_al wrote: »

i;ve been playing around with Aperture over the last few day... although i haven't been able to get the red eye filter working properly.

Choose the tool, set the radius (size of brush), and then centre it over the red pupil, and click once. Repeat for other eye...

Chardee MacDennis

yeh it wasnt working, or else it was just completely blacking out the eye. may just have been due to low image quality though?

huggs2

Adobe today released photoshop express beta for the web.Works fine in firefox 3 beta 4. and its free. You also 2 gb of space to upload your photos free as well. I am uploading some photos as i wright this. You do have to register though and it says america only for now.I selected america and i got registered:) this could also be what you need as it has editing etc.

huggs2

opps. forgot the link.

https://www.photoshop.com/express/index.html

Hugh_C

Lightroom all the way for me!

ZENER

Call_me_al wrote: »

. . . . didnt realise i could do so much with my photos, can really clean them up . . . . and btw i have no clue what i am doing just messing around until i get the photo to where i want to, anyone recommend any reading to learn more on either Lightroom or Aperture?

The big mistake made here is that what looks great on the screen rarely looks right on prints.

Run the monitor calibration tool in display preferences and try to resist going overboard with the saturations and gamma of an image in Aperture.

When I first started playing about with Aperture I had stunning images on the screen but the prints were simply awful - way too contrasty, poor colour balance and postcard style saturation.

Print out a proof first and compare it with what's on the screen. This is partly the reason that displays from Apple, Lacie and Sony cost so much, their colour is more accurate than the super bright and contrasty cheap monitors in PCWorld et al.

The first thing I noticed about the screen on my MacBook Pro and PowerBook was how neutral the screens are, especially compared to the MacBooks and some other Windows laptops I've seen.

ZEN

Chardee MacDennis

huggs2 wrote: »

Adobe today released photoshop express beta for the web.Works fine in firefox 3 beta 4. and its free. You also 2 gb of space to upload your photos free as well. I am uploading some photos as i wright this. You do have to register though and it says america only for now.I selected america and i got registered:) this could also be what you need as it has editing etc.

Watch out whatever you put up there is 'owned' by Adobe apparently....

From Digg.com comments

"Abode's new Photoshop Express is getting a ton of press, but very little (or none) of it has mentioned Adobe's massive rights grab to your photographs and other artwork. You grant Adobe a all-inclusive to do anything they want with any work you "submit."

Maybe this is Adobe's way to stealthily compile their own stock photo agency? I guarantee you that I won't be using the service until these items are gone from their terms of service.

https://www.photoshop.com/express/terms.html

From the link:

1. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

huggs2

Adobe have been getting a lot of flak over the terms so they made a statement about their legal team writing up new terms.Anyway they only apply if you make your folders public.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0803/08032801adobepsexpress.asp