Photography software??

Justlookin

Hey its that time of year again and i'm thinking of buying my dad some form of photgraphy software for the computer. Its kind of become a hobby for him and i thought this would be a good idea for a present. Hes also quite into his family history and has hundreds of very old pictures and i know that some software can help improve the quality of pictures which would be great for him. Just wondering if anyone here would have any advice on the best software out there, what do you use on your pictures? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Paulw

Adobe Lightroom is a brilliant application for cataloguing and editing your photos. Well worth checking out.

Carrigman

Hard to say. Surely he already has some photographic software if he is working on photos on his computer? I'd save my money for something else entirely and recommend that he download the free Picasa programme from www.picasa.com. If he hasn't already done so, that is. The "best software" is Adobe Photoshop but that will set you back about €900. I doubt very much if he would be interested in that level of complexity even if you were mad enough to shell out that kind of money. Likewise with Adobe's Lightroom. For advanced users only and not for the casual amateur.

melekalikimaka

Carrigman wrote: »

Hard to say. Surely he already has some photographic software if he is working on photos on his computer? I'd save my money for something else entirely and recommend that he download the free Picasa programme from www.picasa.com. If he hasn't already done so, that is. The "best software" is Adobe Photoshop but that will set you back about €900. I doubt very much if he would be interested in that level of complexity even if you were mad enough to shell out that kind of money. Likewise with Adobe's Lightroom. For advanced users only and not for the casual amateur.

i'd disagree with lightroom, is great for anyone, pretty simple layout too

Calina

Depends on your budget but speaking personally I think the choice of software can be a personal decision.

Around the 120E mark you have Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro (at least I think that's what Corel are calling it at the moment).

Lightroom is around the 300E mark, and Photoshop is around 850E. I'd check what he has already...and sound out on what he wants. I don't personally use Lightroom, and as I already have Photoshop, I wouldn't want any of the others. I also use different database software

If you want an idea and if he has loads of photographs, an external hard drive might be a very good idea.

richieg

I'm looking at upgrading from iphotot on my mac and am looking at lightroom and photoshop elements.
Has anyone used both and can you give me an idea of the differences between them and what 1 is better for compared to the other?

Calina

Probably LightRoom depending on what you want from the software.

eirlink

Download a free trial of apples Aperture, and see if you like it.

DamoKen

eirlink wrote: »

Download a free trial of apples Aperture, and see if you like it.

thought that was only available on the Mac, maybe I'm wrong? Of course if the OP is using a Mac it's meant to be pretty good.

Paulw

You can download a free 30 day trial of Lightroom too (for both Mac and Windows).

Well worth at least trying.