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Postprocessing - what software? (1 Viewer)

J

Jetstream

Well-known member
I am not sure if this is the right place for this question although I own a 7Dii know and the other subforum is about Photoshop?
Anyway - I am rather new to postprocessing, only played around a little bit with SilkyPix RAW Developper from my HS50exr to get used to the idea of developping pics by myself instead of the jpg-engine inside the camera ;)

As I cannot use the Silkypix Version for Fuji and couldn't install DPP yet (because of Windows XP) I am on the lookout for a PP-software.

Question: Is it important at all what software I take or just personal preferences?
I rather like the tools from SilkyPix, but don't know if I should invest in the new version that is for the D7ii.
I tried RAWTherapee - don't like it, but maybe I need to play a bit more to find my ways through it?

I will have Windows 8 soon and on my list are
SilkyPix
DPP (comes with the camera - enough for basics?)
Photoshop?

thanks for some input and a week-end full of light!
sabi
 
I think the majority of answers you will get will recommend Adobe lightroom. If you want to check that out there should be a free download of a version that expires after a while.

I personally do not get along with that program, so I will recommend you looking at ACDSee Pro which does most of what lightroom does, or ACDSee ultimate which quite possibly does more.

There are also some people mentioning DPP on here.

Niels
 
I've looked at Lightroom, but decided to stay with using Adobe Bridge (CS6) and Adobe Photoshop (CS6).

Granted, there is a bias here: I'm a Mac-using pixel-pusher and graphic designer from the early days, so Photoshop isn't as daunting to me as it is to most people. Additionally I work in the IS/IT aspects of marketing and graphic design, and having used enterprise-level digital asset managers (DAM), I find Lightroom lacking as an organizer, so I still sort and categorize my photos manually until I can find a better solution (so might as well use Photoshop over Lightroom).

In May I'm planning to get really deep into photo management due to the sheer number (and gigabytes!) of photos my girlfriend and I take. Going to start with a Synology disk array to handle the volume, and then go looking for a more robust, but small-scale, DAM to manage it all.
 
Both Lightroom and Photoshop use the same RAW converter as far as I know (ACR) but I prefer to process the RAWs in DPP and then send to Photoshop as 16 bit tiffs for the bulk of the editing. I use some Topaz plug-ins in Photoshop.
 
Oh boy

Thanks to all for the new perspectives - which, I have to admit, add a little bit of confusion.
As far as I understand there are 3 different processes that can or cannot be done with one software?
  • develop RAW to tiff or jpg
  • change things in photos - before or after step one?
  • organize photos
Thats why some say they this with one software and the next step with another one?

I am definitely far from Calvins Level, so I will try DPP and Lightroom ith the new computer. I would also prefer to have a one-in-all-thing, if possible.
Any opinions about SilkyPix?
 
Jetstream said:
Thanks to all for the new perspectives - which, I have to admit, add a little bit of confusion.
As far as I understand there are 3 different processes that can or cannot be done with one software?
  • develop RAW to tiff or jpg
  • change things in photos - before or after step one?
  • organize photos
Click to expand...

You can do all of those with Lightroom. You can do the first 2 in DPP but the options are fewer.

These days I use Lightroom. It integrates well with Photoshop (or the cheaper Photoshop Elements) if you want to do more advanced editing (adding or removing things from the photo, more precise editing of specific parts of the photo etc). Personally I almost never feel the need to leave Lightroom these days.

There are others (Capture One Pro for example) that do similar things.

You can get Lightroom/Photoshop for about $10 a month or Lightroom only as a standalone application for about $150 (a new version is supposed to be coming in March by the way).
 
Thanks for the advice - and sorry for the late answer - had to recover from an accidental and involontary format:C on my hard drive :(
I try to get a feeling for Lightroom with a test version. The one-size-fits all sounds nice, but it looks like I will have some hours and then a few more to invest.

sabi
 
I'm a big fan of Lightroom. I particularly like the cataloguing set up. Using pre-sets for exporting you can, with one click, "save" your conversions to sub-folders within the original folder. I have pre-sets specifically to resize and save a RAW conversion to sub-folder for posting on Bird forum. I rarely switch to Photoshop these days unless I want to do some serious manipulating. With Lightroom you get a lot of bang for your buck so to speak.
 
I also use Lightroom. If you decide to try it, I recommend the Tony Northrup Training module. It can be downloaded for $10, and gives you access to video explanations. There are videos also from the Adobe website, and if you look at them first, it should give you a good idea of what Lightroom can do.
 
When you get Windows 8 have a look at DPP4 - download from the Canon site as it is not shipped with the camera (or at least not my version). This makes RAW image sorting and processing a lot easier than with DPP3. The images can be transferred to any other image processing software you currently use (I use Elements 10) as a TIFF file and finished off as required. This will be your cheapest option as the Canon software is free.

Canon do a guide to using DPP4, again its a free download.

Dave
 
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