Best or Favorite Photo Editor (DSLR, hobby, lens, upgrade)

[tajul2010]

It is photo which is one of the most important things. The better the photo editor, the better the photo will be. Is there anyone who can tell me how to be an expert in photo editor?

[mathjak107]

polishing a turd is still a turd. there is no relationship between the editor and the photo being better or worse

[Joe the Photog]

Take good pictures and the editting will take care of itself. Like photography, most of this stuff is best self-learned. By a book or two, but most important part is to actually practice. Good editting can have an effect on how the finished product will appear, but the most important part will always be when you have the camera in your hands taking the shot.

[ReturningWest]

I'm a real amature and use Adobe Photoshop Elements and have found it very helpful in fixing some of my not so great photos, I can crop to make the photo layout better, re-color, sharpen, straighten and lots of other things to help my lack of skill a bit, but again if your original photo is lacking no editor will help out that much.

[TN Tin Man]

Free.. PhotoScape.. takes less than 10 min down load. It will give you a basic editing too start with. Just watch what buttons you click on for down load.

[Nomadicus]

If your exposure is off or heavy shadows you want to show some detail in that you eye sees but the camera can't then a photo editor has the same features digitally that we used in the darkroom with film. Yes negative prints were altered. We were taught how in college photography. One of the easiest and cheapest pro photo editors I've found is Corel PaintShop Pro X5. It's on sale off and on for Less than $60. Pro quality features and an easy learning curve. Still it is important to think your photographs through. Move around to get the best light. The belief that anything can be fixed even in the best of Corel or Adobe's editors if false. Photoshop Elements is also a good entry level editor that has features once found only in Photoshop. HDR images can be taken using a tripod & cable release allowing for a better over all exposure. Some cameras do it in camera and others need the software to do the same thing. The standard saying about the full version of Photoshop was it is a two year learning curve. Most photographers don't need but a small portion of the tools in Photoshop. Lightroom is another editor on the pro level as is Aperture if you use a Mac. The bottom line is the better the camera sensor, the lens, and the exposure the better the print and the less editing needed. Editors are a real help when you can't pick the sunlight just the way it needs to be. Shooting in RAW and using an editor makes a big difference sometimes.

[WyoNewk]

You won't learn to be an expert with any photo editor by asking here. Many community colleges (most?) offer a semester-long course in photo editing -- usually using Adobe Photoshop I'd guess. After several "seminars" (one and two-day courses) and a few years of stumbling along on my own, I finally enrolled for a semester of image editing in a community college. While the instructor wasn't the best, that's when I got a good grasp of it, and I've continued to learn a little more year-by-year. After nearly 20 years of using Photoshop on almost a daily basis, I still don't consider myself an expert at it.

There are many ways to manipulate an image to make it better, but most of us just muddle along doing it the way we're most comfortable doing it. I'd say it would take at least a few years of study to get the most out of Photoshop. Not only do you need to learn all the tools available, you need to know when they're needed and must be able to judge how to use them. It's more than a skill -- almost an art in itself, and that's just to make an ordinary photo sparkle a little without it appearing "Photoshopped".

I was just hitting my stride in a wet darkroom, and then along came the digital camera.

But I must say, I much prefer working at my desk than spending days in a damp, dark, smelly darkroom, and once you get that first print the way you want it, it's soooooooo quick and easy to replicate it over and over.

[Nomadicus]

The community college is what I did. After two courses in B&W in the darkroom. Still you won't become and expert with even two courses. Learning by doing is where it is at. There is a good book published called Photoshop for Photographers. Unless you are going to sell as a pro Photoshop is a lot of money and the ROI just isn't there unless it is a hobby and it is still a lot cheaper than say skeet shooting. I've chosen Corel PaintShop Pro X5 to teach digital editing from in the studio because it is with in reach of the average budget. I'd rather teach Photoshop and the upper level Corel photo editor but the price makes it not a good idea. I started out using Photoshop elements that came with my first DSLR and soon purchase the real Photoshop. I've found some things actually much easier to do in PaintShop than Photoshop. There are somethings I need CorelDraw for. A complete professional digital darkroom will have a lot more than just one editor. A calibrated monitor and printer are a part of the complete package.

[WyoNewk]

Another advantage of taking a college course in it is that you can buy Photoshop through the bookstore at a greatly reduced price. My wife used to teach, and she got me my first Photoshop for $175 instead of around $500. After she quit teaching I paid for an upgrade or two, then when I took the course I got another full version for, I think, $225 rather than about $600 at that time. I don't know what it is now, but I really should go take another course and upgrade again. The savings almost pays for the course at a community college.

[Ms_Christina]

Better take that course soon as photoshop will only be available by subscription. But yeah, editing programs can only do so much. The big things you need to get right in camera is exposure, shadows and highlights, and focus. And to a degree, composition. Sometimes you can crop it better, sometimes you can't.