There has been much debate about which one is the best post-processing software for photography. I decided to write on this topic because I am also confused on this matter and wanted to see what my readers have to say about it. Photography grew as a hobby within me and now it’s becoming a serious passion. I don’t do it to make my living out of it, at least not until today but, I have to admit that it's an expensive hobby to have. As you learn more, you will find that you know very little and there is more area for the improvement. Learning is a never ending process but it would be a fun to learn about something you would love doing. As my journey continues with the photography and learning more about photography, I recently stumbled upon the post-processing software and I am excited to explore more on this area and improve my editing skills.
When you search online about our today’s topic, you will get hundreds of thousands of articles and they all have mixed opinions. There are many software available in the market and they all have their positive sides as well as some negative. But I think getting any particular software is an individual choice and also depends on many factors like how expensive the software is?, how steep the learning curve is?, and so on.
Nikon Capture NX2
Personally, I had never used any expensive and complex software to edit my photos. Most of the time, I use Google Picasa to crop my images, put watermarks and tweak some lighting and color saturation. But nowadays, I have been shooting RAW images occasionally and I felt the need for good software to edit my pictures. I did little bit of research on the internet and got Nikon Capture NX2 recently. But, for the most of the time, and also depending on the situation, I don't process them much. Some people may use it because they have heard about it and want to try it out but don't really need it? When I just started photography, I didn't want to spend couple hundred dollars to buy an expensive software just to edit the picture. I used free software that were available to download for anyone and didn’t have much learning curve as well. As I started learning more about photography, I also learned that spending little bit of money for the software also became necessary if I wanted the best result. Free is good but not the best always.
I have also downloaded GIMP but haven't had chance to use it that much. Some people say it's the best and free alternative for the Photoshop Elements. I have also got some suggestions about post processing from pro photographers. And they said, when you start shooting in a RAW mode, that is the only time you might want to start using post-processing software to edit the details. Most of the time, specially if it is a friends and family gathering, I shoot in JPEG FINE mode and do not feel the need of editing much except cropping sometimes.
Anyway, here is the list of few popular and standard post processing software I found during my research.
Capture NX 2 (Nikon)
GIMP(FREE)
Adobe Photoshop (Licensed)
Google Picasa(FREE)
Apple Aperture (Licensed)
iPhoto (Comes with MAC)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom (Licensed)
These are my short list but you can get any software depending on your need and availability in the market. There are many more choices but please do some research before you spend your hard earned money on it. If you are a pro photographer and make your living from photography, post-processing software is a must have tool in today’s market. But, if you are doing photography just for fun or starting it out as a hobby, then may be its a good idea to learn from freely available software first and then slowly move towards the licensed software by properly calculating your need and budget for it.
If you have got any software for post-processing, please feel free to share your experience and let us know what do you think about it.
When I started my journey in digital photography ten years ago, I didn't have much interest in post processing. I was more focused on learning photography techniques, know more about the camera controls and the settings and get familiar with the gears, lights and other accessories. As I started gaining more experience with the camera setup and the gears, I felt more comfortable with the technical aspects of the shooting. Slowly, I started learning about the composition technique and used my technical skills to capture the image on various situations. The more I shoot, the more I felt that the camera was not able to capture all the colors I see through the lens. This is when I started to explore the possibility of introducing post-processing tool in my digital photography career. When I was shopping around for my first full frame but third DSLR, Nikon D700, I got introduced to Nikon’s own post-processing tool, Capture NX2, and without putting too much thought into it, I started using it. Since it was my first experience with any kind of post-processing tool, there was a steep learning curve for me but I enjoyed the process. After I started using Capture NX2 for a while, I felt like I was missing a big part of digital photography by overlooking the editing process in my early days of photography. Within a couple of months of using the software, I realized that, when post-processing is applied carefully and skillfully, it can completely change the look and feel of the picture and make it more alive again. But, suddenly, when I was just getting the hang of it, Nikon decided to discontinue the Capture NX2 software and stopped releasing the future updates and the support for the new cameras. I was still able to use the software (to process RAW files from my D700) for a couple of years even after their announcement but it became completely useless when I upgraded my D700 to D810 in 2017.
I had no choice but look for the alternatives which would support the RAW files from the Nikon D810. After doing much research, I decided to go with Adobe Lightroom. It's been little over a year since I started using the Lightroom and I couldn't be more happier. It is lightweight and very powerful program which works well with the varieties of RAW files. When I download the pictures on the computer, I import the RAW (NEF format) files directly into the Lightroom library and edit them when I want to. Besides Lightroom, I don't use any other tool to process my pictures. In terms of editing the picture, what I can do with the Lightroom, I could also do with the Capture NX2 but the process was complex and time consuming. In my experience, I found Lightroom to be much faster compared to the Capture NX2 and provides various powerful tools to edit the pictures with much more ease than it’s competitors. All of the edits done inside the Lightroom are non-destructible, which means Lightroom doesn't modify the original RAW file but only adds the instructions on the file based on what settings were applied during the development of the picture and renders the image by layering up those instructions step by step. You can always go back to the previous steps and undo the changes you made in those steps. However, Lightroom being a linear program, what you can not do is; you can not undo or erase one particular step in the middle and keep rest of the edits intact. For example, after applying 10 steps of editing (changing any one setting is one step of editing), you can’t undo only the 7th step and preserve the changes made in 8th, 9th and 10th steps. If you do so, it will delete everything from the 7th step up-to the 10th step and you have to progress the future editing from the 7th step again.