The Power of The Gimp

[aldonova65]

I've been working on the photo below off and on for the last couple of days. It required some post processing that I've never had to do before. Since I don't yet have a copy of Photoshop, I'm using The Gimp which is a freeware photo manipulation program. It's pretty powerful, but not very intuitive to use. Anyway, I could only work on it a little

Comments

[macaholic]

f you are going to spend the money, I recommend Adobe LIghtroom over Photoshop. Less expensive and better suited to photographers. Most of Photoshop functionality for photography is included. There are some notable absences but at this point, I doubt you will miss them.

And, if you ever want someone to go shoot with you... let me know.

[aldonova65]

I'm very seriously considering Lightroom 2 instead of Photoshop CS4. My teacher is biased towards PS but mainly because he's been using it for years and is comfortable with it. He acknowledges that Lightroom can do just about everything a photographer regularly needs to do but he figures that since there are a few things it can't do (what, I don't know) that you need Photoshop for, why not just use Photoshop for everything.

[macaholic]

Go to adobe.com and try free demos of PS Elements, Lightroom, and PS. least exp and least featured is Elements bit it may suit your needs for now. For most phtographers, Lightroom is the best buy. And you can get some free or shareware that can do most of the rest you will need.

The two most significant features that I use in PS that Lightroom does not have are the ability to modify the photo to correct for distortion or create distortion and to approach a finer point of correction of flaws or desired changes (cloning). LR can do the latter but on a grosser level. PS can also copy pictures and layer them to perform a variety of edits and/or stitch them together. So can other programs.

Also, if your instructor has not said this, you should shoot everything in RAW format as it gives you far greater control over the image.

[aldonova65]

I downloaded the 30 day trial and I'll start playing with it tomorrow. I'm tempted to go with Photoshop, though, because I'm eligible to buy it at the student price which is actually cheaper than the full retail version of Lightroom.

I'm actually still shooting in JPG right now because I'm concentrating on learning the camera and other basic skills. Once I settle on a software solution and start developing a more consistent workflow, I'm planning on switching over to RAW and seeing what the possibilities are with that. Fortunately, the D90 has a pretty nice JPG engine so I don't feel like I'm missing out on much at this early point in my learning experience. There's only so much I can absorb at one time.

I just might take you up on that offer to go shooting in a few weeks. Once all the women get back to their normal school schedules, it will be easier to know what evenings and weekends I have free.