What do you use for Editing

[AcadieLibre]

Always curious, so just like to know what photo editing software those here use. As of now I use Aperture 2 (Upgraded last week from 1.5) for all my editing. I am thinking about trying out Adobe Lightroom for their 30 day trial. I do own PS CS3 but so far not used it for photo editing and have it for Graphic Art. I know many who do use PS but always found it overkill for what I am trying to limit myself to do with post processing. Try to limit myself to mostly exposure and vibrancy adjustments, not that it always happens that way lol. That may change though somewhat at some point in time (other words not anytime soon) I would like to try HDR and eventually some IR more for learning than actually using either technique with any regularity. Since I am a new at DSLR like to know what others use. I try and take photos that get as close as I can to what I want to end up with outside what I think I would do in a dark room.

I posted on another forum that I bracket and the response what lets say not what I expected, I shoot in RAW, but to me RAW is like a negative, anyway I digress they said why concern yourself with bracketing when you can fix RAW files anyway. I bracket because I want to take good photos and not poor ones that I spend time to fix, that is just for me, what others shoot is their choice but I like to get good at anything I do, for my opinion anyway. Once I can take good Photos I may start doing other post processing work, but to start I want get good at being a photographer first and it is why I tend to stick with Aperture.

[Marko]

I Played with lightroom for a wee bit about 10 months ago and it looked great.

I think i too will download that free version and play again.

I currently use PS and Bridge for pretty much everything. Even though PS can be intimidating due to all the choices I find that i can also do very simple things very quickly.

[AcadieLibre]

I believe with Lightshop you can tie it into PS somehow. With Aperture if your on an Apple you can get and Workflow Action Pack that you can use some of Adobe PS actions within Aperture. I had it with Aperture 1.5 but going to find out what I did that it won't work in 2.0, may just be a minor screw up on my side or I may just need to redo it.

Aperture also offers a full 30 day trial for download, how I choose when I did, downloaded both and gave them both a try side by side.

[tegan]

Photography and editing should be learned together because they inter-relate. Learning editing forces you to look at every detail in your photo and improves your "eye" for the next time you look through the viewfinder. Any pro with a decent eye realizes that all photos require editing to improve some of the general weaknesses of digital imaging irrespective of minor mistakes.

I use Photoshop, PaintShop Pro and Nik software filters.

Tegan

[Travis]

I'm green in photography, and don't do much post at this point but I've been playing with GIMP. It is open source software and gets good online reviews. Have any of the more seasoned digital photographers tried this software?

If you don't have a big budget and need post flexibility you might want to try it. It's free.

[AcadieLibre]

I like GIMP but it is like Photoshop, I used to use it when I was running a Linux box but I have always had a copy of PS for business purposes, GIMP is a great software but I know PS inside out and just never bothered the learn GIMP as well as I should have and have a copy on my Mac I play with on occasion but old habits are hard to break. GIMP is a very viable Open Source alternative and thanks for mentioning it, well worth exploring before spending the money on PS.