Total newbie seeks guidance

[Mir]

I've shot RAW+ JPEG for some time now but had never gotten around to process
any RAW's, aside from iPhoto's small stuff with the JPEGs...

I had bought Aperture but will not use it since it's being killed....

I've recently started reading about "black dot, white dot", Levels, curves and other processing stuff.

What software can i start learning on ??

I'm using this computer :
iMac Retina 5K
Yosemite OS X 10.10.2
4 GHz Intel Core i7
32 Go 1600 MHz DDR3
AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 Mo

I need all the input i can get !

[RSalles]

Hi Mir,

I find Adobe Lightroom very intuitive for beginners.

There is a lot of tutorials on the web to get you started, including youtube,

Cheers,

[eddieitman]

Honestly, Aperture is brilliant, and i can do 90% of what i need so quick in it, dont let it deter you that apple killed it

[Mir]

O.K.

And when Aperture can't be used anymore... what happens to the saved work ??

[cooltouch]

Hello, Mir, what camera are you using? I find that the software that came with my Canon EOS DSLR, Digital Photo Professional, was decent, at least, for converting raw images to .TIF or .jpg files.

Adobe Lightroom sure is popular nowadays, but I personally don't care for it. Photoshop's built-in raw converter is good, as is Paint Shop Pro's. My NEX, a camera that I'm still getting used to, came with "Image Data Converter," which I'm still playing around with, but it has a number of capabilities that can be used for raw conversion that have become quite useful.

[Nordentro]

Me too, I`ve always only used Photoshop and Bridge.

[trev]

I think DXO is great

[Mir]

[Nordentro]

I just rent it, Adobe CC has a monthly fee.

They have a decent priced Photoshop and Lightroom bundle for photographer.

[Aanything]

I too do 90% of my raw editing in aperture, and it works just fine for the basic raw development + tweaking: basically, the workflow is quite light, and I got used to the library structure in it.
For everything bigger than that, I go to photoshop - which I need for work so no extra costs.

That said, if I were to start now, I'd probably choose Lightroom: same user friendliness with a couple of more powerful tools (chromatic aberration removal in particular).

[kryss]

Mir....$10.00us per month for PS CC and Bridge and Lightroom? if that is not cheap enough for you I would find a cheaper Hobby/pastime.

[tb_a]

In essence it's a matter of taste. I am using Adobe Lightroom 6 for the normal import and conversion process. It's rather simple and easy to use and the advantage over some other systems I've tried so far is the additional use of plug-in software within the process. So it's a rather simple workflow and free of charge plug-ins are available as well. I am still using it because I am simply too lazy to adopt to a new solution and it's relatively user friendly for archiving and basic manipulation within a single package. I don't know if I would buy it new nowadays but the update fee from my old version was somehow affordable and reasonable for me. I don't like the idea to rent a program and pay for it, even when I pause my hobby for some time. Therefore even the apprx. $ 10 per month seems to be too expensive for me as I think I've paid only $ 60 for the update and may use it for ages.

For some rather tricky issues I also use Photoshop and some other tools and plug-ins.

If you are looking for a freeware (GNU), then GIMP is most probably the best and most advanced solution for photo editing and manipulation. It's also available to run natively on OS-X and most RAW formats are supported.

Just for the conversion and basic manipulation of RAW format pictures "RawTherapee" (GNU) is also a quite powerful solution and 100% free. Works also on OS-X.

However, the more powerful a solution is, the more of your time you have to invest for the "learning curve".

[miran]

I've been using RawTherapee for years and it's not just good enough, I think it's actually better than many non-free options for raw development. It doesn't have a library manager or things like selective editing, layers and external plugins though, it's "just" a raw converter (with many built-in tools), but a very good one. Just make sure to get the very latest version. And there's a bit of a learning curve. And it changes constantly (new features being added, old features being improved and refined), there's not one new realease every three years, but instead a constant stream of small incremental improvements, so it takes a bit of effort to stay current. If you're ok with all that, I think it could be a good solution for you. For other more advanced editing (like cloning, healing, compositing, blending etc) there are also very good free options. For instance gimp together with the gmic plugin can do pretty much anything.

[calvin83]

Capture One Express (for Sony) is free for Sony user.
https://www.phaseone.com/en/Imaging-Software/Capture-One-for-Sony/Supported-Sony-cameras.aspx?

[Mir]

Thank you all !

i'll look into Capture One reviews...