UKC

If you were recommending editing software for a novice to use and learn on which would it be. From some searching I'm leaning to photoshop elements as its a one off purchase and not a subscription and seems to get decent reviews.

I've just bought a Sony rx10 mk4 which i plan to try and learn on but with little knowledge its all a bit daunting.

finally got to a stage in my life where I'm going to have  a lot more free time so going to be a lot of trial and error i guess.

thanks .

I bought a Sony A6400 a few years ago and having gained loads of ideas from experts here and elsewhere I decided on Capture One Pro. A one off purchase of £180 (sale price). I absolutely love it. For me it's easy to work with plus loads of online support. As a result my photos have jumped significant leaps in quality. 

Good luck on your journey. 

https://www.darktable.org/

There are two main types of editing software. 

1. Software that organises and edits your Raw photos.

This type of software is ideal for most users, it allows you to tweak and improve your photos. But is less good for making composites and photo art. 

The classic example is Lightroom, which used to be the industry standard, although Capture 1 Pro is great, and DarkTable is a free alternative.

2. The other type is editing software such as photoshop and photoshop elements which give you a lot of power to do almost anything to a photo, but are quite complex and take a while to learn.

In conclusion Elements is good, but depending on what you want to do, you might be better off with type 1 software.

​​​​​​They are all good, Capture 1 Pro has a higher initial cost, Lightroom has a yearly subscription, and Dark table is free (but perhaps less featured and powerful). 

I started off with PS Elements many years ago, but then decided to make the leap and try the monthly subscription to Lightroom and PS.

I used it for about a year and realised I wasn't really doing anything more than what I had been doing in PS Elements so have reverted back to that and happy with the results.

How does GIMP fit in? It's free.

GIMP is free software that is similar to Photoshop but less featured and less polished. 

Spot on...

I would how ever perhaps emphasise that the type one is perhaps not Edit but more like develop your photos (so akin to digital darkroom ). Sure they now have some fancy options, but I'd still say that they are still more focused on the develop (or enhance) the photo.

Type 2 is then the Photoshop and the likes. You can naturally develop the photos with these as well, but you'd use about 2% of the application capabilities for this. Where these shine, is if you really need to alter the reality. The term/verb photoshop is spot on. So in capable hands, you can do all sorts of really cool things with photoshop, like blend in a photo of a model spacecraft into a city scene ... some really cool ones here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/avanaut/

And indeed some use both types...

In addition to the advice and alternatives given re Photoshop, the is also Affinity Photo (which may be Mac only). It's a viable photoshop alternative but is very inexpensive and a one-off purchase. The online community is pretty good for advice.

I don’t have a Sony, but if I was starting out as a novice with one I would probably first look at Sony’s offerings especially you are not sure where you want to go with amount of processing etc.  I see they offer a free Capture One Express (Sony). https://www.captureone.com/en/capture-one-express/sony .

This should, hopefully, give you an easy learning start, and no doubt raw processing to suit the camera from Sony’s viewpoint. If you are only looking for type 1 software (as Dan mentions) it may do you for most of your photos for a while. If then you like Capture One you could update with hopefully a smaller learning curve than if you go to a different software manufacturer.

Things you may want to consider now though as they may influence what you start with. Eg - how far you think you will go with processing, whether you are interested in cloud storage, regular updates, online learning tutorials, AI technology processing, using one software for all or happy to use many separates together (eg separate ones for raw processing, for noise reduction, for basic and for detailed processing? Lots of variables that some packages provide for better than others.

Personally, I started with Adobe, but for various reason I gave up. I now have ON1 outright purchase basic version. Suited my requirements and has been great.

ON1 was easy to learn the basic editing with only a few controls to learn; just ignore all the things you don’t need which do need a greater degree of learning. It has a lot of AI processing which of course would do a huge amount for you at a click of a few buttons if that was your thing. If not, you have full manual control and can start using any of the more complex controls as and when you feel happy to try. Learning wise - they do hundreds of hours of online video on all aspects of their software to help, plus community help, plus email (some parts you have to pay for a year’s access unless you subscribe when it is included).

They do a free trial and satisfaction guarantee - https://www.on1.com/. They are about to launch a new version btw, but if you bought/subscribed now you would get the updated version when it is released. However, I believe the new one has been quite radically changed so if in no hurry I would wait - why learn controls and methods that may have shifted, changed, added to, removed or whatever!

For the OPs benefit I found the free Capture One Express for Sony quite frustrating. Not that it's bad software, anything but. It just didn't give me a 'real' feel for what was possible with editing (enhancing). Only once I took the leap of faith did I get a real feel for what Capture One is capable of. And how much more I'm enjoying taking and editing my photos.

So much so I recently got asked to photo someone's renewal of their vows ceremony (a different thread). 

PS I'm not trying to sell/push Capture One, just sharing my experience. I do like the description above. Capture One enhances your photos. It takes what you've got and allows you to make it better. I believe Photoshop allows you to be far more creative ie make stuff up.

Useful for the OP to help decide, thanks.  I guessed there would be a limit of what was on offer for free.

I think the story for me was two fold. One was learning how to edit. The other was learning how to use Capture One. 

I def think HeMa's comments ring true. Does the OP want to create stuff, or merely enhance the photos they already take? I know I def fall into the latter category. 

Genuine question here: is Lightroom not still the industry standard? Or is Capture 1 more common now?

From reading threads on here I doubt Capture One is commonly used. Lightroom appears to be far more popular. That, and Darktable.

Lightroom is still the standard. A recent survey showed 58% of photographers use it, with Luminar 2nd, then capture 1

I still use it. And like it enough that I've not tried the alternatives. I've sunk a lot of time into learning it and getting an efficient work flow. 

I've stopped recommending it as a no brainer choice, as now there are good alternatives depending on what people want.

I have Lightroom (and the rest of Creative Cloud including Photoshop), but still find the cataloguing relatively poor compared to Aperture (an old Mac application - now discontinued), but it is functional and stable. When having a massive sort out, a while back, Photo Mechanic was the best to organise and sort things out. Duplicate detection for all these things remains very primitive and so being organised from the start is definitely the way to go.  I tried Capture One a few years ago and just could not get on with it. Dropbox back up of all mounted camera cards works well although the automatic name change is a nuisance. 

For the home user Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023 may be the best option. Single purchase - not too expensive and definitely able to do most tweaks without the massive AI inputs in photoshop that are wasted on the majority of photographers.

I've only ever used darktable because it does everything I (think I) want. But genuinely interested to know what if anything more you get from lightroom. Am I missing out on loads or is it just... different?

I use Photoshop Elemnts(version 11) and it does most of what I need. The organiser part of PSE11 is very useful as you can apply multiple tags to photos and once you get more than just a few photos you really need some way of cataloguing them.

I also, now and again, use GIMP. It does just about everything and it is free.

Dave

That was my perception from afar too, which is why I asked. Thanks for taking the time.

I would very strongly recommend trying Capture 1 Express for Sony. It is free, so nothing to lose and you could pay to upgrade to the full Capture 1 Pro if you get on with it (you can get a free trial of this). It only does global changes, but that should be fine for the time being. I use the Fuji version (the free Express versions and only available for Sony and Fuji) and only very rarely use anything other then basic exposure, highlights and shadows and black and white points (which you want to master before anything else anyway) though it will do a lot more if you want. The only drawback for me is that it does not do spot removal and I have to do that using the free Microsoft Picture Gallery software once I have exported jpegs (I often do final tweeks using this too). I have done a free trial of Capture 1 Pro, but decided I really didn't need it at the price for the sort of photography I do (it could all get horribly time consuming!) though I've not ruled it out in future.

You can do everything you need in Lightroom. Before you start any editing tutorials learn about organising photos, and backing them up. Dont put 15000 photos in a folder all named img-000001 

When I was looking into editing photos for the first time I tried Lightroom but found the organising and cataloging stuff baffling and intimidating and nearly gave up on the whole thing. I decided to just give up on it and I now store my photos simply using the filing on my laptop with appropriate backup (all familiar to me already)and this works fine for me. I could then concentrate on the editing which is, after all, the important bit. I've never even attempted to use the cataloging stuff on capture 1.

I use LR regularly and PS occasionally. I'm on the photography plan which along with editing and cataloguing on a laptop; it also allows you view, edit and maybe most usefully share your photos. The monthly subscription (photography plan) I think is decent value if you use it fairly regularly. 

I believe its the current market leader. 

Ta

Thanks very much for all the info, very informative. think I will try the capture one for Sony  and see how I go with that to start. Thank you all for taking the time to reply.

you can catalogue in LR to exactly mirror whats in your backup. plus all nondestructive edits, keywords, camera, lens info etc etc. plus you can see all photos rather then file names