Photoshop software alternatives

[savagesax]

Well since we now have to lease Photoshop 6 Cloud are people using other programs for editing weddings? For example

I bought the 5D mk.3 and I can't upgrade Photoshop 4 to allow me to edit the Raw files.

 

So I have 2 questions.

 

1) Can I upgrade Lightroom to do the Raw wedding conversions? Using the Canon 5D mk 3.

 

2) Are there any other programs that wedding photographers use. I have Photoshop 6 but it is pretty different compared to

Photoshop 4.

 

Thank you in advance. Oh, if some of the readers are using other programs, what's the cost?

 

Have a great weekend!

[Spearhead]

<p>If you use the current version of Lightroom, you get the same raw processing as in current Photoshop. It's probably easier and less costly to upgrade LR unless you need features in CC that you don't have with CS4.</p>

[william-porter]

<p>Bob, This would be a big, important question for me — except that I never liked Photoshop every much anyway, so I've always avoided it. On the other hand, I haven't made things much easier for myself. I use:</p>

<ol>

<li>Lightroom 5 to manage my photos, and for ordinary, basic post-processing, and for output (because I like the way watermarks work in LR and because I like LR's export options generally). If the image isn't important to me I'll generally just knock it into shape in LR and be done with it. But rather often, I will move to one of the options that follow.</li>

<li>Perfect Photo Suite 8.5 for most of the things other photographers would do in Photoshop, including layers. </li>

<li>The Nik Collections for effects, and especially for black and white processing. </li>

<li>DxO Optics Pro 9 (just downloaded 10 today and will probably pay for my upgrade) for processing photos that need to save every single pixel of detail and/or need perspectival correction.</li>

</ol>

<p>I should list those as 2A and 2B rather than 2 and 3, because I use <em>either</em> OnOne's Perfect Photo Suite <em>or</em> the Nik plug-ins, and never both combined. But sometimes I will use DxO Optics Pro's raw conversion to generate a TIFF, then complete processing either in Lightroom, or Perfect Photo or Nik.<br>

All of these will support your Canon camera. I have to use the more expensive "Elite" version of DxO Optics Pro because I got rid of my full-frame cameras and I'm shooting now mostly with Olympus E-M1 and they decided they could charge extra for that. Kind of a bummer. On the other hand, the lens corrections in DxO Optics Pro are superb. <br>

I'm not using Aperture any more and don't expect great things from Apple's Photos program when it appears (probably later this year). I don't use PhotoNinja much either, and hardly ever turn to Raw Image Processor either, unless an image really stumps the other programs. But DxO Optics Pro can almost always do a better conversion from raw than Lightroom, whenever the Lightroom conversion isn't already excellent or at least good enough.</p>

<p>TOO MANY OPTIONS!</p>

<p>Will</p>

 

[michaelmowery]

<p>You can upgrade to CS6</p>

[chuck -]

<p>I'm not sure Bob has a problem - assuming that saying "Photoshop 4, and 6" really means "CS4 and CS6" (considerably newer releases <g>). Merely convert the Mk3 files to DNG. This can be done with the free Adobe DNG Converter, software like DxO, or numerous other offerings. At the worst case, the DPP software that came with the camera will convert to TIF, which can then be further edited in CS4 or CS6. Lots of options to still use the older Photoshop.</p>

[ellis_vener_photography]

Well you could use Adobe's free DNG CONVERTER so you can continue to use the version of ACR in PsCS4 to process

your CONVERTED RAW FILES,

 

1) yes

 

2) if you already have PsCS 6 why are you using PsCS 4? If you are afraid of learning how to use then I suggest you get

out of your own way.

 

Photoshop CC 2014 is effectively Photoshop 7 to infinity, not PsCS6.

 

And frankly paying $9.99 to pay for your lease on Photoshop and Lightroom 5 and future versions makes more economic

sense than popping out a couple of hundred bucks every couple of years and having to wait for the latest updates. Also

because it's a straight-up lease if you are running a business the expense is fully deductible.

 

You may already know this but Photoshop CC2014 and Lightroom 5 are installed on your computer and the only

connection to Adobe's cloud servers are when you download the program or updates.

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>I'm not a wedding photographer by ay stretch of imagination, but the times I did shoot weddings, was exactly the time that drove me away from Photoshop as main editing tool. Yes, it can do batch operations, but well... I found it cumbersome. Too slow, too many dialogs, not as integrated as could be.<br>

For working on high(er) volumes of work, tools as Lightroom, CaptureOne and similar are in my view just much better tailored tools. Photoshop remains, for the occassional image that needs a lot more work than the usual, but that's probably really just a fraction of the total. The $10/month offer from Adobe is very worth considering. Before changing your workflow, though, you might want to give some trial versions a look, as the alternatives to Lightroom shouldn't be overlooked just because Lightroom is the most widely used program. Other programs may work better <em>for you</em>; I know it's the case for me.</p>

[Marcus Ian]

<p>1.) Yes. LR5 is still available as an independent license, ie, CC not required. With it, you can convert your RAWs to DNGs or tiffs or whatever format you like to work in whatever version of PS you like to use. It's RAW codec supports the 5D3.</p>

<p>Of course, As chuck points out, Adobe DNG Converter can do that function at a much lower price... Of course, if you are using LR now, you would probably not like giving up the features that make it such a great piece of software.</p>

[henryp]

<p>The benefit of leasing is, presuming you itemize, the entire cost is a straightforward deduction. If you bought the software you'd have to amortize the price over the life of the product.</p>

<p>If you want something free, take a look at <a href="http://www.gimp.org/">Gimp</a>.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

[znabal]

<p>I was in the same situation when I bought my 6D. I went with Lightroom, which I'm finding takes care of 90+% of my needs, and on the rare occasion that I still need the tools of CS4, from Lightroom I go:<br>

Photo->Edit In->Edit IN Adobe CS4<br>

and up it pops. good luck -jeffl</p>

[midgley]

<p>dcraw which is open source and free can handle those raw files. A derivative of it, ufraw, may be more congenial. The Gnu Image Manipulation Program (gimp) will take files from ufraw and provides editing functions in abundance. Altertnatively do a conversion to something your proprietary editing software accepts such as TIFF or indeed JPEG and go on with the stuff you are used to.</p>

<p>and </p>