Good Editing Software for Amatuer using RAW

[Canon Soldier]

Hey guys, what is a good photo-editing software for an amatuer like me who wants to edit his RAW photos? I bought Corel PaintShopPro X2 yesterday, but i heard that it isn't very good for RAW. IMO, that kind of defeats the purpose if image editing, because your image quality will degrade if you work it too hard in jpeg format. So, any good suggestions? I was about to get elemnts 6, but it didn't look like it came with a raw conversion software. Is apple's Apperture good enough? I've heard somewhere that you dont even have to convert Raws to jpegs, but can edit them straight out of camera. This would be nice. Any suggestions?

[In2Photos]

Your camera came with a good editor, Digital Photo Professional.

Alternatively Photoshop Elements 6 does come with a RAW editor, Adobe Camera RAW or ACR for short (similar to the one used in Lightroom and Photoshop CS3).

[Canon Soldier]

it does? On the box it only said it comes with Adobe Photoshop Elemnts 6 and Adobe Bridge(whatever that is).

[qtaran111]

Personally I use ACR for the flexability, but DPP is a great RAW converter. Give it a go and take a look at the tutorials: http://www.usa.canon.com/content/dpp2/

[Canon Soldier]

OK, well im gonna go to Fry's and return the PaintShopPro and do some more resarch.

[In2Photos]

it does? On the box it only said it comes with Adobe Photoshop Elemnts 6 and Adobe Bridge(whatever that is).
Well ACR isn't a standalone "program" like Elements and Bridge. Think of it more like a plugin. But yes, it is included.

[qtaran111]

it does? On the box it only said it comes with Adobe Photoshop Elemnts 6 and Adobe Bridge(whatever that is).

If you do go down the PS route, then learn to use Bridge as well. Bridge is your friend; it helps you review, organise, rate, group your images and you can run ACR via Bridge without having to open up PS. Doing stuff via Bridge will save you lots of time.

[cdifoto]

DPP.

[hidden forms]

Adobe Lightroom/Aperture sounds like what your looking for,i use lightroom have have not look back, download the 30 day free trail - www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs_lightroom2
or for Aperture - www.apple.com/aperture/trial/

[Canon Soldier]

thanks for all the responeses. I'm still a little confused about everything, like what Bridge is and how i convert RAWs, but ill do some more research(maybe one more thread sorry)?

[CyberDyneSystems]

DPP for FREE! Then on to Elements for your other tweeking.

[blinded]

Could always try RAW therappe or Picasa if you like free stuff. Lightroom is too expensive IMO.

[shazree]

Adobe Bridge comes together with Photoshop CS2 and CS3. It can run without photoshop but you cannot install it without photoshop. It is companion program to photoshop. We call it Bridge in short. It is your best friend for viewing, categorizing and it allows you to tweak your Raw files and save to JPEG. You can even do batch processing like Auto-Adjustment if you are too lazy to go through your files one by one like me. Bridge takes about 4-8 seconds to save a file from Raw to JPEG.

[gjl711]

Im piling on the DPP bandwagon. It's great to get started with, the price is right, and has a pretty decent interface. If your going to get more serious, ARC along with PS3 and all the toys that go along with it is definitely a good investment.

[Canon Soldier]

thanks for all the responses guys you people are so helpful!

[René Damkot]

DPP + Elements.

[dekalbSTEEL]

DPP + PSP X2;)

No Adobe for me (except for their flash player, else I wouldn't be able to view half the crap on the web!)

[Canon Soldier]

hmm... I can get the latest version of DPP from the web, so thats cool. The last two posts suggest DPP and PSE6/PSPX2. Don't these things accomplish the same thing? Doesn't DPP do all the things that PSE6/PSP can do? What is the point of having both?

[dekalbSTEEL]

A pixel editor such as photoshop or Paint Shop Pro allow you to do layers, masking, cloning, straightening, use plugins for special effects, etc.

Much more powerful than DPP. (which I use to make exposure, WB, and file name changes

[Canon Soldier]

hmm. Ok, so if i only had Lightroom or DPP, and never had to do any dodge/burn, clone etc. i could get by? So if the only two programs to help with my photos were DPP and a Photoshop, would that be enough? Too much?

[blinded]

hmm. Ok, so if i only had Lightroom or DPP, and never had to do any dodge/burn, clone etc. i could get by? So if the only two programs to help with my photos were DPP and a Photoshop, would that be enough? Too much?
You could. Lightroom will have dodging, burning, and cloning I think come LR2. The amount you can do in Photoshop anyways basically is an end all as it is, and you could even get by without Lightroom and just use ACR with Bridge if you want (LR is also based of ACR).

[Canon Soldier]

hmm ok then. So what is the point of having, say, CS3 as well as Lightroom? I am guessing CS3 will just have more advanced editing tools.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Check out the Stickies above to find the threads on "workflow" or try a title search in theis forum
Also look at some of the other tutorials in the sticky threads..
this will illustrate clearly what operations are done in a RAW converter, and which ones many do in Photoshop.

[blinded]

hmm ok then. So what is the point of having, say, CS3 as well as Lightroom? I am guessing CS3 will just have more advanced editing tools.

Many people ask this question. Both LR and ACR have very similar tool sets. In terms of developing the RAW, they're identical. LR just has the catalog system and printing built in mainly. And a different (HORRIBLE) exporting system.

[john-in-japan]

Greetings - I am a serious amateur as well, running Elements 6 on my regular computer, but I often get a 'low disk space' message (Sony Vaio), because I have lots of other things installed. My naive question is: Do you recommend a computer solely dedicated to your photo post processing? I am shooting Jpeg on my 5D, but will want to get into Raw and post production experimentation. With Raw, I am sure I will bloat my already bloated computer. Thinking of a new computer acquisition just for this purpose. Good idea?
Thanks,
John