Software for the hobbyist wantign more..

Ok Girls and Guys,
I am sure this topic has been covered before many times over, but I'm not sure how to word a search to find the answers I am looking for. Anyway, I just do photography as a hobby for now, but am hoping to develop my talent enough to start doing some paid shooting. I am deciding what route to take as far as post processing software. Most of what I have done to this point has been nature, sports, horse photography, and Gimp has done great for doing simple things like cropping, tweaking contrast and brightness, etc... BUT, last night I had my first real experience with portrait type photography, and that seems to be a whole other ball game when it comes to editing. I have read good things about Gimp as a free alternative for the hobbyist, but at this point I am seeing that to me, it seems like a pain in the butt to get decent results out of. I KNOW I can learn more about it, and get better results with less effort, but I am debating if it is worth my time and effort reading all of the tutorials etc on Gimp or not. If I do end up making this a semi professional thing, am I going to end up wanting something better than Gimp? Should I just bite the bullet now and get some decent software and learn it instead of Gimp? What are the best options in inexpensive/free software for a hobbyist that can't spend a fortune on software until he can at least make enough cash on jobs to pay it off and break even?

Thanks for any input,
Todd

DPP/Zoombrowser is free software that comes along with the Canon camera.

^Ditto. you can do a lot more than you might imagine with DPP(digital photo professional)
Here are a serious of video tutorial to walk you through Raw and working with DPP.
http://www.learn.usa.c​anon.com …rials/dpp_tutor​ials.shtml

Beyond that, in the event you do take it to the next level you will want something more to organize, develop and publish your photos. For that you might find that one of the more popular applications is Photoshop Lightroom.
Here are some video tutorial for Lightroom that can show you all that you can do with it.
http://tv.adobe.com/sh​ow/learn-lightroom-3/

If you need more then you might consider Photoshop Elements which can work hand in hand with Lightroom.

Next step might possibly be Photoshop CS5 which will allow you to do everything you will need and then some. It will also work hand in hand with Lightroom, but IMHO, if you have CS5 you won't need Lightroom. You''ll have everything you need to organize, develop, publish and even totally manipulate your pictures.

+1 for trying out DPP. It should have come with your camera and will do a lot of what you want much more simply than using GIMP.

Even better than DPP is Adobe Lightroom 3. It will cost you a couple hundred dollars, but it will do just about everything you need from raw processing, to basic editing, and overall photo organisation. I would suggest you check out the free 30 day trial. I recently did the trial, went ahead and bought the license, and feel like it was money well spent.

Photoshop Elements is pretty slick, and under $100.

shedberg wrote in post #12741807
Photoshop Elements is pretty slick, and under $100.

I was just starting to wonder about Elements. I think I am going to do some research in the differences between Elements and Lightroom. I think it may be narrowed down to those two choices from the little reading I have done so far. Good thing about Elements obviously is the price, but if I got Lightroom and then progressed further into things and decided I needed Photoshop, I could still use Lightroom for cataloging photos etc..

golfingguy27 wrote in post #12741844
I was just starting to wonder about Elements. I think I am going to do some research in the differences between Elements and Lightroom. I think it may be narrowed down to those two choices from the little reading I have done so far. Good thing about Elements obviously is the price, but if I got Lightroom and then progressed further into things and decided I needed Photoshop, I could still use Lightroom for cataloging photos etc..

There are a lot of differences between Photoshop Elements and Lightroom. But they can work together.
I recommend downloading the 30 day trial of each from the Adobe Web Site. You will have 100% functionality until your 30 days is up, then you need to decided whether or not you want to buy. If you decide to buy all you need to pay for is the License activation Key.

2nd the suggestion for Elements. Cheap and does a lot of what Photoshop does. If you reach a point where it doesn't do enough and you want to transition to Photoshop, the learning curve will be easier than starting from scratch.

OTH, if you can afford the extra $$, Lightroom is a great product. I spend 95% of my processing, organizing time in LR. IF LR had better cloning, I'd probably never leave it.

golfingguy27 wrote in post #12741844
I was just starting to wonder about Elements. I think I am going to do some research in the differences between Elements and Lightroom. I think it may be narrowed down to those two choices from the little reading I have done so far. Good thing about Elements obviously is the price, but if I got Lightroom and then progressed further into things and decided I needed Photoshop, I could still use Lightroom for cataloging photos etc..

I use lightroom and Elements. Since I shoot raw, I start in LR and that I only use Elements for designing posters or if I need to use the content aware feature. I have CS5 but don't use/need it.

I just downloaded the trial version of PortraitProfessional lastnight. Holy cow! I use DPP on most of my photos, and GIMP when I need to do something that DPP can't. I'm not normally a portrait guy, but this program can do amazing stuff. I'm just trying to decide between the $39.95 or $59.95 (RAW capable) version.

golfingguy27 wrote in post #12741844
I was just starting to wonder about Elements. I think I am going to do some research in the differences between Elements and Lightroom. I think it may be narrowed down to those two choices from the little reading I have done so far. Good thing about Elements obviously is the price, but if I got Lightroom and then progressed further into things and decided I needed Photoshop, I could still use Lightroom for cataloging photos etc..

Photoshop Elements comes with ACR, (Adobe Camera Raw) on the front end, I believe. At least that's the way mine works. In ACR, I do the white balance correction to RAW files, correct exposure if needed, cut out any highlight clipping ... stuff like that. Then import (one click from ACR) into PSE7 for final editing, cropping, sharpening and convert to .tif file from there.

I don't own and use Lightroom, but believe many here use it as a single solution for all editing functions. LR is becoming really popular and more than likely for the single solution it offers.

dave

PS Elements is a good "stepping stone" for PP. It ain't free like DPP but budget friendly. Sometimes it goes on sale or there are discounts.

LR3 is a bigger stepping stone, which I prefer for it's importing/cataloging and ease of use workflow.

snyderman wrote in post #12745141
Photoshop Elements comes with ACR, (Adobe Camera Raw) on the front end, I believe. At least that's the way mine works.

The version of Adobe Camera Raw that is used with Photoshop Elements is a stripped down version with only the very basics and not the more comprehensive tools like you get with ACR for CS*. And if I am not mistaken there are other limitations also.

The nice thing about ACR for Photoshop CS* is that you can do everything you need to a photo without even taking it into Photoshop. Since the same Camera Raw Technology is also used in LR, that's one thing that makes it such an attractive package for most people.

And, occasionally, Adobe will give a substantial discount to Elements users who want to move on to PhotoShop.

BTW, +1 on Portrait Professional.

tkerr wrote in post #12745459
The version of Adobe Camera Raw that is used with Photoshop Elements is a stripped down version with only the very basics and not the more comprehensive tools like you get with ACR for CS*. And if I am not mistaken there are other limitations also.

The nice thing about ACR for Photoshop CS* is that you can do everything you need to a photo without even taking it into Photoshop. Since the same Camera Raw Technology is also used in LR, that's one thing that makes it such an attractive package for most people.

What kind of extra features do they have in the CS5 ACR?