Hello

[scott.mckendall]

Hi, I’m brand new here and still relatively new to “true” photography. I’ve always been the type to snap tons of photos with a point-and-shoot camera when traveling. However, a year and a half ago, I purchased my first DSLR camera to take on my honeymoon. Since then, I have taken a few classes about exposure, composition, etc, in order to take a bigger leap into photography (beyond the “Auto” setting). Since taking these classes, I am just now starting to notice a difference in my photography. I have gone from taking a hundred okay shots and hopefully having a few good ones to taking only a few choosy shots. This is why I am here – I don’t really have a photograph that started this interest for me, it was just the feeling of beginning to look at photography in a different way.

I don’t use any post-processing software because I haven’t gotten to that point yet. I only use the proprietary Nikon software that ships with the camera in order to tweak exposure or crop here and there. So, if anyone has any good pointers on post-processing software for beginners, I would be more than appreciative.

[makane]

I am a beginner also, do not have photoshop and all that, but do have fun with the post processing apps. Loving Snapseed, Distressed_fx and vsco. Enjoy!

[David Nathan]

GIMP is free and supposedly quite good. I basically only use LightRoom for my RAW although Photoshop CS has it’s uses as well.
Lightroom 5 allows you to do a lot, and it’s not overly complicated for beginner use at all.

[scott.mckendall]

I may have to give GIMP a shot. Any thoughs about the differences/similarities between LightRoom and Elements? I have heard a lot about LightRoom, so that is probably the direction I will go in once I am ready to go to that level.

[David Nathan]

Well I’m no pro but it basically seems this way – Lightroom is for light editing and primarily workflow. It enables you to import a batch of RAW files, add automatic presets to your imports, adjust exposure, white balance, crop, high and low lights, contrast, clarity, saturation, sharpness noise reduction and can even give you camera profiles which will reduce chromatic aberration for example.
Photoshop is more about cutting an image apart, splicing images and merging, etc.
I have CS but don’t use it often as I don’t hack my images apart. I use Lightroom to handle my RAWS and make minor adjustments.
It all depends on what you want to do.
GIMP is a great start because it’s free, and gaining respect in the community.

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