Best Photo Editing Software

[ReadyDiverOne]

Yeah I think a lot of the free programs are awesome but for getting rid of backscatter—which I don’t care what anyone says is just inevitable on some photos no matter how good you are about strobe placement—Pixelmator Pro is just the bomb. Last I looked I think it was 50. And of course it does everything else too.

 

[Chris_D]

I am a big fan of open source software, which is free.

For cataloging and managing your collection, try Digikam digiKam

For fine-tuning photos, try Darktable darktable - the photo workflow software

Both are powerful, work with Mac, Windows and Linux, and have supportive user groups.

Paint.net, which is freeware, is also popular.

As others have mentioned, the key is to shoot raw which gives you the greatest latitude for corrections.

For more on photo editing software, see Comparison of raster graphics editors - Wikipedia

 

[peterak]

Yeah I think a lot of the free programs are awesome but for getting rid of backscatter—which I don’t care what anyone says is just inevitable on some photos no matter how good you are about strobe placement—Pixelmator Pro is just the bomb. Last I looked I think it was 50. And of course it does everything else too.

Could you elaborate about what makes Pixelmator Pro so good for removing backscatter?

 

[ReadyDiverOne]

I just find its clone replacement brush easy to use and it does just a great job of cloning the surrounding pixels and replacing the backscatter with the appropriate blue ocean color without too much pixelating or artifacts. It is laborious, but if you zoom way in on the photo, say to 200% or even 400% you can zap a lot scatter with one click by making your circle a centimeter or even larger in diameter, which if the photo is displayed at "fit to screen" is a tiny little circle you can barely see. Does that make sense? I can do a screen shot.

 

[martincohn]

Here is the worst out of them all... I played around with the others on my Mac book photo software and sort of salvaged them. I tried with this one but I don't think there is any saving this one lol!

Make it B&W...issue solved.

Not part of the normal workflow, but a last ditch effort.

 

[btscott]

I still use Photoshop CS2. Is there any significant reason to upgrade and pay a monthly fee for Lightroom and Photoshop?

 

[bvanant]

Darktable is both free and interesting. One minor (or major) PITA is that it can not load files from external drives, you can though drag and drop.
Bill

 

[hedonist222]

I stopped using light room when they changed from ownership to rental scheme

I used Darktable, which is very similar to LR

But then I purchased Luminar AI for about $70

Not as complex/advanced as LR but thats what I wanted

Dont have the time to properly learn LR