Rondog Loc: Western Mass

I would like some advice on the best editing software for a Hobbyist....Photoshop,,Elements,,Lightroom,,Light,,Classic,,Stant alone,,Subsciption. HELP if you can?????

rdubreuil Loc: Dummer, NH USA

Industry standard is the Adobe suite, but based on your budget there are alternatives. You may want to look at Affinity’s product line, or a slew of other offerings, googles great for comparing.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

If you haven't bought anything, consider the trial period offer for any candidate software. Use one at a time for the entire trial period, including the available training, possibly always against the same set of 20 to 100 images. Make an informed decisions that hopefully gets it right the first time.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

That is a good suggestion.

Joe

R.G. Loc: Scotland

You don't say if you're starting from scratch. Ps Elements would give you a good introduction to the full Ps, and the ACR section in PSE would give you an introduction to Lightroom. Think of PSE as a condensed, simplified version of Ps and Lr. In fact it's quite generic, which would help if you ever wanted to move on to something non-Adobe.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Are a serious hobbyist or just planning to be?
If you're a serious hobbyist you probably have some editing experience. If you just plan to be a serious hobbyist, you want something to learn on.

For learning, the cheapest alternative is the one provided by the manufacturer of your camera. They will have on their website software you can download to edit their files. If you shoot raw, the manufacturer will have the best handle on raw conversion since they wrote the raw. Once you learn the basics of editing, you can check out the trial periods of other editing software, some of which are generally more capable than the manufacturer's free software (which generally tends to be pretty basic).

If you want to jump right into the industry standard, Adobe LR/PS would be my choice. The subscription price at $9.99 (plus tax) per month is not expensive, being less than most people would spend on impulse purchases if they could get out of the house and go shopping. Lightroom is a pretty basic editor, but if you learn how to use the organizational features early it will save you lots of time later in your hobby experience. And since Lightroom and Photoshop talk to each other, the combination is hard to beat. (If you have a full-size editor other than Photoshop, Lightroom can probably interface with that also, or even both of them).

LR/PS has a learning curve. Since many people have a lot of time on their hands these days, it's an ideal opportunity to learn something new.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

Photoshop/Lightroom is the standard. On1 is coming on strong. There is also Luminar, Affinity, and many others. The best free one is Faststone, in my opinion, for simple processing.

traderjohn Loc: New York City

I Think the input you received about trying a variety of products under their free trial offer makes the most sense. Now, what camera to own would solicit different responses.

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

It would be hard to give better advice than what CHG_CANON gives so I will just add my two cents. YouTube has really good (and bad) how-2 videos for most programs. Be sure to watch a few of the more interesting videos prior to starting a free trial. Then use the instructional video along with the free trial to help narrow down your choices. Since my greatest joy is in the taking of the pic I don’t want to invest the time to become proficient with PS/LR. While I do admit they are both the gold standard by which all other programs are judged, I am a serious hobbyist only.
I use/used Picasa 3, LightRoom, Raw Therapee, and I tried Gimp too. Now I use PhotoScapeX and Topaz products. They both work well for me. PhotoScapeX can be used accurately with 3 or 4 clicks or you can REALLY get into serious editing. Please do yourself a favor and watch the following YouTube videos to see if you would be interested and for training. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWC-SAuYOzw&t=325s Instruction and download info http://x.photoscape.org/ also https://topazlabs.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw-_j1BRDkARIsAJcfmTHPSNlPW-ZTdmAfR6Ixhv07msYDBQoE1YWNhRVrl1SCf7Jty54dAhkaApFKEALw_wcB
Smile,
JimmyT Sends

bleirer

Photoshop Elements is a good all around program at a reasonable price. There is a good organizer. You get 3 tabs that offer guided or advanced or regular editing. If you shoot raw your photo automatically starts in a basic version of Adobe camera raw which gives sliders for basics like exposure, contrast, saturation, and so on. If you shoot jpeg you can also start with Adobe camera raw, but there is no benefit to using it at that point.

They have a free trial, be worth a look. If you switch to photoshop in the future you can import your elements catalog easily.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I have the Adobe photographers special, Lightroom and Photoshop for $10.00 a month.

anotherview Loc: California

Photoshop Elements.

mizzee Loc: Boston,Ma

LR/PS $9.99 subscription would be my recommendation. You have room to grow and almost every time you use it, you’ll learn something new.

Pumble

Chg_Canon (as usual) gives sage advice.

My two cents as a hobbyist myself, don't leave Corel's Paintshop Pro off your trial list. To me it's a product that is seriously underrated. I believe it falls in between PS and Elements. It is able to use PS plugins and when warranted I use it with Topaz DeNoise AI, Adjust AI, Sharpen AI and Mask AI. It's available for a 30 day trial and a one time cost of $59-79 when they have their sales. I get the updates bi-annually on Good Friday weekend for $29. I'm not in favor of subscriptions, everything seems to be going there today and I understand all the arguments pro and con, but for me I want to buy software once and decide whether or not to update.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I use PS Elements. If you’re knew to editing it’s a good place to start. It’s Editor has three levels - Quick, Guided, and Expert - for an easy learning curve. It can edit RAW files. And it’s Organizer is a powerful database that helps organize your photos with albums and tags and categories and keep track of where they are. Costs about $70 or so.