My apologies, I should have read your post more carefully. You did say free so I shouldn't have suggested Photoshop Elements.
Sorry.
God Bless,
Papa Joe
I am blown away by the outpouring of all your suggestions! Thank you guys and gals soooo much for your responses. Now to educate myself and choose the best one! As Ysarex stated: some effort learning is required for everything. Gratefully, Janv
No need to apologize.....another option to consider!
dsnoke wrote:
Others have already mentioned darktable and GIMP. Other options include lightzone (
https://lightzone.en.softonic.com/) and irfanview (
https://www.irfanview.com/). I have tried all of these. darktable strongly resembles lightroom. lightzone is quirky and takes some getting used to. It is based on the Ansel Adams 10 zone exposure concept.
My choice was none of these. I purchased Affinity Photo (
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/). It is relatively inexpensive, has only a one-time cost, and there are many tutorials available. Affinity Photo is made by Serif, a french software company that also makes other graphic design software products.
I chose Affinity Photo because it includes a number of features I wanted: layers, masking, panorama stitching, focus stacking, general stacking, HDR, and raw editing. All those in one package for $55 one time. Not a bad deal in my view. They are currently at version 1.10.5. Whenever they move to version 2.x, everyone, including me, will have to purchase again. But I find Affinity to be everything I need for a reasonable cost.
Good Luck!
Others have already mentioned darktable and GIMP. ... (
show quote)
A minor correction. Serif, the publisher of Affinity Photo, is a British software company, not French.
chevman
Loc: Matthews, North Carolina
mwsilvers wrote:
A minor correction. Serif, the publisher of Affinity Photo, is a British software company, not French.
Correct, and for Apple Mac computers it is available on the apple app store. When purchased on the app store you will get notifications for updates and the updates have all been free so far. There are many tutorials on YouTube also, and you can adapt many photoshop tutorials to work in Affinity.
I've asked this same question many , many times.
My number 1 recommendation , over all this time is AFFINITY PHOTO. There are half a dozen excellent texts , including workbooks which cover all the features. There is also ma myriad of UTube Videos.
I have settled on it. Previously I used PHOTOSHOP. I refuse to pay a subscription model for software. You are simply held to ransom.
Hope that helps.
Janv wrote:
I'd appreciate suggestions on free, user friendly post processing programs that have been effective for your images. I'm a hobbyist and don't want to invest in Lightroom on a monthly basis. Or if there is a one time fee for a program, that would be considered. I have a Mac Air. Thanks in response to your suggestions!
Photo Shop Elements is inexpensive and easy to use.
I believe it is still a one time purchase, I bought it not too long ago.
I forgot to mention , many PHOTOSHOP plug-ins also work and in particular NIK works when I ship them out as TIFF Files.
I personally use TIFF a lot for Final Print output.
Cheers
Bruce
I also forgot to mention , AFFINITY also has AFFINITY DESGINER and AFFINITY ILLUSTRATOR which integrate and are also as cheap as Chips.
Just think of the AFFINITY DEVELOP Persona in the Program as the " RAW " Editor, then after that the rest of it does make sense. PERSONAS , can be a little confusing for a Newbie.
Cheers
Bruce
The Little Island Pty Ltd.
Quite close to Antarctica this time of the year !!!!!!!
Many camera manufacturers have free post processing software. Nikon and Olympus have pretty great software. These programs process RAW files
Corel Paintshop pro is a rough equvalent to PhotoShop and is rather inexpensive. Like Photoshop this program can provide additional modifications of a TIF or JPG output of the anove software. NO monthly fee here.
Hi Jan,
I'm with you on avoiding 'renting' software, but each to his own.
I have used Photoshop Elements over the years and have found it satisfies ALL my editing needs (and then some).
You simply purchase it and it's 'yours'. No rent or other charge. Unless you need very in-dept Professional/Commercial type editing, Elements will fill the bill in good order and there are countless tutorials available on YouTube.
Good luck, whatever you decide,
God Bless,
Papa Joe
Photoshop Elements 2022, one time purchase, around $80.
Janv wrote:
I'd appreciate suggestions on free, user friendly post processing programs that have been effective for your images. I'm a hobbyist and don't want to invest in Lightroom on a monthly basis. Or if there is a one time fee for a program, that would be considered. I have a Mac Air. Thanks in response to your suggestions!
Serif Affinity Photo is highly regarded by those who don’t use Adobe software.
Free trial for 30 days, then $55.
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo
1 time fee for Mac, CorelDraw has one
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