Post Processing (Page 2): Many folks do not like subscription software and I understand. Personally I find the 10 bucks a month I pay for my Lightroom/Photoshop subscription as a good...

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

Many folks do not like subscription software and I understand. Personally I find the 10 bucks a month I pay for my Lightroom/Photoshop subscription as a good value. There are thousands of YouTube videos and services in addition to the How-To's that come with the software.
While the software does have complex abilities and features you can just start with the simple easy to use tools and if (IF) you like it you can move onward and upward.

RickL Loc: Vail, Az

William wrote:

find Picasa it's free and ...
the possible becomes/you

Bill

process becomes subjective with me
and keen to other ideas but I need ,
the other ideas, now/man/woman/my
concur to concur is the idea ... see/ya

Spend $10 per month and get Lightroom cc, Lightroom Classic and 2018 Photoshop. Well worth the money. There are a lot of supportive videos for lightroom and photoshop. Well worth the learning effort.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Photoshop Elements. It's only about $70-$80

hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

I have been a Photoshop Elements user for years, now on 15. It does everything I want and lots more.

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

kfoo wrote:

I am wanting to get onto post processing. I am not real a computer wizard. I am looking for something easy to learn and use, if that exists. I have been sooting about a year and and I am still learning. I have a Nikon D7100. Any suggestions or advice will be helpful. I have a Mac and have been using i photo a little. Thanks.

What camera body? Iv'e got a D750 and use NX-i which is a free download from Nikon and has some companion packages for presets and downloading, also free. Also I recently downloaded LightZone which is open source "free" and have played with Gimp, also open source, which has a steep learning curve. Gimp seems to be about as powerful full blown Photo Shop.

Just Fred Loc: Darwin's Waiting Room

Leicaflex wrote:

If you are looking for a straightforward desktop photo manager, you could opt for IrfanView, but if
you used Picasa for its online features, the most seamless transition is to move to its successor, Google Photos
http://photos.google.com.

Please, folks. I know that it's easy to open your browser to the latest post and completely overlook what the OP said. He's got a Mac!

IfFanView, Paint Shop Pro, and some others do not offer a Mac version. Let's not confuse the OP.

via the lens Loc: Northern California, near Yosemite NP

kfoo wrote:

I am wanting to get onto post processing. I am not real a computer wizard. I am looking for something easy to learn and use, if that exists. I have been sooting about a year and and I am still learning. I have a Nikon D7100. Any suggestions or advice will be helpful. I have a Mac and have been using i photo a little. Thanks.

Try checking out the mac app store: they have many options that might work well for you. Also the Macphun programs, they are now changing their name to Skylum (who knows why...) so you might look for that, too. Their programs are fairly easy to operate. I personally think the Mac photos program is fairly worthless for anyone who is really pursuing photography as more than just a snapshot process.

wesm Loc: Los Altos CA

kfoo wrote:

I am wanting to get onto post processing. I am not real a computer wizard. I am looking for something easy to learn and use, if that exists. I have been sooting about a year and and I am still learning. I have a Nikon D7100. Any suggestions or advice will be helpful. I have a Mac and have been using i photo a little. Thanks.

TL;DR
Use Photos on your Mac to learn how to do basic adjustments to improve your compositions.

IMHO, "easy to use" depends a great deal on your skill level as a photographer. If just starting, the most helpful tool would be cropping, that helps you visualize your compositions better. When you start to understand exposure and the limitations of your camera, the next set of tools allow you to adjust the color temperature (cool vs. warm), overall highlights and shadows, and contrast.

Every program that I've used allows you access to these tools, most at a pretty understandable level. I use Lightroom, ON1, Photoshop, and I've taken a look at Affinity Photo. Lightroom tries to hide the complicated parts, to the point that when you get to the next level, local adjustments, I think it falls over. It's a big conceptual leap to look at layers and masks for doing local adjustments, you might not need that for a while, or ever. Lightroom hides these concepts (mostly), while the others bring them front and center.

You can do basic cropping and straightening in Photos on your Mac, that should get you going with no additional outlay of money. Try to make your compositions strong, it will really benefit you in the long run. The concepts you learn here are applicable everywhere.

There is a world of material available online. One person I particularly like is Matt Kloskowski, he does videos for LR/PS and ON1. I think he has a Lightroom course that's pretty good.

Of course, everybody's buzzing now about what Adobe is doing with Lightroom. They took the full-featured version and renamed it Lightroom Classic (Coke, anyone?), while they have a crippled version for online, cloud, tablet, and phone use. They're really going after the phone photography market, which makes me wonder about their commitment to desktop (D/M)SLR workflows. I am looking for alternatives, I want to develop a business, I need full-featured database (search and cataloging) support, and I would prefer it to work with any editor. But for now, I'm still using Lightroom to import and export for the web. I use Photoshop to prepare for printing. Now that I'm used to thinking in terms of layers and masks, I want my editors to be able to use their full power. ON1 is getting there, but I still have the feeling that it's a bunch of semi-autonomous pieces kind of glued together