yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

You might want to download a trial version of Luminar, and see how you like it.

spraguead Loc: Boston, MA

I've been on a Mac since 1989, and I have to say, Photoshop can be a bit daunting to a new user, and you'll probably only use about 5% of its capabilities.
I'd suggest you look on your camera manufacturers web site, they usually have a program to download to process raw files. I shoot Nikon and they have a couple different programs, Capture or View, that are free downloads. Or try the other free programs others have mentioned. Would try all of those before spending any money.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I'm an old guy too. I use Photoshop Elements. Very easy to learn and does what I want to do. BUT YOU BETTER BECOME A LITTLE COMPUTER SAVVY! You will become very frustrated very quickly if you don't know what you're computer is doing. It would be like jumping into a car for a drive with a blindfold on. Digital cameras are just another computer accessory.

Red Sky At Night

Still new myself. I learned a lot from anything I could find by Chris Orwig on Lynda.com. There are some other good ones as well. This was the best advice I was given when I first started this adventure just a few months ago. Make sure you do this when you have plenty of time to devote so you can really take advantage of all of the great teaching on that website.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I started out with what pp came with the camera, Zoombrowser from Canon. I still use it along with Picassa and Photoshop, depending on how much processing I want. For social media I still use it as it is the simplest. Picassa adds some ability, and, of course, Photoshop has much more.

I use DPP from Canon when needed to deal with RAW. Having several cameras, I wound up with both rev 3 and 4.

I rarely use RAW as my needs are usually of the document event type as opposed to artsy, but there are times...

Kuzano

I still have Photoshop Elements version 4.0. I look into it every once in a while, just to see what all the hubbub about Post Processing is about?

Frankly, I too am old and I just want to do photography. I am not interested in manipulating my photos. I don't have time or patience for that crap.

I just want to take good pictures like I have been for nearly 50 years, whether film or digital. Why waste time in front of a computer. I use a camera.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

I would bite the bullet and start with Lightroom. Sure, you can find many other such programs, even free ones, but LR really is the gold standard. Whatever program you get, be prepared to spend weeks if not months before you are facile with it.

Probably the best tutorials are those with Julianne Kost on the Adobe TV site.

Do not get hung up over raw versus jpg. They are the same from an editing standpoint except you have much more exposure latitude and better colors with raw.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

AMEN!

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Thank you for your advice. Shang

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Thank you for your opinion. Shang

TucsonDave Loc: Tucson, Arizona

So shangyrhee I am considered an old guy also. Will be 74 soon. About 3 years ago I was going on a trip to Italy and decided to get a DSLR. Ended up buying a Nikon D5300 and a kit lens. For the trip, I put it on Auto, composed photos and got, for my use, good photos. This past Christmas, I decided to shoot RAW and JPEG and try and find a PP program.
Tried Faststone and Gimp but couldn't get interested except to crop a photo or two. Searched around and for a one time fee bought Affinity Photo. Originally developed for the MAC, they had recently developed a Windows version. So I got that one. $50 with tax. They have over 100 video available, update for free and for me, fun to use. I review their videos all the time. So, you need to have enough memory in your computer, the time and you can post process to your hearts content. Now I just shoot RAW. I still work but when I retire at the end of the year I will have more time. Have fun. That's the key.

David

David Taylor

Hi David. Did you need to upgrade your memory? Just asking because my copy of Affinity runs a little slow for my liking, wondering how to improve it.......

shangyrhee Loc: Nashville TN to Sacramento CA

Hi David Thank you for sharing your experience. I will look into the Affinity. Shang

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

95% of what you need in Photoshop you can learn in an hour by trial and error. First thing to learn is to crop a picture. Crop is a choice in the Image tab on the top of the screen. Just pull inwards on the corners of the frame to get the crop you want. In the image tab on top of the screen you can left click on auto tone, auto color and auto contrast to improve your picture. If you don't like any of those three effects go to the edit tab and hit the undo choice, it will undo the last thing you did. You can then go to the image tab and select Adjustments which will open a new menu where you can select brightness and contrast, vibrance and shadows and highlights. All of these choices have sliders that you can use to adjust your picture and see the results as you do it. When you are happy, go to the File tab and select Save As, and rename your pic. This way your changes are on the newly renamed pic and the original will be unchanged in case you want to try different effects on the original pic.
P.S. When you open a raw file in Photoshop it opens in a Camera Raw window. You don't have to make any changes there, just click on Open Image, and it will open in the Photoshop window. Any adjustments available in the Camera Raw window can be performed in the Photoshop window. The first three effects I try on any raw image once it is opened in the Photoshop window is the auto tone, auto contrast, and auto color described above. Just those three clicks make a big difference. After each one, if I don't like the effect, I can undo it as described above.

TucsonDave Loc: Tucson, Arizona

David

I had 8 MB and doubled it to 16 MB. I have a 64 bit Windows 7 operating system with an Intel 5i Dual Core. No problem opening 3 files at a time a working on them. More than that the system takes a little more time to process. Just a hobby so that works for me.