Software
Choosing the right software to invest time organizing and editing all your photos is a very important decision. Software can range from the very expensive pro-oriented post-production software like Apple's Aperture or Adobe Photoshop CS to the free and very user-friendly Picasa from Google. The feature sets in each of the software varies widely, so make sure you know what your needs are before making the choice. Once you get started, it's hard to start over again.
Some questions you should ask yourself before deciding:
- What is my budget for software?
- Do I really plan on editing my photos after I take them?
- Am I going to shoot in RAW or JPG format?
- Am I the type of person who will tag their photos with metadata so they are searchable?
- Do I care if my software is integrated with an online publishing service?
- Will I be taking multiple versions of the same photo and need to stack or compare them easily?
- Do I have a photo printer attached to my computer that I plan on printing with?
The list goes on and on, but once you've gotten a good idea of what your needs are you'll be ready to choose a program that's right for your needs.
Picasa
Picasa was a small startup bought out by Google in 2004. Picasa is basic but feature-rich photo management software that is extremely user-friendly. The best part about it, is that Google made the program free after buying them out. Picasa 2 does read RAW files. The photo editing features are limited, but comprehensive. They are perfect for the basic photo editing things like cropping, red-eye removal, contrast, and more. One nifty feature that Picasa has is called the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button in edit that is a one-touch editing solution which uses algorithms to perfect your photo. Picasa makes everything easy including printing locally or via a service as well as sharing pictures online via messenger clients (through a free service called Hello) or publishing on blogs like Blogger.
A big advantage that Picasa has
over other software programs is that it is blazing fast. Unlike other programs that take time to render a page of thumbnails
or previews, Picasa renders extremely quickly. This is huge when you have large photo libraries (which as you continue to add
more and more pictures will clearly be the case) and have to go through all of them. Never underestimate how important this
is. I personally use Elements 3 and I've had it crash several times as I flipped through pages of thumbnails because it
simply choked on all the pictures it was trying to render and froze. The only negatives of Picasa are its limited pro editing
tools (like the industry leading Photoshop offers) and that it's organizing options are limited (you can only star photos with
one star for favorites vs. being able to label them with a range of stars).
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Reviews:
CNET
Download Picasa for Free from Google
iPhoto
iPhoto is currently a Mac OS program that comes pre-installed on all Mac OS products. You can also purchase the iLife
suite
to get the most recent version of iPhoto. iPhoto like all other Apple consumer designed applications is made to be extremely
user-friendly. Importing photos as film rolls and allowing users to organize them into albums. Photo enabled iPods also sync
with iPhoto. iPhoto has minimal photo editing tools compared to Adobe products, but the latest version does read RAW image
files. Images from iPhoto can easily be imported into iMovie to create great videos with stills. The newest version of
iPhoto also has a slideshow function that allows you to create slideshow files. It is great for presentations with all of the
slideshow effects like the popular Ken Burns Effect which pans across a photo. The biggest drawback to iPhoto beyond the
limited editing capability is the backend file organization. It doesn't make it easy to find files in their folders because
iPhoto has a strange folder structure (by month then by day) rather than by album grouping. iPhoto also had issues with
synching with my external hard drive and for a DSLR, you pretty much have to have an external hard drive.
Share your thoughts and experiences:
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Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0
I personally have chosen to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 3. There are versions for both Mac and PC. I had no trouble
installing the software, but eventually had some issues with it freezing and crashing a few times. I added some RAM and now
it seems to behave better now. It still takes a long time to boot up the organizer as well as the editing tools. Elements
has great photo editing features since it is based on Adobe Photoshop. It doesn't
have
the full feature set of Photoshop, but definitely is enough for most photographers. It can also convert RAW files. You can also group similar photos together in stacks, easily tag your photos, and put them
in collections. It's a pretty solid program for organizing your photos and it has a very reasonable price tag (under $100).
Share your thoughts and experiences:
EOSrebels.com Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Forum
Reviews:
Digital Photography Review
CNET
Buy now at:
Amazon.com
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0
The most recent update to Photoshop Elements 3.0, the
folks at Adobe have sped up the original so that launch time (very slow for 3.0) and scrolling (better indexing of pictures)
are much faster. The biggest complaint from those who have upgraded is that the File Browser
is gone. With 4.0 now you can even tag on faces themselves rather than the batch of images
so you can sort by face. It also has an excellent slideshow creator. If you do any DVD editing you can also buy
Elements 4.0 bundled with Adobe Premiere 2.0 and save
yourself $50. Sorry Apple heads, no MAC version yet. Boo Adobe.
Share your thoughts and experiences:
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Reviews:
CNET
Buy now at:
Amazon.com
Buy bundled with Adobe
Premiere 2.0:
Amazon.com
Adobe Photoshop CS 2
Photoshop CS is largely preferred by pros as evidenced by the professional price tag (almost $600). CS has more advanced
editing tools than
Elements. It can also process multiple-RAW images in parallel while you work. This is Adobe's high-end platform for digital
photographers.
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EOSrebels.com Adobe Photoshop CS 2 Forum
Buy now at:
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Apple
Store
Apple Aperture
By far the most powerful post-production software ever designed specifically for photographers. For that power, Apple
Aperture will run you $500. It is only available on Macs (G4 with 1.25 GHz and up) and
requires 1GB of RAM! But the software harnesses all that speed and power to offer impressive photo management and editing.
It has a simple compare and select interface to help choose between similar photos. It also offers one-click backup and backs
up to multiple drives concurrently. Check out the splash page at the Apple
site.Share your thoughts and experiences:
EOSrebels.com Apple Aperture Forum
Buy now at:
Amazon.com
Apple Store