Photoshop - Lightroom or what other software for better results

[Blue5]

I'd recommend Affinity Photo 2 because it's a one off purchase, you get the software on your hard drive so don't need internet connectivity for anything, they provide free updates and it is an easy to use effective editing system.

I was using Photoshop on my old laptop, wasn't keen on subscriptions so when that died ended up using Picassa then Gimp which I really didn't get on with plus Faststone, then resigned myself to the forever subscription option for Adobe but tried the free trial of Affinity first which I liked and got the full version for £33.99 last year while it was on offer. So far so good.

And it's a British company (Serif) based in Notts, although bought out by an Australian company (Canva) last year.

[XWP29]

I'd recommend Affinity Photo 2 because it's a one off purchase, you get the software on your hard drive so don't need internet connectivity for anything, they provide free updates and it is an easy to use effective editing system.

I was using Photoshop on my old laptop, wasn't keen on subscriptions so when that died ended up using Picassa then Gimp which I really didn't get on with plus Faststone, then resigned myself to the forever subscription option for Adobe but tried the free trial of Affinity first which I liked and got the full version for £33.99 last year while it was on offer. So far so good.

And it's a British company (Serif) based in Notts, although bought out by an Australian company (Canva) last year.

I reckon others should try out all the free trials to decide hence I haven't ventured a recommendation. I've tried others but I keep coming back to Serif labs AF photo V1 and 2 since around 2015, cost the grand total of circa £120 or £10 a year. Marvellous value.

[AndyXYZ]

Another vote for lightroom...

Does the job perfectly and very effective

comes with storage too which is a never ending problem for me

I ended up getting the Adobe Stock, Photography monthly plan but will ditch stock if its not my bag before the free trial ends

yeah storage is a costly thing nowadays and I'm thinking of getting another 14TB WD HDD before the prices go up again, one is not enough when saving pictures and videos

[Black Mike]

Another vote for lightroom...

Does the job perfectly and very effective

comes with storage too which is a never ending problem for me

I ended up getting the Adobe Stock, Photography monthly plan but will ditch stock if its not my bag before the free trial ends

yeah storage is a costly thing nowadays and I'm thinking of getting another 14TB WD HDD before the prices go up again, one is not enough when saving pictures and videos

I'd suggest using a pair of drives with the second one being a backup copy. Drives do fail once in a while so better to have a backup.

Mike

[AndyXYZ]

Another vote for lightroom...

Does the job perfectly and very effective

comes with storage too which is a never ending problem for me

I ended up getting the Adobe Stock, Photography monthly plan but will ditch stock if its not my bag before the free trial ends

yeah storage is a costly thing nowadays and I'm thinking of getting another 14TB WD HDD before the prices go up again, one is not enough when saving pictures and videos

I'd suggest using a pair of drives with the second one being a backup copy. Drives do fail once in a while so better to have a backup.

Mike

Fair point Mike and with this in mind, I have just taken delivery of a WD 18 TB HDD as it was cheaper than the 16 TB HDD and not a lot more than the 14 TB

I'm hoping that when I have finished the COAP Academy I'll not only be better at getting the best out of my pictures but hopefully I'll be better at deleting the the poorer images as opposed to just keeping them on the HDD

[Black Mike]

I ended up getting the Adobe Stock, Photography monthly plan but will ditch stock if its not my bag before the free trial ends

yeah storage is a costly thing nowadays and I'm thinking of getting another 14TB WD HDD before the prices go up again, one is not enough when saving pictures and videos

I'd suggest using a pair of drives with the second one being a backup copy. Drives do fail once in a while so better to have a backup.

Mike

Fair point Mike and with this in mind, I have just taken delivery of a WD 18 TB HDD as it was cheaper than the 16 TB HDD and not a lot more than the 14 TB

I'm hoping that when I have finished the COAP Academy I'll not only be better at getting the best out of my pictures but hopefully I'll be better at deleting the the poorer images as opposed to just keeping them on the HDD

If you use the LR denoise, the DNG files it creates are rather large. Culling the shots is very important, I might have 1000 shots but end up keeping less than 10%. 4 or 5 frames of each jet at different angles max. I use a pair of 8TB drives and have images going back to 2000 on them. Good luck with the culling.

Mike

[AndyXYZ]

I'd suggest using a pair of drives with the second one being a backup copy. Drives do fail once in a while so better to have a backup.

Mike

Fair point Mike and with this in mind, I have just taken delivery of a WD 18 TB HDD as it was cheaper than the 16 TB HDD and not a lot more than the 14 TB

I'm hoping that when I have finished the COAP Academy I'll not only be better at getting the best out of my pictures but hopefully I'll be better at deleting the the poorer images as opposed to just keeping them on the HDD

If you use the LR denoise, the DNG files it creates are rather large. Culling the shots is very important, I might have 1000 shots but end up keeping less than 10%. 4 or 5 frames of each jet at different angles max. I use a pair of 8TB drives and have images going back to 2000 on them. Good luck with the culling.

Mike

Cheers Mike, I know it seems pointless keeping them but my OCD won't let me delete them, I cull a few here and there but deffo need to be more ruthless.

I have found that DXO is a better denoise tool over the one in Lightroom so I'll see how I go, I'm not sure on the file size off the top of my head.