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Photography Processing Software

Posted on by jrwilkinson

Many photographers use Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop to process their photos. But since they changed to a subscription model, many of us would prefer software you buy once & own. Adobe’s $9.99/month Photography subscription is what I currently use. But with their recent change in ‘terms of service‘, I’m considering alternatives. I already own some other programs that I often use for specific tasks, like film simulations or black & white processing. But Lightroom & Photoshop are what I am most familiar with.

A list of all Adobe alternatives was compiled & posted on X (Twitter) here by xdaniel. I’ve outlined links below for some Photoshop & Lightroom alternatives I am familiar with.
Some can do most, if not all, of what the Adobe programs do. Some of the free versions look and act a lot like the Adobe programs with similar tools. Others may have a bit of a learning curve because they use different terminology and controls. Fortunately, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials to teach you how to edit photos using these alternatives. Plus if you haven’t used Photoshop or Lightroom, than learning the different tools aren’t an issue.
The listed Adobe alternatives are not limited to Windows PCs. There are universal versions that will work on Windows, Mac, iPad. Most buy-once MacOS apps are available through the App store. Here are the lists of Adobe alternatives, some free, some buy-once:

Photoshop alternatives

  • Free
    • Photopea – free online Photoshop alternative which can connect to Google Drive, OneDrive, & others
    • Gimp – GNU Image Manipulation Program is a free, open-source cross-platform image editor available for Linux, macOS, Windows. It’s a long-running Photoshop alternative with similar capabilities but ‘clunky’ interface.
    • Krita or Inkscape – open-source painting programs that can work on photos and create Photoshop PSD files with layers.
    • Paint.net – (Windows only) once mainly a free Windows Paint alternative, it now has some good photo editing tools.
    • PhotoscapeX – free or $40 Pro Version with extra features. Free version does most basic edits.
    • Apple Photos or Windows Photos – both these free OS programs have some great tools to improve photos.
  • Buy once
    • Affinity Photo – currently $35 for Mac or Windows, $9.29 for iPad or $82 for all three platforms. Really popular Mac/iPad photo processing app and there’s a Windows version.
    • Topaz PhotoAI – Topazlabs merged their separate programs: Topaz DenoiseAI, Topaz SharpenAI, & Topaz GigapixelAI into one program – Topaz PhotoAI. PhotoAI is simpler to use but I miss the flexibility of the individual apps. Edit your photos with single-click simplicity or user-controlled slider bars.
    • Pixelmator Pro – for MacOS only, $50, 7-day free trial

Refer to this icon key to identify the cost of the alternatives >>>
Like Adobe, many have started offering subscriptions for their premium features. But some offer Lifetime subscriptions for a higher one-time price, something Adobe doesn’t.

In my opinion, Affinity Photo is probably the best low cost Photoshop alternative for Windows, MacOS, or iPad, currently 50% off $35 (June 30 2024) for Windows, MacOS; $9.29 for iPad.
But the free & trial options are always worth checking out.

Lightroom Alternatives

  • Free
    • Darktable – powerful, full-feature free alternative to Lightroom but with a learning curve
    • RawTherapee – another cross-platform (Windows, Mac) powerful, full-feature free alternative but with a learning curve
    • DigiKam – strong photo organizer features, similar to Adobe Bridge, with photo editing features & social media tools
    • Lightzone – free Lightroom alternative, now hosted on GitHub after lightzoneproject.org website was retired.
  • Buy once
    • Capture One – a fully capable Lightroom alternative favored by many photographers. A bit expensive ($300 lifetime) unless on Black Friday sale. They also have various subscriptions.
    • ON1 – another popular Lightroom alternative with buy-once and subscription options. On sale today for $50 (June 30 2024 buy-once or wait till Black Friday).
    • DXO Photolab – my favorite Lightroom alternative with excellent Lens correction database, currently on sale 20% off (I bought mine last Black Friday).
    • Luminar Neo – easy to use with single click improvements, but also with user controls if you want to make your own adjustments. It has both subscription or buy-once options.

YouTube video describing all Adobe alternatives based on xdaniels X post

There are a tons of iPhone/Android phone and tablet apps that both take & edit photos.
Some favorites are:

  • Snapseed – a long-time iPhone/iPad/Android app that’s free and edits photos with east to use tools.
  • Adobe Photoshop Express – Adobe offers this for free but you do need a free Adobe account. This is a universal app available for all platforms. Some premium features are behind a pay-wall.
  • Google Photos (Google Drive) – free Google universal app that has the ‘magic eraser’ & other photo editing tools. Download/upload, organize, share, edit your photos. Of course, it requires a Google (ie gmail) account.
  • Too many others to list – many social media apps also will edit images before posting. Also cell phone video apps.
  • VLC Media Player to grab still frames from videos.

Don’t ignore free software from your camera manufacturer. They are optimized specifically for your camera’s raw photographs and features. Some are very useable offering photo importing, organizing & basic editing. Some are primarily designed just to transfer images from your camera to computer. All except Nikon, require your camera’s serial number to download their software or firmware.

  • Nikon offers NX Studio free for Windows or MacOS, which imports images from Nikon cameras to your computer and has basic photo editing features.
  • Canon offers Digital Photo Professional 4.18.10 for Windows, a free image importing and processing program. They also offer a MacOS version
  • Sony offers Imaging Edge Desktop and PlayMemories Home for Sony cameras. Imaging Edge Desktop can be used for editing raw images; PhotoMemories is mainly for importing and organizing your Sony camera photos. Sadly, Sony used to offer Capture One Express. Their free version of Capture One for only Sony cameras. Capture One is a full featured Lightroom replacement.
  • Fujifilm offers their free FUJIFILM X RAW STUDIO which imports their raw image from Fujifilm cameras. It has very basic editing and export capabilities.
  • Olympus/OM Systems offers OM Workspace for Windows or MacOS
  • Panasonic offers a basic photo import & editing program PHOTOfunSTUDIO for Windows or MacOS

19 June 2024 Architecture Theme

Posted on by jrwilkinson

A second theme for June’s Photography Interest Group meeting was Architecture. Since some of the participants do not dabble in post-processing very much. An architecture theme was proposed because a Harbor Drive pedestrian bridge meet-up was proposed. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but here are the images that were shared:

Cathy

Chicago Airport Terminal early morning
Chicago Airport Terminal – waiting
Union Station Los Angeles
High Rises Los Angeles

Gary got some great shots while re-landscaping his backyard.

Backyard caterpillar
Monarch Butterfly

Heather shared images from a recent trip to Idaho State Penitentiary museum.

Jerry focused on the “how I’d edit theme”, not architecture:

Jim was inspired by recent tutorials on converting architectural images into high contrast black & white.

BTW – Thufa’s ‘outhouse’, on the grass mound, is a fish-drying shack.

19 June 2024 “How I’d Edit Your Photo” Theme

Posted on by jrwilkinson

Inspired by May’s meeting of “Before and After” where participants shared their straight-out-of-camera photos then their final processed images. This month’s “How I’d Edit Your Photo” participants edited other peoples images ‘their’ way. There were four images uploaded so here’s how the final edits from different members turned out:

Here’s a photo Cathy took recently with snow on the mountains overlooking San Diego. Photo was taken from Point Loma Bayside Trail March 2023 after a recent snow storm in the local mountains.

Cathy’s Original
Jerry’s version
Jim version 1
Jim’s version 2, w/ clouds

Gary submitted a photo from his friend Sarah. It’s a poignant story – this is the only photo she has of her and her father before he disappeared. The original photo was scanned and shows its age. We used many of the Photoshop/Lightroom tools to improve the photo.

Original Scanned Photo
Jerry’s version
Jim’s version
Jim’s B&W version
Jim’s Sepia version

Jim had two images from Yosemite – a Milky Way image over Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall from the Merced riverbank. The Milky Way shot was a single exposure so not ideal for best post-processing – stacking multiple images is usually preferred.

Milky Way Over Half Dome

Original Out-Of-Camera
Jerry’s version
Jim’s Version

Bridalveil Fall From Merced River

Out-of-camera
Jerry’s Version
Jim’s version

Jerry’s Grand Teton Fall Colors

Unedited Out-Of-Camera
Jim’s edit

Tutorial: Processing Starry Images

Posted on by jrwilkinson

I recently learned of some tools that aide in the processing of astrophotography images. An Adobe Photoshop or PixInsight plugin called StarXterminator (by RC-Astro; $60 w/ 30day free trial) or the free command-line executable Starnet++. Either of these programs allow you to eliminate the stars from your photograph.
Why would that be useful? Because you end up with a starless Milky Way/Nebula layer and stars layer that you can process separately. This allows you to apply photo enhancements to the Milky Way (or Nebula) without affecting the stars and vice-versa. You can tone down the stars so they are less distracting to the Milky Way’s galactic core. You can also apply anti-coma or astigmatism corrections to the corner of your frame to improve star resolution.

Walk-through using StarXterminator plugin in Photoshop

1). Open your Milky Way image in Photoshop then duplicate the layer. This will be the working copy of the original. Label it “With Stars”.

2). optional: Run the NoiseXterminator or Topaz DeNoise plugin if you want to remove noise. Or if you start in Lightroom, use its denoise tool before importing into Photoshop. You label this layer “With Star DN”.

3). Duplicate the ‘With Stars DN’ layer and label it “Starless”. Apply the Filter/StarXterminator plugin. You will end up with a Milky Way layer void of stars.
Note: Do this after you’ve downloaded and installed the Photoshop plugin. You will find it under Photoshop’s Filter menu, under ‘RC-Astro’ at the bottom. You can download a 30 day trial version of this and their other plugins.

4). Create a duplicate layer of both the ‘With Stars’ layer and ‘Starless’ layer. Be sure the ‘Starless copy’ layer is above the ‘With Stars copy’ layer. With the ‘Starless copy’ layer selected, select the ‘Subtract’ blend mode (box to the left of Opacity). Select both ‘Starless copy’ & ‘With Stars copy’ layers and merge. Relabel this layer as ‘Stars’.

5). Using Filter/Camera Raw Filter or other Photoshop tools, process both the Starless layer and Stars layers to your liking.

6). Once you are happy with the results, merge the layers.
If you want to be able to come back and reedit them. Duplicate both processed layers once more, select ‘screen’ as your overlay, then merge the two layer. Label this layer ‘Final Merged Image’ then export this layer as your final jpg.

15 May 2024 Before/After Theme

Posted on by jrwilkinson

When sharing photographs during our Zoom meeting, much of the discussion involves image processing. Some critiques and suggestions involve the different perspectives of some participants visual aesthetic. This difference is what make sharing photographs an interesting pursuit and can be educational. With this in mind, this month’s theme was Before/After. Participants could share their straight-out-of-camera – before – and their final image – after. It’s interesting and educational to hear the photographer’s thought and image process, resulting in their end product.
Some participants did not show photos this week so here are the Before/After sets shared at the meeting:

Cathy

Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After

Jerry

Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
After
Before
After

Gary – Gary shared primarily final edits except the Half Dome Before/After

Jim

Before
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
Before
After
After

17 Apr 2024 Theme: Solar Eclipse & Street Photography

Posted on by jrwilkinson

With the Apr 8th solar eclipse happening between the March & April photography group meetings. It was proposed that Solar Eclipse be a theme. Additionally, since photographing people gathering and watching the eclipse would be interesting. Street photography was added as a second theme. Cathy wanted to photograph the people gathered at Reuben H Fleet for the event. As always, sharing photos regardless of theme is an option. Some of us considered traveling to the area of 100% totality since San Diego would only experience ~55% coverage. But with weather concerns and busy schedules, none of the group managed to make it an area of 100%. Here are this month’s collection of photos:
Click any image for full resolution although photos are downsized to ~4mb for online sharing.

Cathy

Gary

Jerry

Jim

Sharon

20 Mar 2024 Theme: Spring

Posted on by jrwilkinson

We had a lively discussion this month and everyone shared their favorite images, most theme-related. Anza-Borrego wildflowers were a popular theme-related subject as most SoCal photographers enjoy the post-wet-winter super-blooms. Carlsbad Flowers Fields, Yosemite, and Alabama Hills were also represented. Here are the images presented:

Ralf

John

Jerry

Gary

Cathy

Sharon

Mikky

Barbara

Jim

Tutorial: Photoshop Sky Replacement AI

Posted on by jrwilkinson

Adobe Photoshop can easily replace an empty sky with skies in Adobe’s library or your own. There are times when you’ve got a great photo but, because of timing or other circumstances, you miss a more interesting sky by minutes or hours or days.
I photographed a Red Tail Hawk against grey rainy skies. Because of the bright backlighting, I added +2 stops compensation. So the bright, flat sky, was completely washed out. To add a more interesting sky, I used Photoshop’s Sky Replacement (Menu: /Edit/Sky Replacement) to replace the background. I also applied a Filter/Gaussian Blur to soften the focus on the crisp clouds, adding bokeh.
Purist will scoff at using tools as this but there are times and circumstances when this is fine in my photography. As long as I’m honest about what edits I’ve done and they aren’t presented as untouched. I grew up with photographic film artists like Jerry Uelsmann and Man Ray. Their photographic manipulations were part of their vision, creative process and integral to their photographic process.

Red Tail Hawk, Ramona Grasslands
Sky Replaced, Guassian Blur

If you prefer to use your own sky photos, once the sky replacement dialog box opens, click the v next to the sky thumbnail then the + in the lower right. A file select dialog box will open, select the photo – it can be a raw file – then click Open. This will add the sky to the existing library. Skies can be manipulated, scaled, flips, rotated, and edited. Although, you may want to do all your edits before importing the image into the library.

Adobe’s instructions on using your own skies:

“Get the sky you love in three easy steps.” Adobe

Note – the following text if from Adobe’s sky replacement web page:

The Sky Replacement tool uses artificial intelligence to insert a new sky in place of the sky in the original image. Thanks to Sky Replacement algorithms, Photoshop can analyze and recognize the current sky and then plug in a new one. Upgrade your original sky in three steps:

1. Go to Select and choose Sky from the drop-down menu.

2. Choose Edit › Sky Replacement.

3. Use the sky drop-down to select a new sky from one of the preset sky images.


Adobe Photoshop offers a collection of skies, organized in three categories: Blue Skies, Spectacular, and Sunset. Blue Skies include daytime skies in solid blue or with clouds. Spectacular skies range from dramatic storm clouds and sunscapes to rainbows and a night sky. Sunset features yellow, orange, pink, and red sunset hues.

You can also import and use your own sky image to replace the sky. To do this, click the down caret and then the plus sign — you can import any JPG or PNG image.

“The best thing about Sky Replacement is that everything remains editable via the traditional Photoshop workflow,” says photoshop expert Jesús Ramirez. “This is not like a filter where once you apply it, you’re stuck with it. You actually have a lot of control, and all these controls eventually become a layer mask or adjustment layer.”

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/discover/sky-replacement.html#:~:text=Get%20the%20sky,or%20adjustment%20layer.%E2%80%9D

Tutorial: Nik Collections (Google Version)

Posted on by jrwilkinson

Disclaimer – Nik Collections is a product currently sold by DXO for $149. But versions have been around for a long time, originally developed in 1995 by Nik Multimedia & sold for $600/copy. Google acquired it in 2012, sold it for $150/copy, then distributed it for free in 2016. DXO bought it in 2017 and currently updates and improves it.
The free google version (courtesy of Techspot: Windows or Mac) is what I’ve been using successfully with the latest version (v13.1, Jan 2024) of Lightroom Classic. Some websites suggest there are bugs using the 2016 version with the latest Adobe products. So far, I’ve had good luck and results but your mileage may vary. I’ve only used the Silver Efex Pro 2 module, not the sharpener, analog, or other modules. For more information, google “Nik Collection free version”.

Black & White Presets

I’ve been interested in film simulations both color and b&w. But I have been somewhat disappointed in many I’ve tried, especially b&w. I like the idea of making my images less digital looking, adding film-like qualities. Many digital photographers have been resorting to mist or glimmer filters to take the ‘digital-edge’ off. These soften the highlights without affecting the shadows. So trying these filters and tinkering with the digital camera color science has been something I’m exploring.
When converting color images to black&white, I haven’t like the results when applying a film simulation. I loved Plus-X and Tri-X film, back-in-the-day. But the artificial grain added by their film simulation presets don’t work for me. So I’ve been trying Silver Efex Pro 2, part of Nik Collection, to convert my color images to black & white. As with any digital darkroom tool, Silver Efex Pro 2 gives me a base b&w image to work on. Nik Collection are a group of plugins for Lightroom and Photoshop. So the color image is exported by Lightroom (with or without Lightroom edits) into a Nik Collection toolbox. I prefer the Silver Efex Pro 2 modules. You cycle through the different presets then save back into Lightroom for further edits and final output. Some of Silver Efex’s presets are extreme but I often get a better result than Lightroom’s b&w presets. I’m sure I could end up with similar results using Lightroom but found Silver Efex to be a better starting point.

Example from Reflections/Komorebi (click each image & read the filename for the Silver Efex Preset used)