Photoshop -- to bite the bullet and buy or not?

[reesecup]

First of all, thanks for tolerating me these past couple of days. I've had several questions.

I fell in love with photography about 6 years ago but have not really gotten too serious about it. However, I want to dig into it a little more. I want to know, is it worth biting the bullet for photoshop or is there another editing program out that is pretty good (I know PS is the best) for cheaper cost? Has anyone heard of or used Fotoflexer?

The main thing I want to do is add a watermark to my photos. I'm not into heavy editing of pictures. I like the "realness" of a picture.

I do to have a flickr account yet either….I would imagine that would be a big plus for me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I have seen some amazing picture on here!

 

[havoc315]

There really are just so many choices.

Lightroom is primarily for raw processing and cataloging photographs, but it can also handle 95% of basic editing needs, including watermarks. And as time goes by, there is plenty of photo editing software that works as a plug in for Lightroom.

Lightroom can be bought standalone, or it's part of the creative cloud package with full Photoshop... so full Photoshop and Lightroom are $9.99 per month. Photoshop is very very powerful.... but I rarely use it, as it is very complicated and I honestly haven't mastered it. But there are a couple features -- mostly deleting unwanted items from photos -- that I will go into photoshop for, instead of Lightroom. (Lightroom handles all my cropping, color correction, red eye removal, exposure adjustments, etc, etc).

Or you can get Photoshop Elements as a stand alone product, which is a scaled down version of Photoshop. No great cataloging features of Lightroom, but can handle most editing needs.

DXO Optics is similar to Lightroom/Photoshop in many ways.. I'm thinking of trying it, and using it alongside Lightroom/Photoshop.

I also own (yes, I own several types of editing software.. call me crazy) Perfect Photo Suite. It is actually a bundle of several different pieces, that are specialized for different tasks. Very automated and easy to use. For example, there is a portrait module that smooths out skin and adds some sparkle to the eyes. It has a "layers" module for easily masking out parts of the image, to substitute skies for example. "Enhance" module for fixing exposure, sharpness, etc. Pretty sure you can add watermarks with it as well.

There are plenty of others, some of which are free.

Personally --- For my editing:
-- I'm considering adding DXO Optics for it's powerful noise reduction, it's "film" effects, and some of it's other advanced features.
-- I use Lightroom "every day" for my photo cataloging, RAW processing, and very basic editing. Use it for all my exporting as well.
-- I occasionally use Photoshop for removing unwanted objects. I've done some group photo composites as well, but that's rare.
-- I sometimes use Topaz plug-ins for sharpening, detail finding, some effects.
-- I have an older version of Perfect Photosuite -- I won't be updating as I don't use it often. But I like the "Perfect Portrait" for basic portrait work.
--For advanced portrait work, I use Portrait Professional which is POWERFUL. I can take years off a person's face... Heck, it makes it easy to change someone's hair color if you want to go that far.

So really, different types of software are best for different purposes. But for really simple tasks, anything will work, including some free/almost free software. (You can do editing within Flickr even!)

And here is some free watermarking software:

http://www.picmarkr.com/

 

[photo_chick]

If you just want to add watermarks and do basic editing Photoshop is probably going to be overkill for you. Consider Photoshop Elements or Lightroom. There are several watermark specific plug ins out there for both. Go to Adobe.com and download some free trials.

 

[saturndb]

I agree with photo_chick. photoshop would be over kill for what you are looking for. Lightroom would be a better, cheaper option and has a lower learning curve to it..

 

[11290]

This link for some possible watermarking software:

http://louisem.com/1912/free-watermark-software-watermark-online

 

[littlekidagain]

You can always try Picasa from Google. It's free.

 

[BigTex71]

I highly recommend the Photographer's Special by Adobe (Creative Cloud) that was mentioned earlier. $9.99 a month for full, latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop is a steal. Once you start using Photoshop and learning it - you will be able to do things with your shots you never thought possible. There are many free tutorials on You Tube for Photoshop that can help you with the basics through advanced techniques.

 

[Skywise]

I'll chime in with Lightroom too.

Like you I was a "purist" as well and only salvaged Lightroom to try to salvage some photos I had shot badly. I had shot RAW + JPG for years but only used the JPG images in my Canon. After salvaging some underexposed shots I started playing around with some of my more favorite photos just to see what I could do. One of them was a night shot of the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. Even though I had the camera's setting nearly perfect - The camera's built in processing of the jpg output had made the fountain sprays yellow when it adjusted the white balance. I promptly corrected that in Lightroom (wowsers... now it looks like how I remembered it!) but then i started playing with some of the other sliders and controls and I was able to bring out details I didn't even know i had gotten in the shot. Then I started playing with the color saturation and intensity levels and... boom... I was hooked.

Even taking a "perfect" shot of a flower bed in the daylight I was able to bring back clouds that had been exposed out and make the roses "pop". To be sure it's enhanced reality but it turns photos from nice to breathtaking.

I also use it to enhance all the videos I take of the various disney fireworks and projection shows. The fireworks have more intense and brighter colors and the projection shows colors become more rich and detailed (so much so that the last time I was there looking at it in real life after seeing the videos so many times I was struck by how "plain and washed out" the projection video looked! )

 

[SkaGoat]

Even if you don't plan on using any of the editing features in Lightroom, I still think Lightroom is worth the price just for it's cataloguing features, it also will allow you to upload your photos to sites like Flickr easily, right inside of Lightroom.

 

[mom2rtk]

Another thumbs up for Lightroom. Definitely download the trial version and try it out. You really have nothing to lose. And I love that you can still purchase it outright. I was very happy with LR3 that I bought 4 years ago, and only upgraded to the new version because the old one did not support my new camera.

 

[Sereina]

Another Lightroom fan here. I used Photoshop for a couple years before switching to LR and I haven't look back since. It makes batch editing a breeze and adding watermarks and resizing super simple.

 

[WebmasterPete]

I highly recommend the Photographer's Special by Adobe (Creative Cloud) that was mentioned earlier. $9.99 a month for full, latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop is a steal.

Couldn't agree with this more. I have licenses to Adobe CC for everyone on the team. It's so nice to always get the latest versions of the software without going through the expense of upgrading.

I'd also second using Lightroom. I recently switched from Aperture and haven't looked back!

 

[CaitlinMarie13]

I hardly ever heavily edit photos, but I usually watermark them for my blog and I love Lightroom! It hasn't let me down yet.

 

[SkaGoat]

Couldn't agree with this more. I have licenses to Adobe CC for everyone on the team. It's so nice to always get the latest versions of the software without going through the expense of upgrading.

I'd also second using Lightroom. I recently switched from Aperture and haven't looked back!

I recently switched from Aperture, and I miss how it organized photos, but the editing features in Lightroom are much better.

 

[Luv0fDisney]

we bought photoshop about 1-2 years ago and I am so glad we got it.
If you shoot photos in RAW you can edit your pictures. I always shoot JPEG+RAW so that I can edit the pictures in Photoshop.

 

[BigTex71]

My RAW editing workflow usually starts with LightRoom (tilt/crop), then edit in PhotoShop using Topaz filters, finish up with minor tweaks in LR (curves, vignetting), and finally exporting with watermark.

But I still consider myself be be a bit of a n00b at post-processing and my workflow changes, depending on my mood.

 

[TheBigE]

Yet another vote for Lightroom...it can watermark, and also interface directly to flickr if needed. Even if you do not use all the non destructive editing features of LR (this is a key difference from photoshop) just the cataloging an organization features are well worth the investment. I use the creative cloud at 9.99/mo and have PS, but hardly touch it. Most of my work is done in LR.

 

[keneka]

Photoshop wins hands down for me, although I do use iphoto alot (I think there is a plug-in for watermarks)

 

[sJv2011]

I started with photoshop elements (maybe version 9?) which I was able to purchase for cheap. I purchased Lightroom recently but haven't made the switch. Photoshop Elements was very overwhelming at first so jumping to Lightroom makes me nervous eeeek!

 

[sharona]

My RAW editing workflow usually starts with LightRoom (tilt/crop), then edit in PhotoShop using Topaz filters, finish up with minor tweaks in LR (curves, vignetting), and finally exporting with watermark.

But I still consider myself be be a bit of a n00b at post-processing and my workflow changes, depending on my mood.

Love love love my Topaz filters! I use them with PS Elements 11 and they really are incredible. I got a sweet deal on them a few years ago on Black Friday! Merry Christmas to me!!!

The monthly PS deal is a good one and if I hadn't just paid for Elements 11 a few months before they came out with that, I would have done it. But, since I paid up front for PSE11 I'm going to use it until I hit a wall and find something that I need it to do that it just won't do before I spend any more money.

Edit to add that if you are only looking to watermark and not edit (why?) then use Picassa since it is free. I would not pay for software just to add a watermark.