Photo editing software for editing lotsa pics

I need photo editing software that allows for very efficient / large
scale editing of pictures. I'd like to be able to edit several
thousand outstanding pics (from a couple of longer trips I took), and
photoshop is taking just too long. (I'd like to be able to edit each
picture in seconds, and not minutes.)

The problem with photoshop is I've found it doesn't allow for quick
work flows of basic touch ups. 90% of my touch ups involve tweaking
shadows and highlights, levels, Hue / Saturation, and the like.

Any good software recommendations?

thanks so much, dave

 

i'd suggest lightroom. you can also batch edit (which you can do in
photoshop too but it's a bit more awkward).

 

Actually Photoshop does offer some quick basic editing of photos. A lot of the basic adjustments like levels or hue/sat offers you to save presets and apply them to other images. You can also utilize actions to do complex series of effects to one photo, and then by one click repeat those settings. For instnace you could create an action that applies a levels adjustment, hue saturation, perhaps a softening or sharpening filter, and then have it save and close.

In my job I frequently have to take 20-30 images and scale them down to video or web friendly screen sizes and do color and levels adjustments. Actions easily decrease my time by more than half.

If Photoshop is too pricey look at Photoshop Elements. You can alos Google "Gimp", which is a free shareware version of Photoshop, but which is by no means as robust. IT actually makes me want Photoshop more, however being free you can't argue the price.

 

I also like to use Adobe Bridge to batch edit RAW images.

 

OK thanks that's unfortunate, as my photos are varied / i was indoor,
outdoor, all over the place. I'll still check out Lightroom, but will
likely keep looking for other batch editing software.

 

DxO Optics Pro.

It lets you run on auto or individually adjust images and then does a
bulk development of your images, dumping them into a new folder or the
source folder with a different name to the images.

It will also fix on the fly:
:
Noise
Lens errors
tonal range
and just about anything you care to make it do.

Learning curve for custom adjustments is short and most of all, it works!

 

Seriously, try Nikon NX2.



Eric Stevens

 

....the only problem I find with DxO is that it won't address a RAW
file. That's a big deal with me. I've been trying to "Adobyize" just
to keep things in the same corral and really like Lightroom, and
Bridge is becoming useful as a wonderful viewer. Of course, the
"bridge" to Photoshop is handy. I've tried Bibble recently and find
the crop function to be clumsey compared to LR...other than that
Bibble really is pretty good. And,yes, Eric, I've tried the Nikon
software, too, but the allure of all that is Adobe keeps me coming
back and learning a bit more every time...all that said, if it saves
me time when processing 3,000 shots I'll switch in shutter priority
(that's *fast*)!

cg

 

Hate to burst your bubble Charlie but DxO Optics Pro is one of the best
RAW developers in the world.

It's only purpose for existing is to process RAW files and fix all the
lens errors (for lenses which it has modules for) whilst also fixing the
quaintly digital problems micro lenses on the sensors cause. The current
version goes a lot further and fixes noise like no other software I've
used before.

Recommended workflow for RAW development is: DxO Optics Pro followed by
Adobe Lightroom. DxO integrates with Lightroom to achieve a quality
result. 3,000 images will take you the best part of 5 hours with a fast
PC. In Lightroom the time will be longer because much of what DxO does
automatically has to done by hand in LR.

 

....well, duh! *Oj course it does RAW*, I had it mixed-up with
something else...I've had it for a year or so and in recent months
went away and started using LR from start to finish with Bridge as a
viewer. I am chagrined!

cg

 

....ah,*Noise Ninja* won't do RAW in their stand-alone version, I've
been going round and round with all this stuff trying to find my ideal
work flow, I might just be welmed! Actually, Jurgen, we've discussed
this in the thread about NN that I started...I've come to really like
the texture that NN gets, compared to DxO and that's why I left DxO,
but the problem remains that I have that extra step... LR won't allow
me the batch NN processing that I need for the night work I do and yet
I want and *need* the RAW mode to work in so LR is still in the lead
....I'm cooking some files up in DxO right now and will try to be
empirical this time..heh, well *patient* is prolly a better word..I
find the controls in DxO to be clunky compared to LR...

cg

 

One of the reasons I like LR so well is that it's a much better file
manager than Bridge.

 

....that's where I'm trying to get, Alan. I'm slowly going thru
Kelby's CS3 book and using LR alot from the get-go! So I guess I'm a
little backwards, but nothing new there...

cg

 

Are you sure you're recalling correctly? LR's images are totally
apparent as to place. Early versions of Aperture hid them, IIRC.

 

Yeah, that makes no sense. Alan, given that you aren't one to take
hundreds of photos, I don't think LR would benefit you much. I think it
would help for my style where culling is a major part of the task.

--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

 

outdoor, all over the place. I'll still check out Lightroom, but will
likely keep looking for other batch editing software.

Dave, I had much the same problem as you (but not as large). I found it
was the saving that took the time, not just the tweaking as I work on
originals and save as a copy. So, I wrote an action so that now when I
press F12 it does - save as copy (to a holding directory), close original
without saving changes. This has speeded up my work quite considerably as
the action does it much quicker than I did.

This is probably an unprofessional way of doing things but it works for me.

Hope this helps,

Geoff.