What is photography? I’m sure you are wondering that. Well, photography is capturing pictures with the use of a camera. A photographer is one who possesses the inclination to capture the beauty of the world around them. They remain eternally driven to capture an image, beautify it and alter it in some way for others to see. Remembering every moment like it is etched into their mind, they can recall any scene with perfect clarity. A photographer is driven by what they want to capture most; they know there is always something beautiful waiting to be seen.
Being a photographer is an amazing thing. It opens your eyes to many wonderful things since you will encounter different kinds of people. And it really challenges you to look at the world differently. So, are you passionate about photography? I’ll bet you are! What’s more? You want to pursue this passion of yours professionally or just for fun. We all do. But that involves one of the most important things… what kind of photography software should you use?
1. Adobe Photoshop CC 2021
If all you want is technical, in-depth editing, Photoshop still rules
Despite its immense power and constant steady improvements, Photoshop is slick and straightforward to use. Its support for selections, masks and layers is unmatched, making it the tool of choice for complex composite images, and the latest October 2021 updates bring smart new Neural Filters and auto masking. Despite its reputation for complexity, Photoshop actually offers a very clean, slick interface. There are no ‘novice’ modes, but the tools panel does offer fly-out animations that show you how the tools work and what they do. There are no image browsing or cataloguing tools in Photoshop itself, but since Lightroom is included in the same Photography Plans as Photoshop, that’s not an issue (or you can use Adobe Bridge, which is simpler). On its own, Photoshop is powerful but limited; with Adobe Lightroom it’s half of the world’s most popular image editing double-act. Remember, though, that it’s aimed at designers, illustrators and artists, not just photographers.
2. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic/CC
With Lightroom, you might hardly need Photoshop at all
Lightroom is an all-in-one image cataloging, raw processing, and editing program and the perfect partner for Photoshop. If your main work is photo enhancement rather than manipulation, you might not need Photoshop at all. The October 2021 updates have brought new intelligent masking features that further close the gap. HOWEVER, Adobe has made things more confusing by splitting off the ‘old’ Lightroom, now called Lightroom Classic, for regular desktop storage, and introducing a new, slimmed-down Lightroom CC (now just plain ‘Lightroom’) which stores all your photos online. You get both in the main Adobe Photography Plan, but for us the Classic version is by far the best. It lets you apply one-click presets in a fraction of the time it takes to apply manual edits in Photoshop, and there’s a great range of free Lightroom presets out there too. If only its raw processing was a little less noisy and as good as DxO’s.
3. DxO PhotoLab 5
PhotoLab can make even modest gear produce spectacular results
DxO PhotoLab is the replacement for the old DxO Optics Pro, adding local adjustment tools from DxO’s acquisition of the Nik Collection software to make it a more powerful all-around photo-editing solution. You use the PhotoLibrary window to browse your image folders, create Projects, and carry out basic filtering and housekeeping tasks, but PhotoLab’s real strength is its superb raw processing, amazingly effective DeepPRIME denoise tool (Elite edition only), excellent local image adjustments, and highly effective (and automatic) lens corrections. The image quality produced by PhotoLab is second to none. On the downside, you’ll need the more expensive Elite edition to get DxO’s DeepPRIME and ClearView Plus features, and if you want to apply perspective corrections (once built into Optics Pro) you’ll need the DxO ViewPoint add-on too. DxO has also added PureRAW to its software suite – a raw batch processing tool that turns regular raw files into ‘Linear DNGs’. Other programs still treat these as raw files with all the tonal and color headroom you would expect, but they have DxO’s superior demosaicing, noise reduction, and lens corrections pre-applied. PhotoLab 5, just announced, at last brings compatibility with Fujifilm X-Trans files, plus a new selection/masking tool and more.
4. DxO Nik Collection 4.2
New and improved, Nik Collection 4 is still the best plug-in suite ever
Nik Collection 4 is the latest version of the celebrated Nik suite and consists of eight separate plug-ins which can also be used as standalone programs. Analog Efex Pro is brilliant at analog/darkroom effects, while Color Efex Pro is a hugely powerful suite of filters for individual use or combined into ‘recipes’. Silver Efex Pro remains the best digital black and white plug-in ever and is updated in this version with a fresh, modern interface, a new ClearView option and more powerful selective control points. Viveza gets the same treatment and is elevated from a relatively simple local adjustment tool into a much more powerful plug-in. HDR Efex Pro is pretty handy as an HDR merging/effects tool, and while Sharpener Pro and Dfine feel pretty dated now, they can still be useful for output sharpening and noise reduction respectively. And then there’s Perspective Efex, DxO’s most recent addition, which offers powerful lens and perspective corrections, tilt-shift effects and advanced wide-angle distortion correction. You can use the Nik Collection 4 plug-ins with Photoshop, Lightroom and from within DxO PhotoLab – or use them as external editors with other programs like Capture One. The version 4.2 update improves compatibility with Photoshop running in M1 mode on the new M1 Macs.
5. Skylum Luminar
For many reasons, Luminar has quickly grown to become one of the most popular editing tools for professional photographers around the world. For one, you pay a one-time flat fee for the program rather than a monthly subscription like Adobe. And, Luminar offers a ton of built-in tools and accessories!
Luminar is a one-stop-shop for photo editing that can be used by itself or as a plugin in with Lightroom, Photoshop, and even Apple Photos.
Skylum Luminar Interface
Believe it or not, Skylum Luminar uses the same keyboard shortcuts that Adobe’s Lightroom does. This is especially helpful if you’re already familiar with Lightroom’s interface. If that’s true of you, you’ll find switching to Luminar an easy transition given the consistent keyboard shortcuts between the two software.
And, like Lightroom, you can use Luminar as both a photo editor and a photo organizer. Once again, this means that you can upload your images to your Luminar Library so that all of your photo editing workflow is centralized in one place!
Like Lightroom, you can then sort, tag and categorize your images within the Luminar Library to make them easier to find. Many also find the Luminar Library to be simpler and more intuitive even than Lightroom’s library.
Where Luminar excels over Lightroom is its preset workspace options. Luminar provides preset workspaces each specifically designed with an editing task in mind. For example, Luminar’s preset workspaces include:
- Professional
- Quick & Awesome
- Essentials
- Aerial Photography
- Black and White
- Landscape
- Portrait
- Street
In addition to those presets, you can create your own workspace by saving the tools you use most often to a blank workspace.
If this feature sounds familiar, it’s because Photoshop also provides preset workspaces. But, you’ll note that Luminar’s preset workspace options are much more extensive and cover a greater number of photography-specific needs. Anything to streamline your photo editing!
Skylum’s Luminar also offers more editing tools than Lightroom but fewer than Photoshop. Having more editing tools is both an advantage and a disadvantage — they make the program more challenging to navigate, but they also allow you to do more with your photos.
Here’s what we love about Luminar’s editing tools:
Skylum Luminar Key Features
Luminar has gained popularity for its AI slider, which applies automatic quick fixes to your photos including brightening, clarifying, toning and other basic adjustments.
It also comes with a host of built-in tools to make your photo editing easier and faster. These Skylum Luminar features include:
- AI Editor
- Exclusive filters like Sunrays filter (which lets you add realistic looking sun rays to your images) and Orton filter (made famous by the Lord of the Rings and blurs parts of the image while focusing in on others)
- Adjustment Layers
- Image Layers
- Dedicated presets for DJI drone photos
6. ON1 Photo RAW
ON1 Photo RAW is a complete photo editing software that you can try for free. It works wonders on your photographs!
ON1 Photo RAW Interface
Not only is Photo RAW easy to download and install, but it offers a free trial! Simply follow the on-screen instructions to download the software, then use it on any major operating system, including PC and Mac OS X.
After you’ve installed and opened ON1 Photo RAW, you’ll find a selection of getting started video tutorials waiting for you! See, ON1 Photo RAW is so dedicated to saving your time during your photo edits that it even eliminated the need to search for your own tutorial videos.
Once you actually enter into the software’s workspace, you may feel a bit overwhelmed. Like most photo editors, ON1’s selection of editing tools can be a bit intimidating if you’re not a practiced photo editor.
Just take your time exploring ON1’s features, and you’ll be set!
Key Features
Speaking of features, ON1 Photo RAW offers several that are unique to this software! For one, this program doesn’t require you to upload your RAW photos in order to edit them. In fact, all you have to do to edit your RAW images in ON1 Photo RAW is find your images where they’re stored on your device and select them.
Because ON1 doesn’t have to load your RAW images into the software, you’ll find that it works lightning fast — even faster than Photoshop and Lightroom!
Other ON1 Photo RAW features include:
- Stackable filters
- Custom presets
- Textures and borders
- Live adjustments and previews
- Available to download on any device
- Selectively apply effects option
7. Stencil.
Best for beginners with no graphic design skills ($9 per month).
Stencil is a web-based graphic design and photo editing tool that helps you create and edit images for your social media and website. It comes with a user-friendly interface and is suitable for social media marketing professionals, bloggers, and small business owners.
It helps you easily design social media images, including ad banners, headers, profile pictures, posts, and more.
Some of its key features include:
- Instant image resizing.
- Ability to store and upload multiple logos.
- Easy to use addons for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.
- Identify safe areas to put content in your image.
- Share images on different social platforms directly from your dashboard.
- Keep all your ‘favorite’ icons, logos, and images separately for quick access.
Stencil comes with a bank of over 5 million royalty-free images in high resolution that you edit within your Stencil dashboard. Besides, you get over 1400 templates to create different designs like quotes, banners, etc.
With over 3,300 Google fonts and the ability to upload your custom fonts, you won’t lack options to design and customize your images.
Other elements include over 3 million unique icons for commercial and personal use, and 140+ custom size presets to design images for different requirements. However, it also allows you to design images with a custom size. After you’re through with the final measurements, you preview the designed image to get a precise idea of how the final cut would look like.
Additionally, Stencil offers multiple filters to beautify images and download them in high resolution. You can also share your designs as a Bit.ly link with anyone across various platforms.
Conclusion
A photography business starts with a good website to show off your work. There are a wide range of websites available to you to improve your site, rank it in Google and make it easy for customers to call you or contact you by email. Right from the moment a customer lands on your website they should be able to see all of your work and INSPIRE them to want to buy from you. What do you need from a website builder?