The Best Photo Editing Software for Photographers: If you are a professional photographer, or you have just introduced yourself to the world of photography, you will surely be interested in this article in which we will announce the best software for photographers. Those that, by the way, will serve as useful tools for you to adjust images, add effects, import files in different formats, or even merge different frames.
- 1. Adobe Photoshop
- 2. Paint Shop Pro
- 3. Gimp
- 4. Pixrl
- 5. Affinity Photo
- 6. Fotor
- 7. Befunky
- 8. SumoPaint
- 9. Evernote
- 10. Capture One
The Best Photo Editing Software for Photographers
Everything you can imagine, you can do with the Best Photo Editing Software for Photographers!
Some of them only require you to download them to your PC, pay a monthly fee for use or use them online. Just get the best software that fits your project to make it completely perfect. Know all the details of the available options, below:
1. Adobe Photoshop
Both experts and amateurs, first choose Adobe Photoshop, as they consider it one of the best software for photographers available. But why do they use it? It is a powerful software that provides a huge amount of tools and functions to retouch, edit and redesign any image.
With it, you can design and modify from photographs, banners, logos, or websites. And the best part is that its functions allow you to retouch any material until it becomes a true work of art.
Its interface is designed for professional use, but on the internet, you can get tutorials to learn how to take advantage of Photoshop in a short time.
2. Paint Shop Pro
Some photographers consider it the direct competition of Adobe Photoshop, but that does not take away from being one of the best software. Corel has been responsible this time to create Paint Shop Pro Photo, which has numerous best software to edit and manage for beginners any visual work.
By using it you will be able to give quick touches to your photos that make a difference, adjust their size, or add filters so that your images are impressive.
The best thing is that Paint Shop Pro Photo can give you suggestions guided by Artificial Intelligence so you have no doubts about what you can do in digital photography.
3. Gimp
Another alternative that appears among the software for photographers is Gimp.
It is a free software totally free that gives you a lot of possibilities and nothing has to envy other more sophisticated software. The great thing about Gimp is that it includes functions to change the photo format, create photomontages, add effects and much more.
One of its most outstanding advantages is that if you download it to your computer, you can have plugins that increase and improve your original tools. Which is possible with every update you receive from Gimp. Recommended!
4. Pixlr
If you are looking for a really useful software for photographers: the definitive answer is Pixlr. And although its interface is similar to that of Photoshop, perhaps its learning curve is easier. Of course, you have to create a profile on your platform and access it online to work with it.
Users highlight comfort when using Pixlr because it has shortcuts for almost all its functions, which allow you to see the results immediately in the images.
There is no doubt that you will be able to superimpose layers, add filters or even embed emoticons quickly and attractively in your photos.
5. Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo is much more than one of the many software for photographers you can get online. Through its platform, you have the opportunity not only to get editing tools but post to social media and many others to manage your entire photography business.
With Affinity Photo, it is possible that you store customer data, keep an automated agenda of your work, have cost control, and even get general reports of your company.
And by the way of expenses, you may be interested in reading our article with the best billing software. The truth is that there is nothing you can’t do with your software, keep that in mind.
6. Fotor
For those who want simple software with a friendly interface, Fotor may be what they are looking for.
In addition, it has the advantage that once you register on your platform, you can store all your material in the Cloud to avoid any setback. With Fotor you just have to load the image to adjust its brightness, size, colors, or add some effects.
You can even set frames or templates, create a collage or reduce shadows and transparencies. Its tools are very powerful and easy to use, that is what makes Fotor an excellent choice.
7. Befunky
BeFunky is one of the most intuitive and friendly Best Photo Editing Software for Photographers to use.
Its tools and functions can be tested on any image and get the results immediately. You just have to press any of its tabs to display a world of editing options.
This online software lets you use presets that save you time and even allows you to save your content directly on other platforms such as Facebook, Google, or Dropbox. BeFunky is a very good software option for photographers.
8. SumoPaint
As an app, you just have to download SumoPaint on your Smartphone or computer to start working with it easily.
Its functions can fine-tune the lines, adjust the tones, apply light effects or create a 3D picture with your image, for example.
The SumoPaint interface is intuitive and nothing complicated to use. Although it should be noted that it lacks some common effects to apply to images. For the rest, use your app to modify your photos in a short time.
9. Evernote
Come on, Evernote is not software for photographers exclusively, but a content management software with which you can write down all your creative ideas.
You can also take some photos of the places that inspire you, upload visual material for specific projects or classify pending images by editing in a folder.
Evernote is not used to edit or modify your photos, but it will help you organize all your material efficiently.
10. Capture One
In case all your images are in RAW format, you can use Capture One to edit them in any way.
The software integrates options for you to adjust shadows and highlights, increase color density or overlap masks to increase the visual impact of your photos.
To make use of Capture One you have to register, make a single or monthly payment and you will have unlimited access to its functions, but it is worth it.
Which Software is Best for Photographers? Photoshop or Lightroom?
This discussion of which program is better if Lightroom or Photoshop has circulated for a long time among amateur photographers and in order to answer this we must first define what they are and what each one is for.
Let’s start by mentioning that both Lightroom and Photoshop are programs designed for different purposes. While Photoshop is designed for the digital editing and manipulation of all types of images, Lightroom has been designed specifically for photographers, to cover in a very easy and simple way the editing and development of photos.
Now, having this clear, we are going to describe the functionality, strengths, and weaknesses of each program for a better understanding:
Photoshop?
Photoshop is an image editor that gives you full control of your image.
STRENGTHS
Retouching
Photoshop is a specialist in retouching. If you need to remove unwanted spots in the image, reduce a person’s dark circles, make a person lose a few kgs, whiten teeth, remove blemishes, or make any other change in a specific part of the image, Photoshop will be your best option.
Layers and opacity
Photoshop works on the principle of layers. You can create layers with different settings and control their opacity (the visibility of that layer). This allows very precise control of the image and its appearance.
Composition
You can create group photos using multiple photos, that is, you can put all the people together in a single photo and make it look like it was taken in one photo.
This is possible because Photoshop is a pixel-based image editor. This program is capable of selecting specific pixels and pasting the pixels into another photo. This combination of images is called compositing, as you are interlacing elements from multiple images into one image.
Fill according to content
Content-based fill is a special feature of Photoshop that can be used in different ways. It can be used to remove large or distracting elements from images (such as removing an entire building).
WEAKNESSES
Potentially destructive
Photoshop modifies the original file and if you accidentally save it without creating a new one, the original file will be lost and replaced by the edited file.
Is hard to learn
Photoshop has an infinity of combinations to edit an image, learning to use each of the tools becomes very complicated. Photoshop offers many options for correcting, manipulating, and changing images. It becomes difficult to know what to use or when to use any function.
No workflow
Photoshop is designed to work with individual images, it is not designed to work with groups of photos. This can be a big problem if you need to edit 100 photos of an event that you covered.
It is not a RAW file editor
If you are taking RAW photos, you will have to process your images before opening them in Photoshop.
Lightroom?
Lightroom is an image manager and editing program. Using Lightroom, photographers can classify, organize, edit their photos from import. It is a program designed to ease the photographer’s workflow and to help you work efficiently with large amounts of images.
STRENGTHS
Process RAW files
Being able to edit RAW files gives you the possibility to rescue many photographs, poorly framed, underexposed, with a lot of digital noise, with very opaque colors, etc.
You can make adjustments to settings such as exposure, contrast, and saturation. You can also sharpen, reduce noise, add vignettes, crop, add colors, and even apply creative dodge and dye effects with the adjustment brush.
Efficient workflow
Lightroom covers almost every step in the post-production process. You can import your images, sort them by the selection, tag the images with keywords, organize collections, perform RAW processing, create slide shows, print photos, create web galleries.
Default settings
Lightroom has default settings. The default settings can be saved and applied to other photos and even applied to photos that we are just going to import into Lightroom, this saves a lot of time since you edit photos starting from previous processing.
Nondestructive
Whether you’re working with RAW or JPEG files, Lightroom doesn’t edit the original files. When you make adjustments to an image, what is actually happening is creating a set of instructions so that Lightroom knows how to save the copy of the file. These instructions are stored in the Lightroom catalog, or in special files known as XMP.
There is no concern that modifications will be accidentally saved to the original file, which also makes it easy to experiment without fear of losing files.
Easier to learn
Lightroom is a more intuitive program, its controls are simpler to use and it is easier to learn how to use them, its interface has also been designed to help photographers to work through images in a logical way. Obviously you have to learn to use these controls to be able to edit the image correctly, but this is achieved with practice.
WEAKNESSES
Retouching
While it is possible to do simple touch-ups in Lightroom, it is not actually the recommended program for extensive touch-ups. The program does not have the controls to achieve such advanced and precise retouching.
To achieve this type of retouching, you will have to go to Photoshop where the clone stamp and the spot correction brush will allow you to perform touch-ups much faster and better than what is possible in Lightroom.
Advanced image manipulation
Lightroom works fine for making global adjustments to images, but for pixel-level editing it is not possible.
Only photographs
Lightroom is a program specifically designed for photographers editing photos. Photoshop, on the other hand, can be used to edit a wide variety of graphics, not just photos.
So Which Photo Editing Software is Better?
Seeing all this, the correct answer could not be Lightroom or Photoshop, to answer we would have to ask What work are you going to do?
If your answer is going to edit my photographs of a trip or to make a general edition of an event or to correct some exposure details of photographs that I did not achieve at the time of taking the photo, then the answer would be Lightroom, but if your answer is to combine two photographs in such a way that it seems that it takes a single photograph.
To edit an image that will come out in a contributed from a magazine, to eliminate a car that appears at the end of the scene and distracts attention from my main object, then the answer will be Photoshop, but our final answer would be, work with both at the same time. Download the photos, classify them and reveal them in lightroom and if you need a specific retouch to pass them to Photoshop.
Conclusion
Try any of these Best Photo Editing Software for Photographers and you can be sure to create amazing images that surprise everyone.