Good Post Production Software?

Hi there, hope you all well..

Im looking for a post production software program that will allow me to make quick simple and interesting changes to the photos without going into too much detail
I have photoshop and I love it but i spend hours and hours doing things to one photo, I used a program on a friends iPad and it came up with some amazing and fantastic changes that were pre-programmed

So basically im looking for a program that offers quick simple cool looking changes to casual photos.. anything free would probably be preferable..
Could anyone point me in the right direction?

I've never used Lightroom but I think it does exactly what you're asking for: easy choices for different looks, etc.

GIMP is free (do a web search for where to download), but has a crappy user interface IMO.

Just remember that w/ ease of use comes less capability to 'veer off' the predefined path the software's defined for you.

G

pretty sure my friend has lightroom, and it is super fun to use

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Originally Posted by Rocker

Hi there, hope you all well..

Im looking for a post production software program that will allow me to make quick simple and interesting changes to the photos without going into too much detail
I have photoshop and I love it but i spend hours and hours doing things to one photo, I used a program on a friends iPad and it came up with some amazing and fantastic changes that were pre-programmed

So basically im looking for a program that offers quick simple cool looking changes to casual photos.. anything free would probably be preferable..
Could anyone point me in the right direction?

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Not sure what camera you have, but most digital camera manufacturers supply some basic software with the camera that can be used for routine editing of images from the camera. Depending one what type of camera you have, this software may be just the thing for you.

You said you have Photoshop, but have you looked at Photoshop Elements (PSE), its little brother/sister? Not nearly as complicated to learn and much simpler to use than Photoshop. I used PSE for about 4 years and went from version 4 to 6 to 8 , before moving to Lightroom and Photoshop CS5 (long story) and you are right, Photoshop can have you doing a lot of things to individual images. Alternatively, have you considered a simpler workflow with Photoshop - maybe your image processing is overly complex as you say you spend hours and hours doing things to one photo. It would be interesting to know just exactly what it is that you spend hours and hours doing.

Lightroom may look like "fun" to use, but it can get almost as complicated as Photoshop, particularly if you are someone who, like me, is a bit of a perfectionist and likes to have everything "just right". Trust me - been there, done that, with Lightroom. Don't let me persuade you from not trying it - you can download it from Adobe's site and try it for thirty days for free - go here http://www.adobe.com/downloads/. You can also try Photoshop Elements on the same basis - 30 day free trial (same download page).

If you are running Windows, you might want to see if Windows Live Photo Gallery have the basic tools that you might want - check here: http://explore.live.com/windows-live...llery?os=other, alternatively, Picasa from Google maybe sufficient for what you want - check it here: http://picasa.google.com/.

Hope this helps a bit...

Cheers,

WesternGuy

Zoner Photo Studio is a great post production program that will do most of the simple things you need doing without going into great detail, its easy to use and its not a drain on your system. Well worth a look in my mind.

Hello,

I run the technical operations at a large post production facility. I thought you might want to hear the software we use...

Final Cut Studio 3 (for editing - Apple recently switched to Final Cut Pro X, but we're staying on Studio 3 for now due to the latest version's technical limitations)

Adobe After Effects CS5 - We use this to design "Motion Graphics". The final product eventually ends up inside of Final Cut.

Cinema 4D by Maxon - 3D Animation software

Autodesk Maya - 3D Animation Software

...and Avid ProTools is used for our audio department.

I hope that helps!

Ryan Salazar

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Originally Posted by post-production-engineer

Hello,

I run the technical operations at a large post production facility. I thought you might want to hear the software we use...

Final Cut Studio 3 (for editing - Apple recently switched to Final Cut Pro X, but we're staying on Studio 3 for now due to the latest version's technical limitations)

Adobe After Effects CS5 - We use this to design "Motion Graphics". The final product eventually ends up inside of Final Cut.

Cinema 4D by Maxon - 3D Animation software

Autodesk Maya - 3D Animation Software

...and Avid ProTools is used for our audio department.

I hope that helps!

Ryan Salazar

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Thanks for contributing, Ryan. These all sound like video/animation editors though, not photo? Maybe After Effects does handle stills .. haven't seen it in action in quite awhile.

Im looking for a post production software program that will allow me to make quick simple and interesting changes to the photos without going into too much detail
I have photoshop and I love it but i spend hours and hours doing things to one photo, I used a program on a friends iPad and it came up with some amazing and fantastic changes that were pre-programmed

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Originally Posted by Marcelo0

Im looking for a post production software program that will allow me to make quick simple and interesting changes to the photos without going into too much detail
I have photoshop and I love it but i spend hours and hours doing things to one photo, I used a program on a friends iPad and it came up with some amazing and fantastic changes that were pre-programmed

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Marcelo - Hmm, what you're describing is definitely something less than Photoshop and even different from Corel PhotoPaint...more like a Wizard approach. I think Corel's Paint Shop Pro would offer some of those packaged edits that do a pretty good job by just clicking. There's also others, but we need some other folks to chime in on those as I haven't used any in awhile.

One fun site to check out it photofunia.com, where you can upload an image of a friend or another person and create some fun scenes.

G

You may want to try some online apps. Picnik, which is an app through google chrome might be what you want.

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Originally Posted by n8

You may want to try some online apps. Picnik, which is an app through google chrome might be what you want.

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Picnic is good for free (well sort of) and a few people use "Gimp" www gimp.org as a free alternative to say Photoshop. :)

I like Paintshop Pro. They are now on the 4th version of the pro edition. It costs less than $100 nd it's a full blown system.

Great. I am using Adobe photoshop and Lightroom in my post-production work.