Questions Re: Studio Photography Software

So this is my situation... Love Photography, I'm good at it, people love my work, made some $$ doing seniors, weddings, babies, pets, etc... Now I want to open a studio...

My parents own a restaurant with space next door for me to begin... Also, I'm able to use the restaurant for advertising etc... The potential is definatly there...

BUT... I'm looking for a good software to help me out some... I really love Olan Mills, it appears to be so easy... Walk in, take the pics, load the card, each photo is taken with 3 different lighting effects, select what you like, edit/discard what you dont, order the pics and leave... All in 30 minutes...

I want to do everything myself because I like all aspects of it and I can't afford to hire someone right away... However, if I do it how I am now it would take me FOREVER...

Any suggestions?? THANK YOU!!!

If you mean by good software the type that is used for post processing your images, the gold standard is indeed Adobe Photoshop. However, it is expensive and the learning curve is immense, so it may be better to start with Adobe Elements. It has many of the same features as PS but at a fraction of the price.

Then there are others - Corel PhotoPaint, Gimp (which is FREE), Paint Shop Pro... All good choices.

There's really no substituting for time and effort in learning the software. But with a course or two and some good books and online tutorials, not to mention visiting this forum ( :D ), you may learn very very quickly.

I hope this helps. Let us know how it goes too,

G

I'm not quite clear whether you want organizational software or something to help more specifically with your photo editing.

On the organizational side, though, look at Google's Picasa for sure. It's free, and has a very intuitive interface. However, for editing itself it's pretty limited.


Alex, Portrait Professional