finding a straightforward digital editing program without irrelevancies..

I'm quite aware of most of the "junior" editing programs such as Elements, Paint Shop Pro etc., as well as GIMP and other free editors and actually find Picasa 3 & Zoombrowser Ex quite good although too limited. However, as primarily a landscape photographer, what I am forever searching for is an editor that concentrates on the essentials without all the numerous irrelevancies that clutter up so many of the existing ones and have appeal mostly to family snapshooters. An example of such a program would be:

• Import photos from folders in one's existing "image Bank" into a workspace &

then perform one or more of the following edits:

• Straighten/level tilted image
• Crop, trim and/or Resize
• Remove unwanted objects and/or small blemishes
• Lighten or darken image overall
• Correct brightness or shade in local areas
• Check Saturation - modify colour if necessary
• " Contrast
• " Sharpness
• Correct perspective if necessary
• Choose border
• Black & White conversion for certain images.

Any guidance to such a simplified program would be appreciated...

LightZone by Lightcrafts. it will do everything you have listed except one thing, and that is perspective correction.

but maybe that is coming, soon. LC is working on LZ v4.0 right now, and perspective control tools have been on the wish list for a while now.

there are several quite good things about LZ for someone who is looking for a simpler interface:

• it is simpler, yet has tremendous power hidden under the hood
• it is far more intuitive to use
• because of the above 2 things, it is quicker to actually use (it processes slower in wintel environments, typically----we think that's about to change, though---but because it's easier to use the overall editing goes faster, typically)
• it has a couple of tools that are the best of their kind for altering exposure, and they can be implemented selectively to only portions of the image.(that's true of some other programs, too, but not nearly as straightforwardly)

I agree - Lightzone is great.

tex said:

LightZone by Lightcrafts. it will do everything you have listed except one thing, and that is perspective correction.

but maybe that is coming, soon. LC is working on LZ v4.0 right now, and perspective control tools have been on the wish list for a while now.

there are several quite good things about LZ for someone who is looking for a simpler interface:

• it is simpler, yet has tremendous power hidden under the hood
• it is far more intuitive to use
• because of the above 2 things, it is quicker to actually use (it processes slower in wintel environments, typically----we think that's about to change, though---but because it's easier to use the overall editing goes faster, typically)
• it has a couple of tools that are the best of their kind for altering exposure, and they can be implemented selectively to only portions of the image.(that's true of some other programs, too, but not nearly as straightforwardly)

Click to expand...

G1BWShutr said:

I'm quite aware of most of the "junior" editing programs such as Elements, Paint Shop Pro etc., as well as GIMP and other free editors and actually find Picasa 3 & Zoombrowser Ex quite good although too limited. However, as primarily a landscape photographer, what I am forever searching for is an editor that concentrates on the essentials without all the numerous irrelevancies that clutter up so many of the existing ones and have appeal mostly to family snapshooters. An example of such a program would be:

• Import photos from folders in one's existing "image Bank" into a workspace &

then perform one or more of the following edits:

• Straighten/level tilted image
• Crop, trim and/or Resize
• Remove unwanted objects and/or small blemishes
• Lighten or darken image overall
• Correct brightness or shade in local areas
• Check Saturation - modify colour if necessary
• " Contrast
• " Sharpness
• Correct perspective if necessary
• Choose border
• Black & White conversion for certain images.

Any guidance to such a simplified program would be appreciated...

Click to expand...

You have listed a fairly long list of requirements. I use 2 main programs - Photoshop (8) and Picasa: Picasa lacks editing tools alltogether but for general editing and posting on web album I find it quick and sufficient. I think for most amateurs in nutshell has almost anything required. It has very unconventional sliders as opposed to contrast/brightness (fill light, highligts and shadows) which I think put some people off as hard to get "puchier" images without (local) contrast adjustment. The good thing I like about Picasa is the fact it does not touch original files.

But, I print a lot and the workflow gets more complicated - to start with colour management and move on. It offers full editing power one may need, heaps of plug-ins you may like - overall investing in buying this software pays on the long run - you may find discounted versions sold in stores for much lower price comapared to the latest suites (as Adobe progessively went from CS to CS4).

Just my thoughts...

G1BWShutr said:

I'm quite aware of most of the "junior" editing programs such as Elements, Paint Shop Pro etc., as well as GIMP and other free editors and actually find Picasa 3 & Zoombrowser Ex quite good although too limited. However, as primarily a landscape photographer, what I am forever searching for is an editor that concentrates on the essentials without all the numerous irrelevancies that clutter up so many of the existing ones and have appeal mostly to family snapshooters. An example of such a program would be:

• Import photos from folders in one's existing "image Bank" into a workspace &

then perform one or more of the following edits:

• Straighten/level tilted image
• Crop, trim and/or Resize
• Remove unwanted objects and/or small blemishes
• Lighten or darken image overall
• Correct brightness or shade in local areas
• Check Saturation - modify colour if necessary
• " Contrast
• " Sharpness
• Correct perspective if necessary
• Choose border
• Black & White conversion for certain images.

Any guidance to such a simplified program would be appreciated...

Click to expand...

You might try Faststone. It has some editing features, though I use it primarily for sorting and culling. It's also got another great feature: it's free.

I've found nothing better for my sorting and culling, but I haven't used the editing features. It also allows a separate link to an outside editing program for the photo you have open.

--
Charlie Self



http://www.charlieselfonline.com

Adobe Lightroom 3 seems like a good match. It does the things in your list, including perspective correction. It has a straightforward interface, and if needed you can hide controls you do not want to use. It is built from the ground up as a powerful and streamlined tool for managing and editing photos, unlike GIMP and Photoshop which are much more general image processing tools.

Going more basic than Lightroom would probably sacrifice perspective corrections and local brightness adjustments, those are hardly considered "essential" considering how few people use them.

--
My Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36164047@N06/

Hi Tex,

Thanks for your input - I've downloaded free trial of Lightzone and will give it a try.

I use PhotoImpact from U Lead. Does almost all of what you want and has a logical human interface. Not sure if it does perspective correction. I have version 4.2 which was a freebee with an HP printer. The other one I find usefull for the simple stuff (color correction, saturation, curves, contrast, sharpening, and cropping) is HP Photo Printing which came with my HP slide scanner.

Both of these are for JPEG or BMP file edits as they don't contain a RAW converter. From trial and error, I find that not all editors work equally well on JPEGs - and particularly in sharpening. Both the ones I mentioned are very good with JPEGs as is Zoom Browser, although I don't like the workflow and logic in Zoom Browser as an editor. I mainly use it as a viewer, archive, and organizer.
--
Jerry

nada

You might want to try "sagelighteditor" which does just about all you want.
There is a free trial period. It also accepts Photoshop plugins.
Very nice piece of software.
I ended up paying for one, after trying it out. I still like it.

Also look at Helicon Filter- has raw conversion, perspective control, very simple to use indeed and I find it fast on my ancient WindpwsXP system
--
Everything changes

godfrog said:

Adobe Lightroom 3 seems like a good match. It does the things in your list, including perspective correction. It has a straightforward interface, and if needed you can hide controls you do not want to use. It is built from the ground up as a powerful and streamlined tool for managing and editing photos, unlike GIMP and Photoshop which are much more general image processing tools.

Going more basic than Lightroom would probably sacrifice perspective corrections and local brightness adjustments, those are hardly considered "essential" considering how few people use them.

--
My Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/36164047@N06/

Click to expand...

I have been using Lightroom 1 since it first appeared, and now trying the latest version 3.2. And I will end upgrading to it.

Agreed . Adobe LR3 is the professional level , yet extremely straightforward , tool for photo editing and 'intelligent' image storage. User interface is simply superb .

As usual you can download a fully fuctional 30 day trial. After that you can decide if it is worth the rather high price they ask for it.
--
Rapick
Jalbum supporter
http://www.pbase.com/rapick
http://rapick.jalbum.net/

You are probably just being too picky. Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro both do your entire list with ease and both are very affordable and straightforward.

G1BWShutr said:

I'm quite aware of most of the "junior" editing programs such as Elements, Paint Shop Pro etc., as well as GIMP and other free editors and actually find Picasa 3 & Zoombrowser Ex quite good although too limited. However, as primarily a landscape photographer, what I am forever searching for is an editor that concentrates on the essentials without all the numerous irrelevancies that clutter up so many of the existing ones and have appeal mostly to family snapshooters. An example of such a program would be:

• Import photos from folders in one's existing "image Bank" into a workspace &

then perform one or more of the following edits:

• Straighten/level tilted image
• Crop, trim and/or Resize
• Remove unwanted objects and/or small blemishes
• Lighten or darken image overall
• Correct brightness or shade in local areas
• Check Saturation - modify colour if necessary
• " Contrast
• " Sharpness
• Correct perspective if necessary
• Choose border
• Black & White conversion for certain images.

Any guidance to such a simplified program would be appreciated...

Click to expand...