Image download software for Lumix cameras

wfages wrote:

Hello. I realise I am replying to an old post, but for me this camera (Panasonic DMC TZ80) is still a very big deal, so I am very interested in this subject. Most of you probably have a new camera! I bought it to take on a safari in August 2018. After downloading those images, my external storage became defunct, then my computer became obsolete, and I could not ever edit them. I bought huge memory cards and stored images there. Now that I have a new PC I can download again, but theres a problem. Not only do I need to choose a photo editing software, I need to learn how to trim these Post Focus (4K?) shots into single PDF images.

Three years have passed since Jagladden brought up the which photo management application is best question. Are those answers still good, PFS and that other suggestion (afraid I may lose this text to see it!) or must I cull through todays's thirty-odd options?

PFS is likely to be your best bet to organise, mine is set to create a folder for each day's images. I use the same PFS for all cameras, with a top-level folder for each camera. When transferring from the card (via card reader), I select the appropriate camera folder, PFS then creates a folder for each day (you'd need to set this in preferences). PFS will allow you to see the 4Post-focus files. I wouldn't delete the images from the cards until you are happy that you can achieve all you want on the PC. Worst-case scenario is that you put the cards back into the camera to perform your Post-focus merging in-camera, then save and transfer the output file(s) to the PC. I can't remember if PFS will do the Post-focus merge for you on the PC - suspect that it does.

For general image editing, there are many free products, Faststone is certainly quite useful for Jpeg.  The free version of Silkypix works fine if you need RAW PP.