“Amateurs worry about gear, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light, I just take photos,” said Vernon Trent.
I don’t think it matters much what you use to process your photos. It’s more important to have a vision for your photo and understand what tools to use to achieve that vision, including how it will be viewed i.e. online, projected (TV or projector) or printed. That said, processing a photo is the craft in photography, in my view and part of the joy of photography. In terms of the quote above all four aspects are equally important to me, although I’m not a professional I do worry about money in terms of how much (too much!) I spend on photography as a non-professional.
The following is not exhaustive and reflects my views, many people have differing views about what’s best. I have no affiliation with any of them other than as a customer for some of them and have trialled others.
Popular Software - these seem to be the ones that are mentioned most.
Adobe: Lightroom (Classic, Desktop or Mobile), Bridge, Photoshop: Most ubiquitous with lots of help and instructions on the internet. Main points: non-destructive editing, cataloguing, and presets. Advanced editing capabilities, layers, and retouching tools. Bridge has become quite sophisticated over the years and could now stand instead of Lightroom for organising your images, but you need Photoshop for processing (or one of the others below).
Capture One: Favoured by many professionals using high end cameras (e.g. phase one) and noted for colour grading tools, tethered shooting, and high-quality RAW processing.
Affinity Photo: Seen as an alternative to Adobe products by many, particularly because of its affordability and powerful editing features.
Luminar AI: AI-powered tools for quick and effective edits are its main selling points. This is the least of my recommendations the AI powered tools do what AI thinks not what you want, although you can change the edits, but many people find that OK.
DxO Photolab: Maybe not as easy to use as Adobe products at first glance, but a viable alternative, save for cataloguing. See the comments below about plug-ins. Industry leading noise reduction and lens/camera profiles combination for lens corrections - removing distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberrations etc.
Excire Photo - an interesting application; AI based cataloguing and image search tool. a bit expensive but worth considering if you have a large, not so well organised, catalogue. It has a Lightroom plugin too.
Imatch (windows only) - If you have a large number of files (not just photos) and want to manage those digital assets this is the tool. I started with it before Lightroom came along. It’s a sophisticated digital asset management tool that’s also relatively easy to use, considering what it can do. Worth considering if Excire above is of interest but too expensive and perhaps Imatch is better in any case, though I’ve not tried it recently. It seems to have similar AI tools for cataloguing and search. It can integrate with the native applications for the files that it can manage i.e. photoshop, word, excel etc., Indeed any digital asset, but as far as I know not Lightroom.
Of course, there are others, but these are the ones I have tried or considered closely. Download the free trials for the above and give them all a go.
Key Features - What should you look for? These are, for me, must haves…
RAW Processing - to get the most out your image files, make sure the software supports your camera.
Colour Correction and Grading - white balance, exposure, contrast, and colour tones,
Retouching - features like spot removal, skin smoothing, and object removal, spot removal is critical.
Filters and Presets - can speed up the editing process and maintain consistency,
Layers and Masks - layers and masks for precise and non-destructive edits.
Workflow Integration - the software listed above do all these but to varying levels of efficiency. You really need to try them out to see what works for you.
Cataloguing and Organization - you need to be able to quickly find photos in your collection. Don’t be tempted to downgrade this requirement because you only have a few photos now, your collection will grow quickly. Be aware that to organise your photos properly means some administrative overhead for you to get to grips with
Batch Processing- the ability to apply edits to multiple photos simultaneously will speed things up when you have just come back from that holiday with 1000’s of photos.
Exporting and Sharing - you’ll need to be able to show others your finished photos in various file formats, sharing them online or preparing them for a book and perhaps printing them.
Plugins - there are many third-party applications that enhance the functionality of the processing software you choose to use. For example, DxO Pure RAW for noise reduction and lens corrections, TK9 for creating luminosity masks in, and streamlining photoshop, and NIK Collection, which is a series of plugins for colour, film effects, black and white, analogue effects that is highly regarded.
Advanced Techniques - There are some advanced processing techniques that you’ll want to get into at some stage.
High Dynamis Range (HDR) and Panorama Stitching
Focus Stacking - combining multiple images to achieve greater depth of field (needs photoshop or dedicated software)
Composite Images - blending multiple photos.
Three things that are really important…
Non-Destructive Editing - so that your original files (RAW images) are never changed.
Backup and Storage - Backing up your photos and managing their storage is critical. You will run out of dick space especially if you are using a laptop to manage your photos and we all know that hardware fails so investigate the best back process for you - for windows users Syncback is excellent. But most importantly test your back up processes to make sure that you can recover files or a whole disk and do that test regularly. i.e. go through the process of recovering some files. If you don't know how to do that you don't really have a backup.
Learning Resources - the internet has an enormous number of resources for learning. As an example, here are some sources: a YouTube search for Lightroom Classic; Victoria Brampton.
What I Use
Lightroom Classic and Photoshop - I like to have everything within my control i.e. not ‘in the cloud’ by default. Lightroom Classic has very comprehensive cataloguing along with RAW development and I think is the best all in one package. It is well supported with third party plugins, Lightroom integrates well with photoshop, and both have a volumes of learning resources available for free or paid. Photoshop is the industry standard and is well worth the effort to learn and is required for some advanced photo processing techniques.
Be aware that there are different ‘flavours’ of Lightroom - Lightroom Classic, Lightroom Desktop, Lightroom Mobile - you can consider the differences, and which one might work best for you here
DxO pure RAW and/or DxO Photolab, NIK collection, TK9 - the DxO products and NIK integrate well with Lightroom Classic and TK9 simplifies the Photoshop interface, I find them all invaluable.
For backup I use Syncback Pro and store photos on external USB drives following the 3 backup rule - Original + 2 copies (or more) with one of those offsite (e.g. cloud based on a service such as Backblaze.)