Never done any post production but need to learn

FLYING EYEBALLFLYING EYEBALL Registered Users Posts: 183 Major grins
edited May 6, 2011 in Finishing School
Should I try learning Gimp to save some $$ or should I go straight to LR3?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated :thumb

Josh
http://jskustoms.smugmug.com/

Comments

  • AAABluestockingAAABluestocking Registered Users Posts: 116 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2011
    Personally I was never able to figure out Gimp. After a glance at your pictures I'd say Lightroom.
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  • PupatorPupator Registered Users Posts: 2,322 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2011
    Picasa is the closest thing to a free version of LR. GIMP is closer to Photoshop.
  • Art ScottArt Scott Registered Users Posts: 8,959 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2011
    AAABluestocking wrote: »
    Personally I was never able to figure out Gimp. After a glance at your pictures I'd say Lightroom.

    15524779-Ti.gifagree15524779-Ti.gif
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  • FLYING EYEBALLFLYING EYEBALL Registered Users Posts: 183 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2011
    AAABluestocking wrote: »
    Personally I was never able to figure out Gimp. After a glance at your pictures I'd say Lightroom.

    Thank you for posting...thats kind of where I'm at.

    Took me 15 minutes just to figure out how to get a picture int gimp rolleyes1.gif
    http://jskustoms.smugmug.com/
  • FLYING EYEBALLFLYING EYEBALL Registered Users Posts: 183 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2011
    Pupator wrote: »
    Picasa is the closest thing to a free version of LR. GIMP is closer to Photoshop.

    Thanx, Pupator. I may give that a look.
    Art Scott wrote: »
    15524779-Ti.gifagree15524779-Ti.gif

    Thank you for chiming in, Art.

    I'm gonna try Gimp for a few days and see where I can get.

    I understand Adobe has a free 30 day trial of LR. I will do that next.
    http://jskustoms.smugmug.com/
  • NyarthlopicNyarthlopic Registered Users Posts: 274 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2011
    Pupator is right on. GIMP vs Lightroom is comparing Apples and Oranges. I've done both. In my (limited) experience, Lightroom is really good at messing with exposures, doing mass editing and organizing. You can play with your exposure in GIMP, but forget about editing multiple photos at once or organizing your shots. And don't let people fool you...Lightroom is not the easiest thing to learn, either. It's very powerful and very good at what it does, but it is limited.

    I use a cocktail of editing software. I open with Lightroom to get my shot exposure where I want it, do conversions, etc. Then I either use Photoshop Elements 9 or GIMP, depending on what I want to do. I've been skewing more towards PSE9 lately, but don't read into that. I doubt I'll ever completely get rid of GIMP.

    Lightroom by itself is insufficient for editing purposes (no cloning tool, no layers...), so it needs a partner. I have a hard time spending the $600 on Photoshop, so I use Elements and/or GIMP.

    Sorry if all I did was muddy the waters. I just wanted to give you my $0.02 since I use GIMP, PSE9, and LR. I've also used Paint.net in the past, but found myself going to GIMP over that...so Paint.net is installed, but that's about it.

    If you want to learn GIMP, go onto Youtube and search for what you want to do. For instance, "GIMP Content Aware" will give you a video on how you can use a "content-aware" like feature in GIMP. Works slick, too!
  • PupatorPupator Registered Users Posts: 2,322 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2011
    Lightroom by itself is insufficient for editing purposes (no cloning tool, no layers...), so it needs a partner.

    I totally disagree. I do 99.95% of my work in LR only. (And it can do cloning, by the way.)
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    I use LR and Photoshop CS5. 100% of my images (I shoot raw exclusively) go through LR. Of those, maybe 10% go on to Photoshop. Probably 75% of what I do in Photoshop could be done as well in Elements. I started out with PSE3, then "graduated" to PS-CS3. If I were starting today from scratch, I'd buy Lightroom and Photoshop Elements.

    BTW, Lightroom's "Clone Tool" is a joke. It's a spot remover at best. You can't do a selection and then use it, so you're limited to a round tool and blah, blah, blah. I use the "Heal Tool" in LR, and haven't used the "Clone" since they introduced the "Heal" option. Seriously - to compare Lightroom's "Clone" tool to Photoshop's is very misleading. Especially since this thread is for the benefit of a self-professed novice.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    Icebear wrote: »
    I use LR and Photoshop CS5. 100% of my images (I shoot raw exclusively) go through LR. Of those, maybe 10% go on to Photoshop. Probably 75% of what I do in Photoshop could be done as well in Elements. I started out with PSE3, then "graduated" to PS-CS3. If I were starting today from scratch, I'd buy Lightroom and Photoshop Elements.

    BTW, Lightroom's "Clone Tool" is a joke. It's a spot remover at best. You can't do a selection and then use it, so you're limited to a round tool and blah, blah, blah. I use the "Heal Tool" in LR, and haven't used the "Clone" since they introduced the "Heal" option. Seriously - to compare Lightroom's "Clone" tool to Photoshop's is very misleading. Especially since this thread is for the benefit of a self-professed novice.
    If I were starting from scratch, I'd start with Lightroom and then figure if/when I need more after using it for awhile. No need to buy something beyond LR until you know more about what you want. The right answer to something in addition to LR could be nothing, Elements, Photoshop CSx, GIMP, etc.... It really kind of depends upon budget, needs, interest in 3rd party plugins and ability to learn something more complicated. One would know a lot more about the needs after using LR for awhile.
    --John
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  • NyarthlopicNyarthlopic Registered Users Posts: 274 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    Pupator wrote: »
    I totally disagree. I do 99.95% of my work in LR only. (And it can do cloning, by the way.)

    I do most of my stuff in Lightroom, as well. I think my statement may have been too strong. I do stand by the basic idea, though; Lightroom doesn't do everything that GIMP does from an editing perspective. I'm like many others, everything goes through Lightroom, then, if necessary, the shot will find its way into either GIMP or PSE9. Probably 80% of my shots are Lightroom only.

    I think we can agree to disagree on this one.
  • PupatorPupator Registered Users Posts: 2,322 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    I think most novices (myself included) will be content with LR only. Photoshop, or any other software, is an investment of time and energy to learn to use for the <5% of (a novice's) pictures that we might be inclined to do more work on that LR can do. I do agree that LR is far more limited when it comes to local editing than PS (or similar). I just don't think most of us (amateurs) need to do many local edits beyond what LR can do.

    John: It's funny to hear you say that LR's clone tool is a "spot remover" at best. As a novice, I have no idea what I'd want to use the clone tool for other than spot removal. If I need to get a random person out of the background of my shots, I do it with LR's clone tool. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/ne_nau.gif" border="0" alt="" > It has worked fine for me.

    By the way - what does the "heal" tool even do? I've never used it.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    Pupator wrote: »
    By the way - what does the "heal" tool even do? I've never used it.

    Here's a pretty weak explanation from Adobe.
    If I find time, I'll try to do better.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • IcebearIcebear Registered Users Posts: 4,015 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    LR Clone v Heal Spot Removal
    "For the brush options, you have the choice of Clone or Heal so select the option to use.
    Clone works similarly to the Clone Stamp in Photoshop where you select the portion of the image to fix and then the portion to replace it with. Apart from choosing the Size of the brush and the Opacity Lightroom simply replaces one area of the image with another without making an attempt to blend the fix.
    If you choose Heal then Lightroom samples the area you’re trying to fix and attempts to blend in the replacement area so the fix is less apparent."



    Read more: http://www.digital-photography-school.com/fixing-blemishes-in-lightroom#ixzz1LaCthFZS

    Hope that sheds some light.
    John :
    Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
    D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
  • PupatorPupator Registered Users Posts: 2,322 Major grins
    edited May 6, 2011
    Yes, thank you. I'll give it a try.
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