Yep, getting it right in camera means less time in editing 
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Hi
I’ve just been back to the video on YT I see , with the editing software which is adobe Lightroom classic , last night after all the great input from those who gave me there knowledge and advice on this topic , I watched some tutorials on YT to see how understandable these different types of software programs are and as with any kind of proper editing software I don’t think it comes that easy ( meaning understanding it that is too ) so many different things to click on that opens up that and then this and so on , I’m sure you get the picture , as I’ve said from the start I’m not a pro , just a novice that wants to try and add a little bit more pop to my pictures but as said within the apps on my phone there only seems to be so much I can do , as I’ve said from the start maybe it’s me not the apps but I find it a bit of hit and miss , however eyesight being none to great sometimes either a bigger screen is better for me too , so I can properly see what I’m doing in edit , so I just want to say ,
What sold it for me with this Lightroom classic is the picture your editing is in the middle of the screen and does not have a thousand things around it ( figure of speech ) but does not look to busy and all your tools are down the right hand side and I’m not going to say it’s easy to understand but it’s there , less complicated is the word I will use but seems to have some really good tools within the software for what I think I need or will do the job , I’ve taken into account the video on YT was made 2 years ago so maybe things have changed a lot since then but something like that , that doesn’t seem too mind boggling and will hopefully do the trick and give me the correct tools to work with even tho or if it’s going to take a lot of time or some getting used too , if I’m miles off please feel free to comment and correct me if you wish , no offence taken if I’m completely going the wrong way I understand .
Just to add as mentioned above in this thread about the other editing programs and the tutorials I have watched I found quite hard to understand , I have to admit there was so many different tutorials maybe I’ve not watched the correct ones which is aimed more at drone photography or maybe photography is what it is , weather from above or below , many many thanks .
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@Drumsagard must be the long service price. stick with it you have a good deal
Thankyou , yes I understand that , then I take it the better you can get the picture within the settings the easier to work with in post , rather than just trying to rely on the edit to do the job is that correct , many thanks
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We are all our worst critic looking for the perfect shot. Getting it right from the equipment perspective is the first point, then only having to do small editing. I would love to be able to draw paint etc but I haven’t got a brain for that CAD drawing buildings not a problem.
I do understand that completely but weather I’ve followed it properly I’d be wrong to say yes or no ,
One thing I did notice a few weeks ago now , I was just playing around with the setting’s at night when I turned the EV down to - 0.7 I think it was my POI that being just my town lit up everything became clearer and looked a whole lot better than leaving the EV 00 , still learning but I’d have never thought by darkening things at night can actually make things look better.
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[quote=“Gham, post:45, topic:52359”]
haven’t got a brain for that
[/quote] 
I was great at art as I said last night but all this other stuff is a different level but I’ll keep trying I’m not a quitter , very relentless !
Yeah exactly 
Having a good well exposed photo to start with is half the battle. Editing in LR then comes down to minior exposure tweaks, colour correction and sharpening. By the time I get my image in to Photoshop pretty much all I’ve got left to do is maybe slight cropping to aid composition and possibly removing anything I don’t want in a photo.
Once you get a workflow going and keep doing it the same way you’ll become more proficient and faster at editing. I also use Adobe Bridge in conjunction with Lightroom and Photoshop for my business workflow (wedding photography) and edit around 100 images per hour.
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Thankyou
The only problem I have which I’ve just found out , my MacBook Pro is mid 2012 old but immaculate maxed out with ram and a 500 ssd , it causes me no problems , moving forward some of the earlier / later programs are not available anymore 
So could you kindly advise me the best one that is possible to subscribe or download for OS Catalonia if you know , which is the last update Apple allowed for this Mac , I’ve never thought of buying a later Mac I did not know I’d be looking for photo edit either , as I use it for my music and it work wonders , so there’s no need to change , it’s very fast and works well , if there wasn’t later models about , condition and performance you’d have thought it was still new.
Many thanks
Can’t even download GIMP as Chris mentioned there’s no option in the App Store 
Chris didn’t link to the app store.
Download here: https://download.gimp.org/gimp/v2.10/osx/gimp-2.10.32-x86_64.dmg
Works from macOS 10.12 Sierra or newer, so your 10.15 Catalina is fine.
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Thanks rich
I just tried this on my phone just checking different apps the link I will post works quite well for the phone , you can also get it for the Mac
Also photoshop express is pretty good , personal preference I know but within the phone those are the best 2 I get on with so far , it’s just harder to correct the detail on the phone due to the smaller screen , I’ll check that one out above many thanks for your help 
I pay a single monthly fee and use it on my Windows desktop and my Macbook Air. The license allows for that:
How to sync photos and edits across all devices | Adobe Photoshop Lightroom tutorials.
EDIT I should add you are not supposed to run both at the same time though.
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Can you kindly post the link if possible , as I said in my post earlier I’m running OS Catalina 15.7 and can no longer update the Mac anymore , if you can that will be great I’ll try it along with the other one mentioned to see which one I get on with best , many thanks
There’s some clearly well-intentioned advice here but carefully reading the OP’s messages it sounds like Photoshop and Lightroom (which isn’t just a smaller version of Photoshop, by any stretch of the imagination), and even GIMP, is way more complicated than they need right now.
Personally, I think if you want to do anything more than very very basic adjustments, then editing on a phone isn’t going to cut it and it’ll be a fiddly and frustrating experience, and certainly so if you’re editing lots of photos and/or begin to have the need for a streamlined and repeatable workflow.
If you just want to “add some pop” to your photos and don’t want to invest a chunk of time in learning the fundamentals of editing and how to use the more advanced editing tools, then Luminar is possibly a good starting point. I’ve not played with it much, but from memory I think it’s pretty much auto-ish everything with a few manual choices. Someone with more experience of it might like to comment further.
If you decide that you enjoy the editing part of photography then starting with one of the free open source options might be a good option, to become familiar with the principles of editing (and workflow), without any financial outlay. Options include LightZone, RawTherapee, ART (similar to RawTherapee) and DarkTable, although the latter is quite complex and technical in many areas. And if you want to try more complex editing once you’ve done the basics in one of these tools, then the open source GIMP is a good and free solution. Alternatively, the trial version of Lightroom (as previously suggested) might also be a good option to try to get to grips with the fundamentals within the 30 day trial period.
If after that you get a real taste for editing, then you could either stick with your open source choice, or invest in Lightroom and/or Photoshop. Lightroom is an excellent tool to manage your workflow and support almost all of your editing requirements, from basic to advanced, whereas Photoshop is much more designed for a wide range of graphical editing requirements, including finessing photos (removing objects, finer sharpening controls etc.).
Fundamentally I guess it comes down to what do you want to do with your photos, how much time do you want to invest leaning how to get those results, and how much money do you want to spend on the tools needed to get those results?
Hope that helps.
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Thankyou for the very explanatory advice , well I’ve literally just shut the lid on the laptop and that was with just a 7 day trial of fotor on Mac !
Yes your very true in what you have outlined ( I even found that hard to adjust ) Never mind !
I did see that luminair on the App Store , the write ups said easy to use , so going to what you said about time and money , do I aim to be a pro , No , would I like my pictures to pop and look better than sometimes a bit washed out , Yes , do I want complicated right now defiantly not , earlier on I downloaded photo shop express for my phone IOS and fotor , I found the fotor I could do much more to the top of the picture let’s say , we’re the clouds we’re barely visible I made them look like clouds with plenty of outline and the mood too match the day the picture was taken , that all looked good , I didn’t seem to reap any reward on a brighter day photo in fotor , so I then downloaded photo shop express which all the colours were stunning on the brighter day but could not get the sky to do anything at all which let the picture down , yes sounds a bit crazy maybe user error but to your question above something just too give them a bit of pop .
There has been very many helpful people here who has really helped and I am so grateful for that , I just can’t seem to find that happy medium for me , in my earlier post yesterday I mentioned about trying to get a software , we’re when you get one thing looking great then you adjust another part and it ruins the bit you pretty much perfected I need something that lets you edit parts of the picture separately maybe …
Really grateful for your input and to all who’s giving me advice , thanks again
GIMP is free and good but the workflow is very messy, that’s just the way open source software evolves. If you can use GIMP fluidly then Photoshop will be a real breeze. That’s based on something like 20 years of using of using both.
One option that no one seems to have mentioned as a video editor is BLENDER, it’s pretty good with 4K too. Not really surprising as at heart it is a pro level video (and rendering) tool set.
Platform wise as many CPU and GPU cycles as you can afford plus as much RAM as fits. My preference is Windows based these days mainly because I get some choice over the hardware. My laptop is a Ryzen 7 base with 16GB system RAM a pair of fast tb solid state drives and an nvidia 3060 with 16GB RAM. Handles 4K fluidly.
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Thankyou for your advice , I have 2 laptops to hand not the newest mind you , MacBook Pro i5 2012 500 GB SSD 16 GB ram runs like a dream , I have a dell E something or other which has 250 GB SSD i7 8 GB ram which also runs a dream there both fast or fast enough , not keen on windows tbh but I’ll get used to it if I have to ,
Thankyou
Sorry just to add , I’m looking more at editing photos at mo , not videos yet , I’ll be biting off more than I can chew once I’ve got the basics I know I’ll pick it up , maybe not a pro but I’ll deliver something 
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Im going to stick my neck out and get slagged off. Forget editing software for the moment.
Play with the settings in camera, ALWAYS expose for the highlights. Use EV. And definitely use AEB, dji software does an ok job of combining them. Play with the colour temperatures. Get a feel for what you like and what you dont, dont try and please the masses. Get to know your kit and its limitations/ possibilities. TAKE PHOTOS FOR YOU AND NOBODY ELSE. Find what pleases YOU.
After all.of that? Pay for photoshop
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