What software have you bought?

[geogphotos]

Just wondering what is the best/most recent software contributors have bought or obtained to use for stock photography?

 

For me the only purchase of the last  year or so has been DXO PureRAW2. That was because I was taking lots of interior pics in churches - something that I am having a break from - but will get back to. The software produces amazing noise reduction at high ISO, and means that images that I worried were borderline/had to be extensively cropped for QC can now pass with ease.

 

What software is new and what do you use it for?

 

Just a general interest discussion for those willing to engage.

Edited August 21, 2022 by geogphotos

[Harry Harrison]

Probably not what you were thinking about but I forked out the huge sum of £8.99 to use The Photographer's Ephemeris app on my phone, I've used it for years but not on the phone or tablet. The desktop version is great also and with limitations you can use it for free or pay £25 per annum to get all the features (satellite view is disabled on the free version for example). I expect you use it already, great for churches inside or out. I also found it useful to look around for suitable locations for those 'super moon rising' shots though I was a day too late to put it into practice.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[geogphotos]

Thanks Harry, I am aware of that and can see how useful it would be but haven't used it.  Time to have another look. 

 

[gvallee]

I shoot quite a lot of wildlife at high ISO, then crop heavily. So I recently bought:

 

Topaz DeNoise

Topaz Gigapixels (to uprez)

Topaz Sharpen (mind blowing)

[Michael Ventura]

I just use Adobe CS

[Steve Hyde]

I also invested in DxO Pure Raw 2 earlier in the year and really rate it.

 

I’ll take a look at the Topaz software, thanks Gen.

 

Not for stock but for Instagram, FB and my website galleries I use these free sharpening and resizing  PS Actions from MCP. The sharpening needs winding back occasionally but mostly, the default 50% setting works really well.

 

https://mcpactions.com/product/high-def-sharpening/
 

 

 

 

[Jill Morgan]

2 hours ago, gvallee said:

I shoot quite a lot of wildlife at high ISO, then crop heavily. So I recently bought:

 

Topaz DeNoise

Topaz Gigapixels (to uprez)

Topaz Sharpen (mind blowing)

 

Same as Gen.  Topaz Sharpen is awesome.  I use it the most, as with bird photography  I too use a high ISO a lot. I use DeNoise less.  Haven't used my Gigapixels yet, but the three programs were a package deal, so got them all.  Have to give it a try one of these days.

 

Jill

[Marianne]

On my iPhone I use Picture This - not for processing images but it's great for keywording and identifying plants. You take a photo of an unfamiliar plant and it tells you what it is, gives you the Latin name & other info. I use the free version, which lets you save plants to your library for future reference. The paid version give you more info. It also can tell you what's wrong with a plant that isn't thriving. Handy. 

[Bryan]

With the current returns from stock there is little incentive to invest in software (or indeed hardware), so I will continue to use my aged copy of PS along with the last issue of standalone LR. 

 

I've recently downloaded a freeware video program for personal use only, should I ever decide to get into video commercially I'll upgrade to the paid for pro version.

[Jansos]

Interesting topic. I attended a very useful intro to stock a good few years ago and the chap who was running it, who was a very successful commercial and stock photographer, said that he did very little post production work for stock as it simply did not pay in terms of the amount of time invested. His advice was that if the pic was good enough it would sell regardless and the editing would be done in-house by the buyer. As a consequence, I try and spend no more than a minute or two on each image (as I'm sure you can tell!) and leave the edits for whoever may buy it. I would love to learn new software (I still need to learn Lightroom more fully) but the returns are so low these days I much prefer to get my arse out of the door and take some pics (that has been hard to do in the recent heat in the UK).

Edited August 22, 2022 by Jansos

[Martin L]

None.

I use the free 'darktable' for RAW processing plus a bit of tweaking.

Then GIMP for anything else.

Binned PS and LR years ago, ridiculously expensive for what I require, even more so now you have to pay for it forever.

[Vincent Lowe]

Photoshop (subscription)

Imatch for image management and keywording etc.

Reikan Focal for tweaking lens autofocus (one of my lenses was way out).  Haven't updated to latest version though.

Also got LR with the Adobe package but I don't use it except with the LRTimelapse plug-in (nothing to do with stock though).

[John Mitchell]

Affinity Photo at 50% off -- a real bargain. I use Capture One Express for Sony for RAW processing and Affinity instead of PS for tweaking. 

 

No subscriptions for me, thanks. I'm way too cheap. 😎

 

P.S. I'm also on sabbatical.

 

Edited August 21, 2022 by John Mitchell

[Dave Nelson]

9 hours ago, gvallee said:

I shoot quite a lot of wildlife at high ISO, then crop heavily. So I recently bought:

 

Topaz DeNoise

Topaz Gigapixels (to uprez)

Topaz Sharpen (mind blowing)

These, plus LR/PS subscription.

[gvallee]

1 hour ago, Dave Nelson said:

These, plus LR/PS subscription.

 

Me too but geogphotos asked for 'recent software'. I've been using PS CC subscription for years. Still have to learn LR though.

[BradleyPhoto]

Got the whole creative cloud package on a deal recently for about £16 includes video editing software and 100gb storage on top of the usual PS/LR etc

[Marianne]

For those who want to learn the new tricks and tweaks of LR & PS as well as various Adobe mobile, video and other software, this year AdobeMAX will be both live and virtual and just as for the past couple of years since Covid, attendance at the virtual 3- day conference is free. Check it out here: https://max.adobe.com/

 

I've learned a ton the past couple of years. If you've got an old version and are thinking about the subscription or just want to learn what's available - including some free mobile apps, I'd recommend checking it out. And if you use the current Adobe software, even experts can learn new stuff. 

 

I'd thought about the Topaz and other software people recommend, and believe the Sony Capture One software does a better job with RAW files than LR does, but not noticeably better and LR is much quicker. For stock I try to process photos as quickly as I can. I spend a lot more time on fine art images these days but new software is mostly a matter of finding interesting plug-ins, different brushes and the like for digital painting, and various filters for photos, but for straight photos, LR, PS, and the old Nik filters do the trick. 

[M.Chapman]

I bought FastRawViewer - low cost and so much faster than LR for initial image culling. https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

 

Still not as good as BreezeBrowser Pro (my long term favourite), but unfortunately that's Windows only and it's become quite a bit more expensive. https://www.breezesys.com/solutions/breeze-browser-pro/

 

Mark

[IanDavidson]

As a news photographer I find Photo Mechanic to be essential for a fast workflow.  It allows culling (essential when using s high fps) captioning, rating and keywording,  It also has the ability to set up captions in advance and, perhaps most useful, code replacement.  This allows “shortcuts”. For example I type /truss/ and get “Liz Truss, Foreign Secretary and MP for x”. No misspellings or incorrect titles.  (Provided I keep my lists up to date). I also use code replacement to speed up key wording.  When photographing at UK cabinet, I have the title, caption and keywords set up, I just have to add the particular minister.  I understand sports photographers use it so they can just type in a number to get a players name and position.   Saves vast amounts of time, increases accuracy and work flow speed.  When I started I used Lightroom for captions, keywords etc and it was painful and. I Occasionally made spelling mistakes, it was also very slow,  I would not be without Photo Mechanic now.  It is not that intuitive and there is a learning curve and a cost, but it is well worth that commitment.

[NYCat]

6 hours ago, Marianne said:

For those who want to learn the new tricks and tweaks of LR & PS as well as various Adobe mobile, video and other software, this year AdobeMAX will be both live and virtual and just as for the past couple of years since Covid, attendance at the virtual 3- day conference is free. Check it out here: https://max.adobe.com/

 

 

Thank you, Marianne. I've registered for the digital events.

 

Paulette

[M.Chapman]

4 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

I bought FastRawViewer - low cost and so much faster than LR for initial image culling. https://www.fastrawviewer.com/

 

Still not as good as BreezeBrowser Pro (my long term favourite), but unfortunately that's Windows only and it's become quite a bit more expensive. https://www.breezesys.com/solutions/breeze-browser-pro/

 

Mark

 

Oh, I forgot, I also bought Crossover which allows me to run some favourite Windows photo applications (includes BreezeBrowser)on my Mac , and MoneySpire for keeping track of my accounts (includes Photography business).

https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover

https://www.moneyspire.com/

 

Mark

 

[spacecadet]

On 21/08/2022 at 10:24, geogphotos said:

or obtained

For those in the bargain basement, I'm still on LR5.7.. Till replacement camera with incompatible RAW format us do part probably.

The last time I paid for software was a games cassette for the Acorn Atom.

Edited August 22, 2022 by spacecadet

[Doc]

Using Adobe LR classic and PS on the creative cloud for a long time; also Nik software, and recently bought Topaz Denoise which is excellent

 

Kumar

[John Mitchell]

5 hours ago, spacecadet said:

For those in the bargain basement, I'm still on LR5.7.. Till replacement camera with incompatible RAW format us do part probably.

The last time I paid for software was a games cassette for the Acorn Atom.

 

OMG! You're even cheaper than I am. 🙃

 

 

 

[imageplotter]

For news and photocalls/PR: Photo Mechanic and Lightroom Classic as a combination for cull/caption, then edit. Have had that setup with the two combined for about the last 10 years.

 

For client photo work: Lightroom Classic then Photoshop.

 

Have played with Capture One for studio stuff and it is excellent, but find it tricky to be up to date on more than three packages (both in terms of the software updates and keeping myself updated), so not using at the moment, but would use the latter more if I'd do more studio work and tethering, as LR is tedious for tethering.

 

Topaz sounds interesting for some applications, going by the above comments, may give it a try as an add-on.

Edited August 22, 2022 by imageplotter