What is the best choice for most photographers to store, sort, organize and edit their photos? This is the question that I have been asking myself since I got my first digital DSLR camera and started capturing digital images. I have tried a few different options over the years. I have also worked with students and adults to help them learn how to edit their images. That has helped me to find what I feel is the best choice for photo editing software for the vast majority of people.
When I mention photo editing software, what do you think about? Many people will say Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop has become synonymous with photo editing that ‘photoshopped’ is a verb that we have all heard before. Many people think that they need to learn how to use a program like Adobe Photoshop to be able to edit their photos and nothing could be further from the truth. The vast majority of people don’t need to learn to use Photoshop.
Sometimes a program can do so much that it actually makes it harder for the photographer to just do the few things that they need to do majority of the time. So what do I recommend?
Photos App
When I work with photographers of any age who are learning to edit photos, I recommend they use the Photos app that is standard on every Mac. It is great place to start and learn about the majority of editing tools that you will need. It is also a great place to learn about the different editing tools that are available in other photo editing softwares.
When it comes to editing, there isn’t a step by step editing recipe that you need to follow. Photo editors are like artists and you can choose your own path to get to your final image. That being said, the Photos app has tried to set out a sample order for you to work through your photos. The first thing on the top of the adjustment sidebar is typically the first thing you would adjust.
Remember, what works for one photographer in the editing process may not work for another. Find a workflow that works for you. However, when I work with photographers who are learning to edit digital images, I tell them to start at the top in the “Light” panel of Photos and work their way down. Learn what each of the adjustments does to your image.
On the right hand side of the image above you can see the different options for editing starting with Light, Color, Black and White, Retouch etc.
One really important thing that I recommend all photographers do is to make sure they turn on the histogram. While editing and image in Photos you need to go to View > Show Histogram. While I do look at the image when editing, I always want to keep an eye on the histogram.
Understanding the histogram will help you understand the different editing options.
What is the difference between increasing brightness, increasing brilliance and increasing exposure? The histogram can help you better understand the editing tools and which one is best for which situation.
So what exactly is the histogram?
There is actually a lot you can learn about a histogram and there are even different types of histograms. Some histograms are just a image histogram while others show RGB or CMYK colours. To start, I think it is best to keep things simple.
A picture is made up of pixels that have different tones. The tone of a pixel refers to the brightness of the pixel from black to white. When you put these different pixels on a graph you get what we refer to as a histogram for your image.
A histogram is broken down into separate areas. The far left section are the black tones in your image. Beside that there is a slight larger section which is the shadows. In the middle of the histogram is the largest section which is called the midtones. Then there are the highlights of your image which has a section that is the same size as the shadows. Finally there are the whites in your image on the far right of the histogram.
I have put lines into the histogram so you can see the different areas that range from black on the left to white on the right. Histograms won’t usually be displayed with this gradation in background.
Some histograms have separated the tones of Red, Green and Blue (also known as RGB) in separate graphs. The parts of the three graphs that overlap looks grey. Look at the image below at its corresponding histogram below the image.
You can see the spike on the left hand side (blacks) of the histogram which corresponds to all the black tones in the image. You can also see a large number of blues in the left hand side of the midtones section. This makes sense because there are a lot of blues in the image.
Look at some sample images below and their corresponding histograms.
Once you understand what a histogram is, it can help you understand all of the different editing options. The first option in the Photos editing menu is ‘Light’. Make sure that you make the various tools visible by clicking the arrow beside ‘option’.
Now it is time to get to know what each of the options does. Move each individual slider to the extreme on both sides so you can see what it how it affects the image. The key to understanding each options is the histogram. Look at the histogram and see what it does for each adjustment. This will help you to understand the difference between adjustments that might seem similar like brilliance, brightness and exposure. Try all the different adjustments to see what they do to your image and to your histogram.
Check out the video to see an example of how I edit using the Photos App.
One of the great things about the Photos App (and other good photo editing apps like Adobe Lightroom) is that it is non-destructive. This means that even though you are editing the photo, the original photo is never changed. The program creates what is called a sidecar file which has the instructions for any edits you make. So no matter what you do with your editing, you can always go back to the beginning and start again. If a newer version of the app comes out with more comprehensive tools, you can always go back to your original photo and edit using those tools.
This also means that you can make multiple versions of the same photo. You can have a black and white version and a high contrast version and other versions but you don’t have to duplicate the actual original photo file. If you did, this would take up a lot of memory on your computer. Each version has its own sidecar file with the instructions of the edits you have made. These sidecar files are much smaller and don’t take up a lot of space on your computer.
What About Adobe Lightroom?
So what is the program I use to catalogue and edit my photos? I used to use a program called Aperture made by Apple. It was fantastic but Apple stopped making and supporting it. So now I use Adobe Lightroom Classic. It is a powerful program that is full of features. However, as I have already mentioned, many people don’t need the extra options of a program like Lightroom to learn about editing.
Like with any photography equipment, I believe you should let your frustrations or limitations lead to your next tool/ purchase. I have actually known a number of photographers who have proudly told me that they have Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom for years. They also admit that they don’t know how to use them and the complexity of the tool has stopped them from getting started. Don’t be one of these people who buys something because you think it is what you need when what you need is already on your computer.
Learn to use Photos and use it to teach yourself about digital photo editing before moving to a more comprehensive and complex tool. When you understand the editing options of the Photos app and you are experiencing some frustrations and feeling limited by the program, that is the time to explore more complex options.
When I am teaching photographers how to edit, I use the unassuming Photos app on my Mac. It is a best photo editing software for learning how to edit.
