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Best software for a novice photographer for free


Daffy1 Avatar
Daffy1 15 422 Ireland
1 Jan 2022 5:43PM
My partner took up my old D810 this afternoon . What is the best free software. Shooting in JPEG only.

Damian
Carabosse Avatar
Carabosse Plus
20 44.3k 270 England
1 Jan 2022 5:53PM
GIMP has had consistently good reviews over the years.

sandwedge Avatar
sandwedge Plus
17 7.0k 3 United Kingdom
1 Jan 2022 7:34PM
Picassa has to be up there.
Jestertheclown Avatar
Jestertheclown 14 8.8k 255 England
1 Jan 2022 7:49PM

Quote:Picassa has to be up there.

Agreed, as long as you don't want to do anything too involved.

Also, as we all know, it's long been discontinued but it is still available if you look hard enough.

FastStone must be another alternative. That's also pretty basic.
Carabosse Avatar
Carabosse Plus
20 44.3k 270 England
1 Jan 2022 7:54PM
Windows 10 has built-in photo editing software. It seems quite basic but a friend of mine uses it to surprisingly good effect.
Stevetheroofer Avatar
Stevetheroofer Plus
10 1.3k 5 United Kingdom
1 Jan 2022 9:27PM
snapseed is good for your iPhone or iPad

SteveSmile
Carabosse Avatar
Carabosse Plus
20 44.3k 270 England
1 Jan 2022 10:17PM
And I have found Photo Editor very good for Android smartphones. Excellent set of tools - Levels, Curves, White Balance, Sharpening, Denoising - the lot.

These days I use it as much as I use Photoshop.
LenShepherd Avatar
LenShepherd 15 4.7k United Kingdom
2 Jan 2022 8:45AM
My advice is start with free Nikon Studio software https://www.nikon.co.uk/en_GB/product/software/nx-studio

You can do fairly extensive edits including local adjustments (such as lightening a backlit face) - for free!

Without the slightest hesitation I recommend this as the best free software by a significant margin for Nikon DSLR's and Nikon ML.

As with any post processing software you have to learn how to use it.
There are reasonable videos on YouTube - or perhaps you know other Nikon shooters nearby too help you if you initially get stuck.
DaveRyder Avatar
DaveRyder Plus
9 7.2k 22 United Kingdom
2 Jan 2022 11:02AM
Top free for me, and I use it as viewer is FastStone
https://www.faststone.org/

Infanview another good option
https://www.irfanview.com/

Both have decent editing capabilities to start someone off.



bricurtis Avatar
bricurtis Plus
18 2.8k 54 England
2 Jan 2022 12:33PM

Quote:Top free for me, and I use it as viewer is FastStone
https://www.faststone.org/

Agree - I use it for viewing only, when unloading from a memory card and deleting all the sxxt images.Smile



DarrenSmithPhotography Avatar
DarrenSmithPhotography 19 605 1 England
2 Jan 2022 3:09PM
gimp is a good one, darktable is another, a adobe lightroom type program

https://www.darktable.org/
https://www.gimp.org/
Last modified by DarrenSmithPhotography on 2 Jan 2022 3:09PM
Mike_Smith Avatar
Mike_Smith Plus
16 1.1k 2 United Kingdom
2 Jan 2022 9:45PM
Affinity photo, I know it’s not free but for around £30 is great value
GwB Avatar
GwB Plus
3 119 United Kingdom
2 Jan 2022 10:30PM
Adobe photoshop express easy to use,

Rawtherapee more advanced but has an Auto button which works quite well.
this is my go to program for raw editting.

Windows 10 built in editor for basic jpeg editing.

Darktable. similar to Rawtherapee.

Gimp if you want to get creative.

I have all of these installed on my laptop.

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