The photo processing tools on my belt

Quick note: Photo processing tools vary widely in how they are laid out, what computer resources they need, and what they do. My comments are my own experience. You’ll have your own style of photography, computer set-up, and taste in processing.

My Photo Processing Journey

I started taking snapshots here and there; along the way I took a few pictures that I really liked and wanted to be more consistent in getting good images. Over the years I’ve learned a bunch and had to change up the tools I use. Turns out photo processing is a lot more complex than I imagined. Although, with good tools, it isn’t difficult to get great results.

First it was Adobe’s LightRoom

At first I thought it was the camera, and it kind of was. As I looked closer at pictures and became pickier about results I was driven slightly crazy by the dreaded purple fringe. I found a good solution in Adobe LightRoom (LR) and spent quite a bit of time learning to use it. It is impressive what can be done with it…and I was using a pretty old version (LR5).

If you don’t mind subscriptions and dependence on “the cloud”, then LR is a really good program.

For several years I used LR exclusively and very happily. It is a lovely program that “does it all”, including very good catalog management, but it went to subscription only. This has two problems for me. First is the on going cost. Second, and the more egregious, is that I often travel to places where I do not have internet access consistently (my father has a place in Arizona with very bad connectivity), or it is blocked (my son lives in China). Being dependent on the cloud doesn’t work for me. Combining that with a new camera not supported by my older, stand-alone version of LR, and the fact that I cannot download my old, licensed, version onto a new computer has led me on a journey to find something else.

Now it’s not so simple

It took quite a bit of experimentation with several something elses to finally find a workflow that both worked and flowed.

I have settled in to a work flow that uses three parts, all available for free. The parts are my folder structure containing the photo files and two open source photo processing programs. My post Get going with the GIMP outlines how to set up the open source programs. I mostly use Raw Therapee with the raw files, because it flows more smoothly to use the GIMP as an external editor for Raw Therapee than to use DarkTable as a plug-in for the GIMP. Darktable is more popular at the moment but I rarely have liked it’s output better and the workflow with it is awkward.

Folder structure containing photos

The first part of my workflow is the folder system I use to store photos. I describe it in detail in this post: Digital Asset Management Step 1.

In a nutshell: for each day I take photos I create a folder that has the four digit year, two digit month and two digit day as the first part of its name. The second part is file type (in my case ARW and JPG) and the optional third part is a descriptor, such as Japanese Garden, anvil cloud, sunset, etc. For example: a folder might be named 2020-05-21-ARW-raindrops.

I can use the JPG folders to preview photos from a shoot at a large size. I can also search for the keywords within the operating system, bringing up, for example a list of the folders where I was at the Forbidden City.

RAW Therapee-open source

I use Raw Therapee to view the photos and can select the ones I want to use by flagging them with a color or star rating. I then use the Editor in Raw Therapee to convert raw files to photos and do global editing.

Raw Therapee has many really powerful photo editing tools. These include sophisticated de-mosaicing options that combine methods (de-mosaicing is the process that turns the raw data from the camera sensor into a picture). I use a custom processing profile that I made, it applies the processes that I use most often so I can focus on customizing the exposure for each photo.

Once you have processed a photo in Raw Therapee you can open it in the GIMP as an external editor. Or you can save the file as a .png or .tif to bring into either the GIMP or one of the Topaz programs. You can export multiple versions of one image to combine in layers in the GIMP. For example you could export two different exposure levels.

At this time Raw Therapee has a very limited ability to apply local adjustments, so it is often a good idea to take the image into another program to fine tune details.

GIMP-open source

Once done in RAW Therapee I use the Gnu Image Manipulation Program. I use the GIMP to finish editing, make local adjustments using the masks and layers, apply artistic effects, like Giving a photo a twirled effect using the GIMP, and to prepare the photos for uploading to a blog or other platform.

The GIMP cannot read RAW files, hence the need to use Raw Therapee, and it has no organization or previewing capabilities, but it has many, many tools for detailed manipulation of images and graphic design as well. Plug-ins can expand the capabilities further. In the GIMP you can use masks and layers to make local edits and apply artistic effects.

Two GIMP pug-ins that I highly recommend are the re-synthesizer and G’mic.

To speed up my workflow I have created a set of what I call “pseudo templates” that I use to prepare images for upload in the correct size for a particular platform and a water mark. I open the pseudo template, copy in the final image as a layer below the watermark, resize the layer and tweak the image (often it needs sharpening after resizing), then export it ready to upload.

For some images I want to do a bit more:

Topaz Labs-paid

In addition to the above mentioned programs I have four products from Topaz Labs: Studio 2, Sharpen AI, Denoise AI, and Gigapixel AI. Topaz Labs offer a wide array of AI photo processing tools. If you have an older computer with 8 gig of RAM you may find that these programs run quite slowly. The most recent updates of the programs give truly impressive results.

Lately I have been using Topaz products a lot and really think they are terrific. While the programs aren’t perfect they are very impressive. So much so that I decided to become an affiliate for the company. Here are the products I use:

Studio 2

Topaz Studio 2 has an amazing set of tools and filters. It has a very good set of masking tools allowing you to add effects with pin point accuracy to different parts of an image. You can make any basic adjustments, but where it really shines is in the artistic tools it has available. It is easy to use and makes photo processing fun. I have had some problems with my computer hanging up when I have applied a lot of masks and effects so “save early save often”.

Sharpen AI

This has nine sharpen modes! The program will evaluate and make a recommendation, but it has a compare mode where you can chose up to four methods to see how they differ. The sharpen has de-noise capability as well. Your can designate how much sharpening (“blur removal”) and how much noise reduction as well as choosing from the different methods. You can also choose to just sharpen a part of an image. I find Sharpen AI very useful since I often shoot hand held while managing two leashes and a bag of dog doo, resulting in a bit of motion blur. Often this tool removes that nicely.

Denoise AI

If your image is a noisy mess this program can sometimes seem like a miracle worker. It has 6 different methods, including a RAW mode which will de-mosaic as well as de-noise a raw file. Generally I prefer to use the de-mosaicing algorithms in Raw Therapee, which also can do a customized lens distortion correction then to save a tif file to take into Topaz De-noise.

Gigapixel AI

I use this primarily to enlarge files to upload to print-on-demand websites. I do not push it to its limits (supposedly it can to 6 times and I rarely go over 2). Gigapixel does some noise removal and sharpening as well as resizing. It depends on the individual image whether Gigapixel, Raw Therapee’s resize or GIMP’s scale works the best.

Using the discount code will save you 15% over the current prices (on top of any sales).

Luminar 3-paid

For a while I used Luminar 3 quite a bit. It works well to look at photos, apply basic lens corrections and other adjustments. It has some organization capabilities that allow me to group photos together into albums, and, while the process was clunky, one could apply a simple watermark. I decided not to upgrade. The bells and whistles that they are bragging on are of no interest to me and it sounds as if it is as buggy as Luminar 3 was at the beginning. If the latest version really can remove power lines reliably and has reasonable reviews I may consider it. I felt a bit like Skylum (the company that puts out Luminar) makes you pay to be their beta testers.

I still will occasionally take a photo into Luminar, but it is getting rarer and rarer.

Experiments using different photo processing tools