Rekindle me

[James]

The RAW vs JPEG thread got me thinking about why I've sat on a bunch of camera kit and lenses when 99.9% of my photos are captured on my iPhone, which does such an amazing good job. So, I'd like to see if I can rekindle what I used to love, taking nicely composed, exposed and interesting photographs.

I don't think I'll go back to 35mm film, so it is unlikely I'll use my Pentax LX. It's got sticky mirror syndrome, so that will need fixing first. But I have a low-mileage K5 and a selection of barely used DA and FA lenses, with which I can start toying with 'proper' photography again.

As a Mac user, what is the preferred post-processing software that is intuitive and easy to use for a darkroom newbie like me?

 

[Milan]

If you do not want a strong cataloging function (to be added later this year) then Luminar is relatively easy to use, has lots of standardised presets and gives very good results with little effort.

A little more effort, not as easy as Adobe Lightroom, is darktable. It is very similar to Lightroom (the alleged market leader) and will edit and catalogue your pictures. Another benefit is it is free!

 

[James]

Thank you, Milan. I had never heard of Luminar or Darktable. I shall have to look them up.

I also noted, but not tried, that the native Photo application on my Mac can handle RAW files. I will take some RAW images and have a play.

 

[halvis]

I am enjoying trialing DXO Photolab. 30 day free trial available. Its quite flexible and if you have an older camera like me, it's great at cleaning up noise.

 

[UKMattG]

Luminary seems to be product of the moment and offers a free trial. There's also Capture One, Lightroom and a fair few others. I'd say try one, live with it and see what works for you. Plenty of YouTube tutorials out there. Enjoy!

 

[James]

I also noted, but not tried, that the native Photo application on my Mac can handle RAW files. I will take some RAW images and have a play.

Photo does seem to handle a RAW file, but I'm not sure if it is supposed to render a normal looking image or whether it awaits 'editorial input' for the want of a more accurate expression - before displaying. The RAW files I imported into my Mac and viewed using Photo looked just like any other JPEG and editable.

Luminary seems to be product of the moment and offers a free trial. There's also Capture One, Lightroom and a fair few others. I'd say try one, live with it and see what works for you. Plenty of YouTube tutorials out there. Enjoy!

Looking up YouTube videos seem like a good idea as I have near zero experience in post-processing with either film or digital files other than hitting the 'enhance' button or cropping/rotating the image.