5 replies to this topic

[Rowan69]

hi there.  I am a long time Nikon user.  I once had a fairly successful portrait business and loved it.  However, I was forced to close it all up during a bitter divorce and just gave up after that.  I sold all of my studio equipment but kept my camera and lenses just in case I wanted to get back into the game.  I have a D700, which is probably an antique by now, along with a variety of Nikon portrait lenses.  Some prime and some prime and some telephoto.

 

In the last couple years of my life has been quite trying, I lost my long term boyfriend to liver failure, lost my 18 year old to suicide, moved back home to Florida and away from family and friends of the last 25 years, started a new job and had the incredible opportunity to become reacquainted with my first high school crush only to have him walk away after 8 months together.  After all of this upheaval, I need something to bring my back to myself and the joy I used to find in the beauty all around me.  So I am dusting off my camera and lenses in hopes of finding the beauty in life again.  This time, not for a career but just for myself.  So I am setting my focus on nature and landscapes rather than portraits.  

 

Anyway, I wanted to join the forum (or rather re-join since I am certain I had an account here when I was in business) to get familiar with all of the things I have missed in the last almost 15 years!  

 

One of the things I am uncertain of now is post processing.  In the past I had Photoshop and Lightroom to process all of my work.  It looks as if these are all done online now rather that having to actual program on your computer, is that correct?  I no longer have a great workhorse of a computer, sold that as well, I just have a simple laptop because I really rarely use it for anything anymore.  So what is the going setup that most use for post processing?

 

Thanks,

Michelle

[Merco_61]

Welcome to the forums!

The D700 is a bit dated, but it is still a capable tool in the right hands.

If it has been 15 years, you must have been a member somewhere else as we started out in 2013.

Adobe have mostly moved to a strange local-cloud hybrid where storage and the licensing checks are cloud-based but the applications are local. Old-style Lightroom with local storage is still available as Lightroom Classic. Both LR and Classic, as well as Photoshop and Bridge are included in the photography plan. Adobe only offer rental plans for the current versions. Buying a license is a thing of the past.

 

Adobe isn’t the industry-leader it once was. I, personally, use PhotoNinja for raw conversion and global editing, but turn to PS for pixel-level editing and things that need layers or advanced masks. If I didn’t already have PS as I use the other parts of the CC suite, I would probably get another editor… Affinity is getting popular. DxO and Capture One are other alternatives. Nikon’s NX Studio is free and quite capable.

 

A basic laptop goes a long way today if one maxes out the RAM and adds a big storage disk and an external monitor. 

[Dogbytes]

Hi and welcome. I’m sure photography has helped a few of us through some trying times. I find dogs work too - hence the reason I take so many photographs of dogs!

 

I have an ancient (although very recent to me) Canon EOS 7D one of the benefits of which is that it doesn’t produce massive files, even shooting RAW.

 

I use a six year old basic model iPad for my post processing. I mainly use Snapseed, which I believe is free, but I have and occasionally use Affinity Photo, which is extremely comprehensive although not particularly intuitive. I don’t think its expensive though.

 

Hope to see some of your images soon. 

[g4aaw pete]

And a welcome from me, too.

 

As I take photos purely for pleasure, I've never bought any programs for post processing.

I get by with NX Studio, and the free to use 'google' version of the Nik suite.

 

For me, photography being so immersive, is great for ignoring life's hassles.

[La Bikina]

 Welcome to the forum, again, Michelle.

 

Here you will find Mini-Challenges, Member Contests, and Games:

Mini-Challenges, Member Contests, and Games - NikonForums.com

[Ron]

Hi Michelle, welcome to the forums. You'll find that we're a small, but polite and fairly tight nit group. You won't be seeing any flame wars here.

 

I use a Nikon D610 as my main camera and a D7000 as backup and for dithering around. So, while I've never used a D700, I think we're about in the same camera era. I have a small cache of Nikon glass both in DX and FX mounts.

 

Adobe does indeed still sell Photoshop and Lightroom, but only as Peter said, part of a subscription. It has it's pros and cons... on one hand, you're paying a fee each month to use the software. On the other hand, the software is always kept completely up to date.

 

I use the Adobe Photography Plan which costs me about $10US a month. I'm mostly happy with it, although I'm in the process of leaving Lightroom for a different database program. I still use Photoshop as my main post processing application. The Photography Plan includes Lightroom and Photoshop for web, mobile and desktop, as well as Bridge for desktop. It also includes a large selection of Adobe fonts and a few other smaller ... mostly mobile apps. I don't use their cloud storage service very much though... the photography plan comes with 20GB of cloud storage and you can purchase more, but I'm old school and prefer to keep my files local as much as possible.

 

As Peter said, there are myriad other options, some of which do indeed give Adobe a run for it's money. 

 

Welcome back to the fold.

 

--Ron