Recommended software

So this is a silly question but asking anyway. About Software. I’m new the nature photo community - reinspired from a 30-year studio portrait business, I am back to my roots - nature & contemplative work. I’m at a place I need to upgrade and shift my workflow so I can tackle the body of work I’ve built (and ignored) over the years. My portrait software has been Photoshop, Lightroom, Portrait Pro, and older Nik plugins when I use PS5, my Wacom tablets. I honestly have never paid much attention to Topaz, other people’s actions, etc. because I created a personal workflow and have always been consistent. It’s time for me to get serious and dabbling. What else should my arsenal of software include??? Thank you in advance!

I think that you have a well stocked arsenal for processing digital images. Lightroom and photoshop are the most useful. Visit Tony Kuyper’s luminosity marking site. He has some plugins that landscape photographers may find useful. The Topaz plugins are not essential, but DeNoise AI is the most useful. It may not be as important to you if you are doing most of your camera work with low ISO’s. …Jim

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I prefer to keep things as simple as possible, so just Lightroom, Photoshop, TKPanel for luminosity masks, and Helicon Focus for focus stacking. Don’t forget to use your NPN member discounts!

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I use Lightroom and Photoshop almost all the time. I am also using Luminar 4 more and more, especially the AI features. Finally I bought a bundle, and use Topaz AI Denoise and AI sharpen, plus AI Giga Pixel to blow up photos. All are easy and work well the vast majority of the time.

All offer free trials, which I would try, strongly recommending tutorials all over Youtube.

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Thank you! and good point about member discounts, I always forget to look into them.

I’m late to the discussion but will toss in 2 cents. I organize and do raw conversion in LR, then to PS for more detailed work. Luminosity masks are very good but with the toal adjustments we now have in LR, I use them less. I totally ignore presets and treat each image individually. I’m not big on filters, and only use them in the most basic way, as layers in PS. Nik’s Color Efex Pro has some useful things that I can’t easily replicate – Pro Contrast, Tonal Contrast, Detail Extractor, Classical Soft Focus and Glamour Glow are favorites. Nik Silver Efex Pro is worth comparing with comparing with LR and the PS adjustment layer. Recent versions of Topaz DeNoise AI are wonderful. I look forward to seeing your images!

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Thank you Diane,
I have Nik in my CS5 that I still use occasionally, and I agree, I don’t use many filters either. I want to look into Topaz. And Yea, I have to take time and post some work here, it’s not like I don’t have a ton of images I could post, I just have to set aside the time to do it.