I know you all want a post about the blue/black dress (or white/gold?) today, but no, not from me :)

Today’s post is about a question I got few days ago. A question if I knew about any free Photoshop alternative. This is quite an interesting question, and to tell the truth, I knew about none that was really suitable. I’ve been using Photoshop for the last 15 years, and I never thought about looking for something else. So I started searching. For me a Photoshop alternative would have to be a local program that works solidly with layers. I’m not a big fan of online editors that work in a browser, as the stability of browsers is horrible as it is, and I don’t trust them with my work.

Gimp

Over and over again I seen Gimp to be suggested as the best alternative. There are two alternative there, the Gimp and Gimpshop, which is a version that tries to emulate Photoshop more, with more Photoshop like interface. So I decided to give it a try. First I went for the Gimpshop, as that would probably be easier. My experiment ended already by the installer, when it tried to install some strange additional software onto my system and the installation dialog didn’t even had any cancel button. Sorry, that’s not what I want to have on my PC. So I switched to the normal Gimp, at least there I got only what I wanted.

I actually tried Gimp some 10 years ago, and first look at the latest version, it looked exactly as before. So I tried to go and edit a photo. The first big problem was that Gimp does not support 16-bit files (I found an announcement from 2012 that this should be implemented, but not in the current version). Thats already a deal breaker for me, but I thought I try and blend an image. The layers work fine, so the basic blending is possible. While trying to do luminance masking I was not so successful. First I could not find the RGB channel, so I could only work on R, G or B and then the intersection of selection worked strangely, so I could not create more specific selection.

And there where my experiments with Gimp stopped. It is just so far away from my workflow, that I can’t use it. Maybe I just missed something, but the UI just didn’t fit my style.

But if I should suggest you a free Photoshop alternative, this is still the best one you can get. You can use layers, you can do basic blending, you can do image edits. But if you want to edit photos every day, I would still go with Photoshop. Even just the support from third party plug-ins is worth the investments.

Affinity photo

There is also a new alternative, that is currently in beta. It’s called Affinity photo, and it looks very modern and capable. For me the problem here is that it’s mac only, so I have no way to try it out. But I think you should give it a try :)

Photoshop alternative?

So to tell the truth, I could not find a free alternative to Photoshop that I could suggest. Maybe some of you have some tips? If yes, feel free to share.

This will be a little rant. I haven’t posted one in a long time, so it’s time for one again.

As probably every photographer, I get a lot of requests from different people, asking if I would provide my photos for free. In the past, I did so from time to time, but looking back, I think it was only because of my beginners naivety. You know how it is. When you start taking photos, it’s just such a great feeling to see you photos used somewhere. Anywhere is great. But over time, I learned that doing so is never good. It just makes someone else profit from my work, and I get nothing from it.

If you think about it. If I let someone use a photo for free, who payed for the photo? I did. I payed for something so some company can use it and profit from it. I payed with my time, with money for the equipment, sometimes even with my health. And not only that. If I provide a photo to someone, the photo lowers in value. It happens over and over that potential customers first question is: Is someone already using this photo? And if yes, their interest is gone.

So some time ago, I decide to stop this practice completely. But I still get the requests, and so many times I’m just shocked. You would not believe the excuses why they can’t afford the photos, why they should not pay for the photos, or what is commercial use and what isn’t. It takes so much to stay civil while replying to such emails. Would you believe someone who told you that they want to make a brochure and they made no budget for the photos? That they think that promotional material is not commercial use? That non-profit organizations have no budget at all? I don’t think so.

Sometimes this just reads as an insult. Insult to me and my work. It’s funny, to read from companies like this, how great my work is, how great my photos are, how much they want to use them, and right after that, how worthless it is. Yes, they gave a value to all my work. And the value they gave was a big fat zero. It’s even funnier, if you take into account, that the person writing to me, get’s even payed for the time spend writing the email. So even that is more valuable than my work.

One interesting thing I noticed is, especially by non-profit organizations, is, that mostly the bigger ones think they should get the photos for free. The smaller ones, usually ones that promote arts, approach me about buying the photos, even if they have a limited budget. I usually agree to provide photos for them at a big discount, as I also like to support those causes. But bigger companies, boosting on their web-pages how much money they have to work with, don’t even ask for the price. They either get it for free, or they don’t care.

You would think that this is all about money, and you are right. I would love to just take photos for fun. To just do what I like to do. But until I can go to a shop, and say, I have no budget this week, I take it for free, this is just not possible. And I hope one day, people like this will understand that. One good thing is, that there are also good companies. The ones that value the work and also pay fairly for it. It’s such a pleasure to work with those.

And to every photographer out there. Never work for free. It’s never worth it.

What is HDR?

HDR stands for Hight dynamic range, and it’s a technique of taking multiple photo of the same scene, to be able to capture the whole range of lights and shadows. Check out my longer description of HDR in this article dedicated completely to this question.

Do I need to HDR every photo?

No. As every post-processing technique, you just can to use it when it when you want. It helps with scenes with a bigger dynamic range, but there are still other ways to capture what you want. HDR processing is just one of them.

Do I need a high end camera?

No. One can create HDR photos from any photos you take. The results may wary based on the camera, what options (mostly automatic bracketing) and how you took the photo, but still, you can do it with any camera available.

How many shots I need?

This varies based on the shot, but it’s usually from 1 to 5, very rarely more (for instance when you are shooting into the sun). You can easily check if you have enough shots, by checking the histogram on the darkest shot, where there should be no highlights, and on the brightest shot, where there should be no blacks.

What camera mode to use?

Either Aperture priority, or if you are more familiar with cameras, you can use the Manual mode. The goal is to keep the same aperture between all photos, so the DOF doesn’t changes, and these two modes are the only ones to allow that.

Do I need a tripod?

No. But your results will be better if you use one. Taking multiple exposures hand-held will introduce shifts and movement and that will make the HDR process more difficult and less precise.

What software do I need?

There are many different software that one can use, but my suggestion would be Lightroom, Photoshop and one of the tone-mapping solutions, either Oloneo Photoengine or Photomatix Pro.

Is every HDR unrealistic?

Definitively no. The look of the final HDR photo depends on how you process it and what techniques you use. You can go towards realistic results, or you can go towards a very artistic results. It’s all what you make of it.

What I need to get better?

Practice. It would be easy to suggest some tutorial or a book, but that’s just not enough. Without a lot of practice in shooting and editing HDR photos, it’s just hard to get better.

Can HDR make a bad photo better?

Sometimes, but very rarely. HDR is primarily about brightness levels, where you darken bright areas and brighten dark areas. So if the problem with the photo is with the subject, composition, or just bad time of the day, HDR will not effect this at all.

Can I just use plugins?

Yes you can just use HDR effect plugins. But of course, the result will never be as if you created a real HDR. As the goal of HDR is to get detail into areas where a normal photo cant capture them, the plugins will never be able to get information from places where there is none.

Is HDR better than using lens filters?

Not better nor worse. If you know what you are doing, you can get a great result using lens filters and also HDR. The main difference is where you do most of the work. With filters it’s directly in the field while taking the photos, with HDR it’s in the post-processing stage.

What to shoot in HDR?

You can take photos of everything in HDR, but the best situations are with static scenes that include a big difference between the brightest and the darkest areas. Landscapes with the sun in them, interior shots with windows and similar.

Add your in comments

If you have any question, that you want answered, or you think that should be added to this list, feel free to ask in the comments.

If you work with Lightroom, you know that there are edits, you just do on every single one of your photos. Applying lens correction, removing chromatic abberrations, removing noise, adding sharpness and similar. And since you have to do them every single time, there should be a way to apply them automatically to every single photo, right when they are imported. And there is, and it’s quite simple. So today I will show you how to do exactly that.

To archive this, we need to first create a preset, that we want to use for every photo. To do this, first choose any photo and go into the Develop module. Once there, apply the settings you want to use. In my case, let’s say I want to apply lens correction and remove chromatic aberrations. So I go under the Lens correction panel, and check both boxes.

Once this is done, we need to create a preset with these settings. On the left side, click the + sign next to Presets. In this next dialog, choose a name for your preset, let’s say, Import preset, and check the settings you want to apply. In this case, it’s the lens correction. Click on Create to create the preset. We are done here, and now have to go into the Import dialog.

So let’s import some photos. Either choose File/Import photos and video, or just drag any photo onto Lightroom (but only in Library mode). In this dialog, on the right side, you can find Apply during import. Here, under Develop settings, choose the preset we just made, and thats it. All the new photos you import, will have these preset applied automatically. I would also suggest creating an additional preset for metadata (Metadata/Edit Metadata presets, while in Library mode) so your info is also automatically stored in every photo.

Just by doing this, you will spare yourself going throught all these settings every time you edit a photo.

For a while I wanted to start backing up my photos also online. I have everything stored twice at different external hard drives, but I think thats not enough. I still needed a good cloud solution. So looking around, there were few requirements, based on which I choosen.

1. unlimited storage – since I keep also the .psd files, the backup folder grows in size quite quickly
2. support for files over 2gb – a psd file of a ponorama can quickly go over 3 or 4 gigabites in size
3. easy access from all platforms – an app just for some platforms is not enough
4. provided by a bigger, stable company – one can find usually cheaper solution from startups, but I prefer a company with a much smaller chance of going out of business
5. manual backup – I have no need for a complete backup of my HDD. All I need to backup are certain folders.
6. online only files – I wanted to have the ability to keep some files only on-line, with no local copy after upload
7. reasonable price – as always, the cheaper the better :)
8. anything more is a bonus :)

So with this in my, in the end I chosen Office 365. This is of course not a backup solution, but a software subscription. But since Microsoft gives and unlimited Onedrive storage to every subscription of Office 365 (it’s promoted as a 1TB storage on the site, but if you look through new announcements, it has been announced a while ago, that there is no limit anymore), this became a great way to backup files. Recently the maximum size of file one can upload changed from 2gb to 10gb, which is great for those huge PSD files and from my searching, the only limit right now on the service, is of 20 000 files per account. But this should be also lifted soon.

The price of the service is also really good. You can get the Office 365 personal starting at 69 usd/eur a year, but if you don’t buy it directly from Microsoft, you can find it much cheaper. Took mi only few minutes to find a 50% off deal on the Internet, and maybe there are even better I missed. This is a very acceptable price, and you even get a copy of Office with it.

Right now I’m in the uploading process, which will take some time, as my PSD folder is over 600gb in size. But once that’s done, I can sleep a little better, knowing everything is in the cloud. The only thing I don’t like, is that you cant have folders outside of the Onedrive folder uploaded automatically in the background. Either you move things into the Onedrive folder, or just upload them using the website.

Do you backup you photos in the cloud? If yes, what service do you use?