Adobe Photoshop

In discussing photo apps there's no better place to begin than with the granddaddy of them all and still the industry leader, Adobe Photoshop.  I began using it myself in the early 1990's when it was still only at version 3.0 and have had it on my computer ever since.  Back then, the biggest problem in using the app (or program, as it was then called) was that relatively few personal computers had sufficient RAM to edit even moderately sized images.  When applying a filter, always assuming I did not receive the dreaded "Insufficient RAM" error message, I had enough time to go out for a cup of coffee white waiting for the altered image to render onscreen.

I've never believed in subscriptions and so still use CS6 which I've always found completely adequate for my needs.  In my experience, once an app goes beyond a certain point, usually somewhere around version 5.0, it has all the essentials down pat and is from that point on only adding bells and whistles.  From what I've seen that certainly seems to be the case here.  Not long ago I watched an informative You Tube video that compared CS6 to the newest version of CC,  and I found there weren't any new features I really needed in my work with the possible exception of improvements in the Select tool.  In fact, at the very end of the video the reviewer Unmesh Dinda compared the Curves tool, which I've always considered the single most important tool in Photoshop from its earliest days, and demonstrated that the tool actually has much more latitude of movement in CS6. Other desirable CC features, such as sky replacement, are already available in other apps.  Luminar AI, for instance, does an amazing job at sky replacements with only a single click.

None of this is meant to disparage Photoshop CC.  And actually, since CS6 has not been available for purchase for some time, it's really the only game in town for those wanting to go with Adobe, which is something I'd strongly recommend for most photographers.  There's good reason the software has been #1 for so many years.  For one thing, Adobe is so large and established a firm that few others can match its resources when it comes to R&D.  As a result, the app is extremely comprehensive and has within it every conceivable editing tool that could possibly be needed from start to finish.  Meaning there's never any need to go outside it when editing a photo.  Although I use several other editing apps in my work that I'll be discussing in future posts, if I could have only one on my computer it would almost certainly be Photoshop.

There is one great drawback to using CS6 I should mention:  When running it on a computer equipped with a 4K monitor, the menus and panels appear incredibly small, so much so that one must strain one's eyes to read them.  Adobe could fix this problem easily, of course, but then there would be one less incentive for photographers to switch to Photoshop CC, wouldn't there?