Some of my favourite digital photography software tools

Posted on 28. Apr, 2009 by Paul Burwell in Everything, Software

Digital photographers generally use a program for image management, a program to process the images and photo editing software to touch-up and print their images.  I thought it would useful to let you know about some of the extra tools I use to help optimize my workflow and enhance some of my images.  All of the tools I’ll discuss have free trial versions available for both Mac and Windows.

While there are many software options for moving images from a memory card to the computer, my favourite program is called ImageIngester.  It is available through the author’s, Marc Rochind, web site.  I use the advanced version called ImageIngester Pro.  ImageIngester copies images from memory cards onto the computer into a directory structure of your choosing, renames them according to your naming convention, makes up to two back-ups of the images onto separate hard drives or folders (you are backing up, aren’t you?), adds metadata (contact information, keywords and copyright notice) to the images and can even help convert RAW images to Adobe’s® DNG (digital negative) RAW file format.  By using ImageIngester every time I import photos into my computer, I save time by automating the tasks I use to do manually.

Another tool I use is PhotoMatix Pro from HDRSoft available through their web site.  PhotoMatix is a tool for producing high dynamic range (HDR) pictures.  HDR software allows you to combine photographs shot at different exposures into a single image that has more dynamic range (details from the very dark through to the very light) than today’s film or digital cameras can produce on their own.  HDR images offer a solution when a scene doesn’t lend itself to using graduated neutral density filters to compensate for the vastly different light levels within a scene.  PhotoMatix is available as both a plug-in for Adobe’s Photoshop software and as a stand-alone program.  Here are a couple of images I processed with PhotoMatix.  One trick in using this software is to try to create images where it isn’t obvious you used HDR technology.

Summer Storm Clouds, Edmonton, AB

Sunset over downtown Edmonton

While I would love to make all of my photographs under the best possible lighting conditions at ISO 100, it usually isn’t feasible while photographing my favourite subject, wildlife.  The ISO setting on a digital camera is similar in concept to the speed of film that people use in their film cameras.  One of the consequences of using higher ISO settings or film is that the images have more noticeable noise or grain.

My camera produces reasonable images up to ISO 1600 and I’ll choose a higher ISO in order to get a shutter speed that freezes the motion of my subjects.  Dfine 2.0 from Nik Software, is a tool that helps reduce the digital noise in high ISO images.  One of the great features of Dfine is that it takes advantage of Nik’s patented U Point® technology that really helps you control how and where the noise reduction is applied to your images.  Dfine is available as a plug-in for both Photoshop and Aperture.   I’ll take a further look at Dfine in an upcoming WildShots PhotoshopVideo Tutorial.

I encourage you to download the free trial versions of these programs and give them a try.  If you’re at all like me, you’ll find they quickly fit into your workflow allowing you to optimize your time and your images.

Have I failed to mention some of your favourites?  Please share them with me here.

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Tags: Dfine, digital, favorite, favourite, hdr, hdrsoft, ImageIngester, Photography, PhotoMatix, Software, tools, utilities, work flow