And here we go!
It seems like this year, the end of year sales have been coming earlier and earlier!
Since I wouldn’t want you to miss some of the great deals out there, we’re gonna start with software.
Of course, all of the software below have great savings this year, so if you want to grab a deal , or gift someone, now is the time!

No wrapping needed.

For all of your basic daily needs, there are 2 main players: Lightroom and Capture One. The world is split!

Lightroom is my jam, and it’s DAM (digital asset management) helps me locate the 360K images on my drives, plus be able to work some post production into the mix. The Creative Cloud also is a major daily set of apps that I use all the time. Plus when some of the designers I work with send a file over, I can generally open it with one of the apps in the CC.

Now if Capture One is the way you go, They have some Black Friday deals as well! There are some that feel that the RAW processor for Fuji files is best with Capture One.

For either of these mainstay systems, you know you can do a 30 day trial to see if it’s the right system for you. Once you get married, you want to stay honestly.Another must have software is Photo Mechanic. If you shoot a lot, you need tis editing system to cull, mark, and copy your key images from a shoot, in record time.

Whether you are shooting and event, photojournalism, your kids sports, or a wedding, nothing sucks more than downloading hundreds of images, then editing them via either of the 2 systems listed above.
The speed that this software ingest and shows you the photo is insanely fast. (in a later guide, I’ll share a solution for concurrent media card inputting)

And you have no doubt heard of, and been looking to check out the line of Topaz software, including Photo AI, and see the magic it brings.

Whether you need to do simple noise reduction, sharpening, ability to make larger prints, and more, this package has it.
I suggest doing tests with this, and seeing how much you want the image you are working with to be affected. Be gentle.

For the relative newbie to this world of photo/video software, a perfect place to start is Photoshop Elements.

at $90 for both the photo and video software, $60 for stills only, you can give the gift of expression and help someone start on the path to pro level post production.
The great thing about this package is that it takes a lot of the great features of the full up software, and has made them available in a much simpler, easier to manage package.

One thing to note is that I have used all of these products, and vouch for them all. As you can tell on Capture One, I have it, have used it sometimes, and it’s solid. There are a variety of others available, that you can add to your main system as plug-ins. Maybe over the holiday you can do some trials and see what may be best for you.

Like I said, once you get married to a main system, you tend to stay .

More guides coming!