This is an interesting category as many of you may have settled into your daily software of choice for your images.
I’s say there are 2 main, Adobe Lightroom, and Capture one.
As subscription based software, you do get locked into a system so choose wisely and maybe download a trial to se what works best for you.
However, Black Friday does bring deals every year, and 2024 is no different!
Adobe has just announced their deals and you can save about 50% on the creative cloud giving you a full suite of programs to handle all of you creative needs.

Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator and soo much more.
If you just want the photo based applications you can just get those and save some dough.
Honestly I Iove Lightroom and use it for my digital asset management (DAM).
Currently have about 370K images in the system.
Here is a tip, no matter what system you use: always tag the files as you import them.
It is the best way to find them when you need them.

Then you can go to a program like Topaz. This one has options like sharpening, upscaling for enlargements, noise reduction, or even just using their AI option to clean up as you like.

Be careful and use sparingly. Testing the options is the best way, so you don’t make your images look too artificial.
Once again, download trail and see how it works for you.

You can also integrate this software directly into Lightroom as a plugin, so you can use easily.
Yes, I did buy Capture One, although found it was not my preferred everyday software.
You may have a different experience.

There are various RAW processing programs, like Iridient, although the 2 main are improving their RAW processing all of the time.

For the beginners who are looking to upgrade their game from phone apps, the perfect transition software is the Photoshop Elements package.

In one well priced standalone group of applications, you can get the photo with a video editing package for an additional $50, with the features used in the more advanced programs, it is a great gift for the aspiring photog and/or video creator. When they are ready to move to a more robust set of applications, they will be well versed.

For the mobile content creator, the current leader for video is the FREE Blackmagic phone camera app. The options to shoot the highest quality, with the most options you can with your phone is right here.
TBH, I was a longtime Filmic Pro user, and this app has taken over.
Download and take it for a spin!

There you have it for today!.

I know people have their favorite software to use, and here are just a few of the main stays.

Don’t love some of them having a subscription model, but maybe renew during black friday deals when your sub is up.

Some Black Friday sales have already begun so jump on them!