Is this an odd post for a hiking blog? While it’s not about hiking, many of us use images here on our posts. I prefer to use my own content much of the time. Should the capture tool be a camera or a phone, images still may require some tweaking for size, exposure, etc.
I long ago drifted away from excessive modifications to most images. Sometimes it has a place in creating illustrations, but I love a real image that stands on it’s own. I marvel at the art of the capture by artists such as Bresson, Winograd, and Frank.
When I worked as a portrait shooter, nobody wanted to look like themselves. I needed professional grade software for the bulk of my work, be it editing large volumes of captures, retouch, manipulation, or video editing.
Adobe products answered that call, but over time marginal improvements and increasing subscription costs soured me on their product. I view them now as most software giants. They release buggy software at absurd pricing. YOU are the beta tester.
I don’t require Adobe’s vast array of software anymore, and I don’t alter my images very often. For the most part, the world should be viewed as it is. If I alter, I disclose that fact.
Several years ago, I decided to free myself from the shackles of the major software companies. I dumped Adobe. Although I liked the power of ON1, They were only slightly less evil than their competition. I liked Affinity, but I decided I would start from the ground up. I tossed Apple OS and Windows and switched to an open source operating system for personal use. How freeing it was! I have never looked back.
There are some excellent options for open source image manipulation. Gimp replaces Photoshop for me, and Darkroom replaces Lightroom. While neither is as robust or as intuitive as the latter, I am still learning new ways of doing things and they suit my purpose just fine.
There are limitations with using the “little guy” rather than paying the giant corporations to use their software. Solving open source software issues can require going down the rabbit hole and and some forays into using a terminal window and coding, but I prefer to join the rebel cause rather than be milked by the Empire.
What do you think? Please leave a comment below.
An Unmapped Route: A Hiker's Blog 