Top 5 Handy Tools for Photographers May 21, 2021 Vikas App Reviews Photography is not just about taking a few snaps and sending them to your clients. It takes more than an expensive camera and equipment. Like any other field, photography is a highly-competitive field. A professional photographer requires creativity, a knack for learning technical skills, knowledge about copyrights and legal contracts, and the ability to focus on tiny aspects of everything. Moreover, a good photographer realizes the value of keeping handy tools ready to get things done fast and efficiently. Choosing the right tools that tailor-fit to your project needs is important to fine-tune your images, organize your massive photo library efficiently. Many photographers use a variety of tools to accomplish day-to-day tasks. Whether you’re a student, seasonal photographer, freelance photographer, or a professional photographer, here are some popular tools that will give you that edge over others. 1. PictureEcho (Windows) As a photographer, you constantly transfer new photos from your digital camera to your PC, edit them, sync with other devices like mobile, and share them with your clients. These activities can lead to a lot of duplication. Although duplicate files may seem harmless, they are one of the key reasons behind many system performance and user productivity issues. Eventually, you run into low disk space problems and may have to buy more storage to store your photos. PictureEcho is a duplicate photo finder for Windows. It scans your massive image library in minutes, and provides accurate results. PE displays thumbnails for each duplicate photo found, and groups them together based on their similarity. Not just that, PictureEcho allows you to select multiple folders, drives at the same time so that you don’t have to independently scan every single folder. Here’s how it works: Scan folders/ drives to scan for duplicates, or load your Lightroom Catalog Find visually similar images Automatically select hundreds of duplicate photos using selection patterns In-house file previewing: You don’t need to open each image to view it. PE will automatically preview the thumbnail of the images to make reviewing simple and quick Delete duplicate files: Using this option, you can permanently delete the duplicate photos with 1-click If you’re using Adobe Lightroom to manage and organize your photos, you can load your existing Lightroom Catalog and scan it for duplicates. This will help you lower the Catalog size and get rid of constant lag and performance issues. PictureEcho takes different similarity levels into consideration. Using the program settings, you can configure to scan photos taken within 30 seconds, 1 minute, 60 minutes timespan respectively. If you don’t want to take the time factor into consideration, you can use Level 4. PictureEcho lets you select files based on different factors- such as low resolution or high resolution, small size or large size, newest or oldest, etc. It ultimately depends on your own requirements such as image quality, storage space etc. For example, retaining the smallest image in each group will free-up maximum storage, and deleting all but the highest resolution photos will leave you with high-quality photos only, and so on. What’s more, PictureEcho displays a comprehensive history of your past actions. You can get the information about any previous scans, actions taken, date-time stamp, and other information. 2. Presets & Plugins (Windows & Mac) Custom presets and plugins are extremely beneficial for someone looking to automate their repetitive workflow and perform color balancing or change the color tones, HDR effects, and much more. There is no single preset or plugin that can accomplish every single task and is helpful to each photographer. You’ll need to find third-party presets and plug-ins for your personal needs. Nik Collection, Blow Up 3, DxO PhotoLab, Imagga’s Wordroom, Aurora HDR, ON1 Photo Raw are some of the popular ones. Keep in mind, some plugins are freeware while others are paid. 3. Skylum Luminar (Windows & Mac) Skylum Luminar is a photo editor and organizer tool, much like Adobe Lightroom. It lets you organize your massive photo library in one place. You can also sort, tag your photos and divide them into different categories for accessibility. Its keyboard shortcuts are almost identical to that of Adobe Lightroom. If you’re switching from Lightroom, you can easily adapt to the change and it’s an easy transition. Once you’ve finished editing your photos, you can upload them with a few clicks. In contrast to Adobe-family software, it charges a one-time payment fee only. 4. Corel PaintShop Pro (Windows) Corel PaintShop Pro is a straightforward application with a simple workspace and less-complex options. Using layers, brushes, textures, masks, 360-degree photo editing features, support for RAW images, and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and many other powerful photo editing features, you can transform your images to the next level. Other features: Help tutorials Powerful vector drawing features Effortless noise removal Most Photoshop features but no monthly subscription 3D modeling, typography, lower camera shake, face liquefy, etc Corel PaintShop Pro is reasonably priced at a one-time fee of $60. If you don’t like the program, you can return it within 30-calendar days for a refund. 5. Exposure X6 (Windows & Mac) Use Exposure X6 to convert your imagination into reality. Use the artistic effects, color tone changer, realistic film grain, overlays and many other powerful features. Exposure X6 is a lightweight photo editor. It contains an extensive set of carefully researched presets for your benefit. You can even create and save customized presets. You can adjust colors, give realistic looks to your photos, use masking tools, adjust lens focus, add overlays, borders, varied effects, textures, and do much more. Exposure X6 has non-destructive layers that enable you to try a variety of looks, perform A/B tests without damaging the original layer.