Lightroom alternative?
jefff100
Registered Users Posts: 16 Big grins
Hi - curious as to what some popular alternatives might be to Adobe Lightroom.
Adobe has me a bit turned off by the whole concept that I will need to pay on a continual basis, much like my electric bill; and I'm not interested in having
all my photo work be cloud based. I'm happy to pay for a program. Once. Not once a month or once a year.
I have been holding on to using Apple Aperture for photo editing and file management. I find it works well, easy to get fairly decent results with
the minor tweaks I make. Honestly I don't care to do allot of editing after I take the picture... but sometimes need to crop or make minor adjustments.
For me if the image isn't that good to start with I'm more apt to delete it rather than spend much time at the computer.
The other factor is that photography in general isn't as big of a hobby for me as it was a few years ago. For a while I was shooting several times a week and always
had something photographic going on. Other interests have taken priority, and in all reality it might be 2-3 months between when I go to use the software, depending
on what I have going on. That being said; Apple photo is far to limited. Why Apple killed Aperture is beyond comprehension but that's a whole separate topic.
Today I opened Aperture to download about 40 images I took on a job from my phone, I new I would need to sort and organize....Aperture was blank.
All my galleries, folders etc. 7 years of photo work vanished. Somehow it "migrated" to Photo....but I cant find it them in Photo.
I was able to get them back in Aperture after doing some digging, however it was a wake up call and I know I need to do something.
thanks much
Jeff
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You don't have to do the Cloud based thing to use Lightroom or have a tablet/iPad. I have used LR since Beta 1. I am using LR 6.61 but as a single download. If all you want to do is store your images and do adjustments, you don't need to use the rest.
There is also ON1s raw software, never used it. but it is another alternative, it seems.
Don
'I was older then, I'm younger than that now' ....
My Blog | Q+ | Moderator, Lightroom Forums | My Amateur Smugmug Stuff | My Blurb book Rust and Whimsy. More Rust , FaceBook .
Thanks, I was just actually reading about LightRoom a bit more. I was under the impression that you were forced to use the Creative Cloud & the $120/year bit (10/month).
I can swallow a one time pill of $150. allot easier than 10 dollars a month for something I might not use at all for months a time.
Maybe I'll download the free trial and give it a whirl.
Have also been reading about this Open Source program Darktable. seems interesting.
May try that also, the price is right, but it might have some limiting factors; might be worth checking out.
I had high hopes for OnOne Photo RAW (and even pre-ordered). After the reviews, it seems as though the release may have been rushed and the program needs work before I install it on my computer.
I don't know very much about "Affinity Photo" - just released ... but I'm reading quite a few positive reviews.
It appears to be easy to use - no subscription, not a Photoshop replacement but appears to be an alternative worth looking into?
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/
www.acecootephotography.com
I just got on the forum to ask the same question, and here it already was. I think LR is what I need, but before springing for $150, I figured I ought to at least see if there are any alternatives worth considering.
http://jrogers.smugmug.com
Try the free download for thirty days. Then by a license if you like it. Best way to find out about the software and see if it works for you.
Don
'I was older then, I'm younger than that now' ....
My Blog | Q+ | Moderator, Lightroom Forums | My Amateur Smugmug Stuff | My Blurb book Rust and Whimsy. More Rust , FaceBook .
I am both On 1 and affinity. Affinity is more like a Photoshop software so I use it for extra things. It doesn't cost much so I don't mind it not being my main program to use for photos. On 1 has a lot of bugs still yet. But it's interface is powerful and easy to use. They will have an update to address some bug issues this month. If they iron things out it will be comparable to the big three. I also use LR 6 but will not subscribe to CC.
I've used Lightroom since version 1 and more often than not love it. However, like every other piece of software I've ever used it's not perfect. And like any other piece of software the more time you spend learning how it works and developing a system that suits your needs the happier you'll be with it. As a non-professional photographer with a catalog of about 50,000 photos I use it for about 95% of all my photo work. I happily pay my 12 Euros a month to have a constantly up-to-date piece of software and a full Photoshop as well. I mean, what a deal!
tomaskraus.com
Because I'm not a professional (i.e.: not making a sufficient salary from my photography), I'm still avoiding Lightroom.
I've been using different alternatives but the disadvantage to that is that it takes quite a lot of free software to provide the all-inclusive service that Lightroom does.
However, here is my personal solution to date, perhaps you'll find it of use:
Hope this helps somehow!
Corel's AfterShot Pro maybe a viable alternative.I tried it when it first came out in my early days with Lightroom. It was very similar to Lightroom. I ended up getting a MacBook Pro at work, so that made the decision to stick with Lightroom.
All my galleries, folders etc. 7 years of photo work vanished. Somehow it "migrated" to Photo....but I cant find it them in Photo."
Gosh! It'd be my worst nightmare ever! Did you get what went wrong with your app?
Speaking about Lightroom alternative here is an article comparing 4 different tools, including the very Aperture - https://macphun.com/luminar/compare. Hope It'll help you to find the one you need.
Lightroom is my main app, I have found nothing else that really fits the way I work. I too really dislike subscriptions, as they really add up. I prefer to purchase my software outright, and skip a few releases until something really compelling ships.
You can still purchase Lightroom (rather than the subscription) but I will admit this: Adobe makes it really, really difficult to find the purchase location on their website. Instead, I just head to Amazon, and purchase a download there. By the way, once you purchase, the upgrade is only $99 thereafter, sometimes you can find the upgrade for $79.
Enjoy!
This from the Amazon page made me laugh: "Download time: 2 minutes on broadband, 1 day, 6 hours and 28 minutes on dial-up."
Made me remember that when I started working with computers 8" floppy disks were just going out. 2400 baud might have been out there. It's been so long I can't recall. 56k was a huge jump.
Thank you for posting that link. I'm about to give up on Photoshop Elements that came with my laptop and may go that direction. Like some others, I'm just not a fan of subscription software. I'll buy and upgrade when I want. My laptop is at least 10 years old and I recently swapped out the spinny disks for SSD and it's like a new machine.
Free and online. Doesn't do RAW. Not all the features. There is a more enabled version for a monthly or yearly fee.
https://photoeditor.polarr.co/
EDIT: Well, damn. They've taken away the (free version) gradient filter functionality.
EDIT2: gradient filters are back in the free version!
"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" - Wayne Gretzky
Adobe still sells the stand alone version online, they just make it hard to find:
My guess is that sooner rather than later they will force everyone to go the subscription route.
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It's also available on DVD and download from B&H and Amazon.
I fear you're correct, but I'll be among the last to subscribe, if I ever do. As it is, they don't provide new functionality in the stand-alone regular updates, only bug fixes.
I use Phase One, Capture One Pro (C1P). Despite the name, it's an excellent RAW conversion tool which can also process most other raster image files.
It does have file management, but I'll admit it's much less useful than Lightroom. Since I have my own directory and file management system, it's less of an issue for me, but many folks do use C1P file management with good results.
Primarily I really enjoy the excellent noise reduction and Clarity control, both of which work better for my use than Adobe products.
C1P is available for Mac and Windows, and you can get a free 30 day trial. Purchase options include both subscription and license, single user and multi-user
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
True, though one important piece of new functionality -- new camera support -- is still provided for the standalone version as well.
I was annoyed by the subscription model (more by the lack of choice for photoshop), though in retrospect I will say that I would not have kept Photoshop updated at all if I had not subscribed, and I am liking more and more some of the newer Photoshop features. I live 98% of the time in lightroom, but the $10/mo has ended up being a good investment. Annoyed still, but objectively, ignoring their strong arm tactics, it has been good.
Good point, and important for those who upgrade gear frequently. Nevertheless, one can't expect it to last indefinitely. Adobe's policy in the past has been to provide new camera support for the duration of the major release version only, but after that, you need to upgrade to the next version. So holders of LR V6 licenses can't expect new camera support to be forthcoming whenever V7 is released. Up until now, you could purchase an upgrade license, and hopefully Adobe will continue to make that available to those of us still huddled in our perpetual license caves. Or take advantage of the free DNG conversion software that Adobe offered. But Adobe is under no obligation to provide either one and could just stop making anything new available outside of CC if they wanted.
That is what our contracted post editor uses for our client images. She loves it.
I've never been into post production but I am attempting to learn a little. When I started looking into various editing software the biggest reason that I've found for why most use lightroom is the file management. I'm guessing that is good for those who take a lot of pictures at a time.
I don't know how the editing function itself compares to the various others on the market. Some pointed out that LR also allows tethering but there are plenty of other options for that also.
I'm still searching for the best solution for our studio. Considering most of our work is catalog, there is very little post editing required.
So for me this thread is interesting to see what others use and why.
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Welcome to the Digital Grin, edyta.
Both of those are free and they work very differently from each other. I suggest trying them to see which best suits your needs and workflow. Ultimately you will probably use multiple image editors before settling upon a primary editor.
PicMonkey is a SmugMug application designed to replace Google's Picnik. I suspect that you will find it very easy to use, so start with that.
If you tell us a bit more about your computer(s), and your interests and expectations regarding image editing, we can help a lot more.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
I will try both of them. I thought that PicMonkey is limited, and only basics are for free. Do these tools provide CMYK editor?
Once more thank you for your reply and feedback.
CMYK is pretty advanced and I think that the GIMP is the only free image editor I've encountered which includes CMYK support. That's fortunate for you because we still don't know anything about your computer and OS, or your needs and intentions (other that CMYK). The GIMP is available for most operating systems and older versions even work on very basic computers.
GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
RawTherapee is one of my favorite RAW (and other raster) file editors, but it requires a lot of patience to use as the user interface is "unique" among image editors and it also has a high degree of 32 bit internal processing, making it one of the most numerically precise image editors available, but also making it quite slow.
If you are serious about image editing in CMYK workspace I highly recommend a color managed system for both the computer hardware and computer software sides.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
I'll go one step further and say that if you're serious about CMYK, a color management system is a requirement. If you're going to be dealing with commercial printers, do it right.
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Thank you for your help. It looks like there are good alternatives. Would be great to hear your opinion, please. I thought to start with PhotoScape. It is written in the article that it is the perfect Adobe Lightroom alternative for those who are unfamiliar with photo editing programs. Btw, what does a complex image optimization mean? I googled it but there are several explanations... is it a specific term for the particular tool?
PhotoScape is an entry-level image editing software. It's free so feel free to try it. I would not consider it any sort of Lightroom alternative.
If you are truly interested in a reasonably priced Lightroom alternative, I can suggest Corel AfterShot Pro 3. This is a serious image editor with similar functionality to Adobe Lightroom. It does not have CMYK support but I suspect that you are pretty far from needing that.
I use Phase One, Capture One Pro (C1P), instead of Lightroom. C1P "can" output CMYK, but it's not what I consider truly color managed, although you can achieve consistent and professional results. C1P is more expensive software, but it was designed for extremely expensive cameras, like the Phase One XF 100MP @ around $49,000USD. Add some Phase One lenses, or Hasselblad lenses if you buy the alternate lens mount, as well as a few choice accessories, and you easily push into a $60,000 system or more. (I "make do" using Canon, Nikon and Sony systems.
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