My university is kicking me off their free creative cloud by the end of the summer. What are the best Lightroom alternatives?

    • @lhx
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      21 year ago

      Gosh, I wish I could wrap my head around it. I just can’t get results everytime I try to use it.

      • TurboTurbo
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        61 year ago

        I don’t have experience with darktable, but moving from Photoshop to Gimp, from InDesign to Scribus, and from Illustrator to Inkscape definitely tool me some time to transition and learn. I’d think that would be the same going from Lightroom to DarkTable. However, once you have invested in the new software, chances that you need to change again ik the future because of shitty expensive subscription models is slim. So I think it is worth putting in the effort.

      • Jeena
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        31 year ago

        I watched how-to videos about it and read their blog.

      • Ciryamo
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        21 year ago

        It’s definitely complicated. I used it for a couple of years and only now feel like I’m slowly getting the hang of it.

  • @[email protected]
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    51 year ago

    I used Darktable for a few years, and while it is a very powerful tool, it was taking me a long time to edit a few pictures because of all the trial and error. I spend several hours watching YouTube tutorials to get the hang of it. But I decided to try Lightroom Classic again (you can get it for free if you know how) and I was surprised with all the new AI capabilities, it takes me a few clicks to get a very similar result to what I got in 10 minutes using Darktable. You definitely have more control on Darktable, but if you are already used to Lightroom, you can try to have a look at the Classic version. There are other alternatives that you can use for a trial period and see if you make the compromise and stick to a new workflow, all of these programs are the same but they will require slightly different skills from you. Mind you, I am not a Pro photographer and this is just my experience.

    • @[email protected]M
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      21 year ago

      RawTherapee is really powerful, way more powerful than lightroom. It isn’t as quick, and is missing some of the more convenient tools like the perspective correction, masking and enhance features. If youre geeky you’ll appreciate the extra features it does have though, like choosing a demosaic algorithm or viewing your images without any WB applied.

  • amd
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    31 year ago

    Which features of Lightroom are important to you? The editing capabilities? Organizational capabilities? Cloud sync?

    • KenBallweg
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      21 year ago

      @amd @photography for me it was initially organization, but the raw processing tools are getting very good. Fewer round trips to Photoshop needed.

    • @jetsetdoritoOP
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      21 year ago

      Just the editing. I guess enough organization to look at one set of photos at a time. Don’t care about cloud sync.

      • amd
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        11 year ago

        There are tons of good editing apps. Darktable is a good one to check out. Rawtherapee might also be a good choice. Gimp is the classic but more photoshop than Lightroom.

  • HidingCat
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    21 year ago

    Wow, this is something I’ve been wondering for a very long time. I’ve researched a few but I’ve never really tried to take the plunge.

    • ACDSee, from Pro version and above; fast to work with, but not really faster once you need to actually work on the raw file. Felt the imaging rendition wasn’t as good as LR.
    • DxO Photolab. Never tried it, but the current version with the new Denoise algorithm looks very nice.
    • Corel AfterShot Pro; this one is based on the very old Bibble, but Corel’s not always the best steward of it at times. It is super fast though. Tried it out when I was really sick of LR’s slowness.
    • Darktable, the open source alternative

    If you do try any of these, let me (and us) know what you think!

    • @PotjiePig
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      11 year ago

      Have a look at Capture One. It has a free version, and although I absolutely love Lightrooms masking tools and batch editing tools, Capture One is pretty darn good for most things.

      • HidingCat
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        11 year ago

        It’s been a while, but I recall Capture One’s image management is either non-existent or very lacking. That’s what I really want in a LR alternative, something that can do management with raw processing at the same time. If I didn’t need the former I’d just buy Affinity Photo and call it a day.

  • @[email protected]
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    21 year ago

    Hey there, pro photog here. Wish I could help but the truth is while I replaced everything else with alternatives/open source, lightroom and Photoshop are the only ones I couldn’t get away from.

  • @Nindelofocho
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    11 year ago

    Rawtherapee is what ive been ising for awhile now and tbh does a lot better than Lightroom if you’re no fucking around with smart select features or just need a solid program to adjust some parameters of your raw files https://www.rawtherapee.com

    • Kichae
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      21 year ago

      I really love ART: Another RawTherapee. I find it’s UI flows better for me for some reason.

      I also picked up Affinity Photo during one of their big sales for the stuff that ART doesn’t do, and it’s been a really good one-two punch.

    • JoZ3
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      21 year ago

      I also agree, in my opinion, it is easier to learn than Darktable.

  • @PotjiePig
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    11 year ago

    Capture One has a free and paid option.

    The free version is actually quite powerful and does a lot what Lightroom does. I would also argue that it’s Raw to jpg functionality is actually a touch better in ways.

    I use Lightroom mostly but I have and use both.

  • 999
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    1 year ago

    This is a timely thread. I’m trying to ditch lightroom because it’s just way too expensive, but the reason I keep using it is that content aware healing tool. I’m a film photographer and a lot of what I do is get rid of dust from scanning negatives. Do any of these solutions have something similar? (I mean, yeah, I could google it, but maybe someone has some experience to share)

    Edit: I just watched a video on the retouch tool in darktable. It seems like an excruciatingly painful exercise to just remove a spot. I may need to just keep giving adobe $15/mth