Best alternative to Lightroom?

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24
Name
Zhivko
Edit My Images
No
Which one would be the best alternative to Adobe Lightroom in your opinion?
I mean its all great with Lightroom, but I think its meant rather for professionals, by asking to pay monthly rent as long as you use it.
I'm not professional, so I look for cheaper but really good software.
Thank you very much in advance!
 
Are you after the editing/raw conversion aspect or a way of replicating the catalogue system? Or a bit of both?
 
Which one would be the best alternative to Adobe Lightroom in your opinion?
I mean its all great with Lightroom, but I think its meant rather for professionals, by asking to pay monthly rent as long as you use it.
I'm not professional, so I look for cheaper but really good software.
Thank you very much in advance!

There is no real alternative, it's a very good dam and editor in one. You could look at affinity as a good photoshop replacement or something like on1, or some use luminar, try them all see which you prefer.
 
Which one would be the best alternative to Adobe Lightroom in your opinion?
I mean its all great with Lightroom, but I think its meant rather for professionals, by asking to pay monthly rent as long as you use it.
I'm not professional, so I look for cheaper but really good software.
Thank you very much in advance!
Hi @jivko2 ... I'm interested in answers to your question, as I am interested in reevaluating my post processing.
I'm currently using Picasa3 for basis initial levelling and cropping, then copy&pasting into Gimp, then pasting into Paint.Net.

I'm shooting jpeg mostly. What I'm looking for is something interesting & user-friendly that doesn't want to takeover and do cataloguing, a prog that allows me to paste in my image, say for a raw conversion, then I can copy & paste it elsewhere for say cloning/layering.
 
Hi @jivko2 ... I'm interested in answers to your question, as I am interested in reevaluating my post processing.
I'm currently using Picasa3 for basis initial levelling and cropping, then copy&pasting into Gimp, then pasting into Paint.Net.

I'm shooting jpeg mostly. What I'm looking for is something interesting & user-friendly that doesn't want to takeover and do cataloguing, a prog that allows me to paste in my image, say for a raw conversion, then I can copy & paste it elsewhere for say cloning/layering.

Have you tried Silkypix Studio Pro 9 (Panasonic version) Think it was about 30 quid when I downloaded it
I have been using it for a while now, started when my GX9 raw files wouldn't open in Lightroom 6.14
Very pleased with it, lost of adjustment tools including dehaze, can't go wrong for the price
 
Have you tried Silkypix Studio Pro 9 (Panasonic version) Think it was about 30 quid when I downloaded it
I have been using it for a while now, started when my GX9 raw files wouldn't open in Lightroom 6.14
Very pleased with it, lost of adjustment tools including dehaze, can't go wrong for the price
Thanks tt ... can you paste in a pic from your clipboard?
 
Have you tried Silkypix Studio Pro 9 (Panasonic version) Think it was about 30 quid when I downloaded it
I have been using it for a while now, started when my GX9 raw files wouldn't open in Lightroom 6.14
Very pleased with it, lost of adjustment tools including dehaze, can't go wrong for the price
I think I have a thing called Silkypix on my other computer, I'll look later. I definitely doesn't look very Pro, and it was free. :thinking:
 
Sorry David, not sure what you are asking for?
Cheers

I meant if I had an image in another editor, could I copy it from there and paste it into Silkypix, or do I need to save it to My Pictures then open it again from Silkypix ?
 
Cheers

I meant if I had an image in another editor, could I copy it from there and paste it into Silkypix, or do I need to save it to My Pictures then open it again from Silkypix ?

No idea, not something I ever do, suspect it would need to be opened rather than pasted.
I believe Silkypix will work as a plug in with Lightroom, again not something I do
 
Have you tried Silkypix Studio Pro 9 (Panasonic version) Think it was about 30 quid when I downloaded it
I have been using it for a while now, started when my GX9 raw files wouldn't open in Lightroom 6.14
Very pleased with it, lost of adjustment tools including dehaze, can't go wrong for the price
Thanks! Taht is a good idea!
 
For d00d, looking for something without a DAM I would recommend looking at Affinity Photo. A good editor without any photo organising.

Personally I've recently started evaluating the combination of DigiKam and Darktable. DigiKam for organising and keywords, with Darktable as a RAW processor. I seem to have the two working together sharing star ratings and keywords. The two packages with Affinity as the editor.

However I am not a Lightroom expert and therefore cannot give an opinion as to whether this is a perfect replacement for the Adobe solution.
 
is it a picture cataloger you lookin for, and a quick picture sorter . that is basically what lightroom excels at?
lightroom is the best at what it does. but you may find other free stuff that will do part of what lightroom does. it may mean using 2 packages to acheive the results you want
 
Adobe Elements is a cut down version of Lightroom and can be purchased as a stand alone program. I use version14 but now version 2020 is availablen the Adobe web site you can download a free time limited trial
 
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Capture 1 has to be in with a shout surely? I love LR, but C1 is the next best thing I've come across.
 
Are you after the editing/raw conversion aspect or a way of replicating the catalogue system? Or a bit of both?

Thanks! I am absolute beginner and lack knowledge in the whole matter, but I want to photoshop my pictures and to process RAW photos. My camera is Panasonic G80. So far I have my eye on Affinity, as it is the cheapest software of them all, or so it seems to me.
 
Darktable is fairly cheap as it's free!
Luckily I have never used Lightroom or other programmes except my trusty old Adobe Elements 5.
I too am a raw beginner with RAW.
 
I jumped to Capture One a few years ago, not used LR since

Download the free trial, have a go
 
Thanks! I am absolute beginner and lack knowledge in the whole matter, but I want to photoshop my pictures and to process RAW photos. My camera is Panasonic G80. So far I have my eye on Affinity, as it is the cheapest software of them all, or so it seems to me.


Affinity is said to be a Photoshop alternative, and is a complex piece of software. You'll probably never use more than about 10% of its capabilities.

I found I took to Lightroom like a duck to water (version2) and have been using it ever since. It seemed so much more intuitive to me than photoshop. There weren't many alternatives back then. A real shame that it went subscription only as I don't get any of the updates now. Not that - as far as i can see - many of them are essential any more.
 
... been watching hours of youtubes and like the look of this one .... On1 Photo Raw 2020

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkgMzSfK2x0

>
>
>
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... FFW to 20:00 -> 20:20

I love the way the boxes of menus, sliders and stuff enlarge when needed,

or is that just a special effect for the tutorial?
 
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I honestly don't think it's only aimed at professionals, I'm a hobbyist photographer and it's been a great tool to edit holiday photos and the likes. After some hands on with the software I didn't feel like it was too difficult to use.
 
I honestly don't think it's only aimed at professionals, I'm a hobbyist photographer and it's been a great tool to edit holiday photos and the likes. After some hands on with the software I didn't feel like it was too difficult to use.

I have to say I agree in regards to LR. The beauty of Lightroom is that you do it all in one place. Catalogue photos, keyword them, geo tag them, and non-destructively edit them all in one place. The editing side is as complicated as you want to make it but it's easy enough to use and these days it does enough that I very rarely open photoshop.

The catalogue side is the biggest benefit for me though. I keyword everything and set up smart searches to find certain groups of pics. Events etc go in their own collections. So if I took a photo in Glen Coe in Feb 2018 I could go and find it in that collection or maybe take a look in the landscape smart collection or maybe scotland smart collection or loads of other ways of quickly finding the photo you want. If I've been diligent I might even find it on a map. And I can get straight into editing it from the same place.

It does frustrate me that LR is subscription only but I use it enough that it feels like good value (it costs less than a tenth of what I have to pay for my CAD software!) and since Apple stopped developing aperture all that time ago, I don't think there is anything comparable now. Each time I look into it, I conclude that it's probably still the best bet for me personally.
 
Just to mention, there is a free version of C1, I use it as well as Lightroom....

However, from what I have read, even with the pay for version, you can't do stacks, or merge images for HDR/Pano's. Lightroom really is the best thing out there, but it's going to be, it's a very mature product aimed directly at photographers.
 
The beauty of Lightroom is that you do it all in one place. Catalogue photos, keyword them, geo tag them, and non-destructively edit them all in one place. The editing side is as complicated as you want to make it but it's easy enough to use and these days it does enough that I very rarely open photoshop.
Without wanting to start a LR:ON1 war, you can do all of this in ON1 too, catalogue, add keywords and non-destructively edit, plus a load of photoshop-like functions that you don't get in LR. Just sayin'.
 
Without wanting to start a LR:ON1 war, you can do all of this in ON1 too, catalogue, add keywords and non-destructively edit, plus a load of photoshop-like functions that you don't get in LR. Just sayin'.

I shall take another look thank you.

Edited to add, now that I've taken a look at the comparison, I can see that they're quite well matched. Some of the differences would probably make it difficult to transition from LR but for someone starting a fresh On1 looks well worth a look.
 
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No two people have the same needs or requirements when it comes to developer/editing software.
All of the Lightroom and Photoshop alternarives are available as free trial versions, usually for 30 days.
It is important that you download and evaluate these trial versions, in order to decide which one suits YOU.
 
I honestly don't think it's only aimed at professionals, I'm a hobbyist photographer and it's been a great tool to edit holiday photos and the likes. After some hands on with the software I didn't feel like it was too difficult to use.
I meant its aimed at professionals because of the pricing - paying £ 10 per month as long as you use it.
 
No two people have the same needs or requirements when it comes to developer/editing software.
All of the Lightroom and Photoshop alternarives are available as free trial versions, usually for 30 days.
It is important that you download and evaluate these trial versions, in order to decide which one suits YOU.
Thanks! That is a reasonable idea!
 
It might depend on your brain type, but it can take a while to evaluate a new app, especially if you're new to everything. Their user interfaces vary quite a bit. So I'd hesitate to take on too much at once.

Maybe research the field, read some reviews, make a provisional shortlist ...
 
I meant its aimed at professionals because of the pricing - paying £ 10 per month as long as you use it.
they changed the model a few years ago from pay hundreds for the software and use it until you choose to pay hundreds again for the next version. At that point what happened was that pros paid for it and a lot of hobbyists used dodgy versions to avoid paying for it. The subscription is a frustration to people who are happy to pay a lot for software up front and use it without getting updates after a year or so because they will get their moneys worth after about 3 years usage. Personally i prefer the subscription model as it makes the software more affordable for me, i just don't like the price hikes they apply every year or so but then you can't have your cake and eat it really.

I suspect the main reason for the model change was to combat piracy, make the product more affordable for the masses and they will choose to go for a legit version over the dodgy one.
 
£10 pm still includes LR and PS, I believe, so that is a good deal if you use them both. But for people who only use LR it is a bad deal.

LR itself when it was available as an outright purchase was only just more than £100 IIRC, plus an upgrade of c £50 every 2 years if you wanted it. So do the maths and see who comes out on top .....us or adobe.........
 
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