Lightroom Alternatives

[Mike Farley]

As part of my occasional series of posts about other Raw processing options now Lightroom is only available as subscription only, the current issue of Amateur Photographer has an article about Raw processors which are available with a perpetual licence. Top of the pile were Capture One Pro 10 and DxO Photolab Elite 1.0. That is pretty much what I would expect as they are the most expensive, Capture One particularly. The article is partly out of date as Capture One was recently upgraded to version 11. Also, Photolab is of limited utility to me due to DxO's continued insistence that it will not support the X-Trans sensor found in Fuji cameras. The other applications were Serif Addinity 1.6.6 and Luminar 2018. They are less expensive than the other two and do not appear to be as fully featured, although Affinity still reviewed well. In particular, there was a comment that Luminar is not specifically intended for processing Raw files, which I found surprising given the hopes expressed for it in some quarters.

[Mike Farley]

There is a comprehensive review of the contenders to replace Lightroom and Photoshop in a long article on PetaPixel. Admittedly the author is considering their use for a specialised purpose, namely processing night-cap images of the Milky Way, but a lot of the observations hold true for more general photography.

The conclusion is that Adobe's competitors still have some way to go before they can match the combined capability of Lightroom and Photoshop. Nor is the author worried about paying a subscription or that Adobe might do something in the future to jeopardise its market leading position. While I would tend to agree with both of those statements, there is no doubt Adobe's recent statements have created a lot of mistrust amongst its customers. What Adobe has succeeded in doing is creating an opportunity for its competitors. Will anyone seize it?

https://petapixel.com/2017/12/15/tested ... ernatives/