Since Adobe changed some of its Creative Cloud pricing on Monday (4/16/18; note the Photography plans were not impacted), there’s been a lot of discussion surrounding alternatives to Lightroom. And while Lightroom continues to be the industry standard for photo editing and organization, there’s a lot of tools out there that are great alternatives for people who don’t want to be married to a subscription model.
Luminar
$59 for Photofocus readers; available for Mac and Windows
I’ve been using Skylum’s Luminar 2018 since it first came out, and out of all the products listed here, this is the one I’m most impressed with as a RAW processor. There are some things missing — notably the Digital Asset Manager that will be released later this year — but the results I get out of this software are gorgeous. For now, I run Luminar as a Lightroom plugin, but it can also be run as a standalone app.
Interface and Tools: I find the app interface to be very easy to follow and understand, especially as I can customize its paneled filter system to my liking. I can adjust things like the strength of each filter, and I can add presets and LUT (Look Up Table) filters similar to Lightroom’s develop presets and profiles. It also has a very in-depth layer tool, with several options. The latest “Jupiter” update also added camera profiles, a welcome addition.
Catalog: There is no catalog system yet; a Digital Asset Manager has been announced to be released later this year.
Speed: The latest “Jupiter” update has made this faster than Lightroom on my end.
Capture One
$299 or $20/month; available for Mac and Windows
Capture One is known to have the best tethering experience on the market today — it’s fast and easy to make adjustments on-the-fly. But beyond that, Capture One also has a powerful interface, full of tools you’re used to seeing in Lightroom.
Interface and Tools: For me, the interface took a bit of getting used to. You can customize it somewhat, but the icons that Capture One uses are non-standard. In terms of the tools though, everything is there that you’d expect — including layers.
Catalog: Capture One allows for catalogs, but also introduces sessions — a great alternative for single-focus projects. Capture One also lets you import your Lightroom catalog, meaning you can get started right away. This is super helpful, as it keeps your star ratings and color labels so you can pick up right where you left off.
Speed: Because Capture One has a catalog system and works with preview files, it’s pretty fast. It also takes advantage of your machine’s graphics acceleration capabilities. As I applied different adjustments to photos, there was virtually no wait time at all.
RAW Power
$13.99 via the Mac App Store; available for Mac and iOS
What impressed me the most about RAW Power is its ability to restore detail in photographs that you would’ve otherwise thought was lost. RAW Power is developed by a former Senior Director of Engineering at Apple, who worked on iPhoto and Aperture, and thus takes advantage of Apple’s RAW decoder. At its core, RAW Power focuses on developing your RAW photos as best it can, showing you elements like over-exposed highlights as you edit.
Interface and Tools: The interface is pretty simple and easy to understand, consisting only of develop tools. The ability to adjust highlights and shadows is the best I’ve seen from any platform I’ve tested.
Catalog: There is currently no catalog system, but RAW Power can be used as an Apple Photos extension. The iOS version can be used with the iCloud Photo Library.
Speed: Adjustments to individual photos were almost instant; there was virtually no waiting time.
On1 Photo RAW
$119.99 (or $99.99 as an upgrade); available for Mac and Windows
There’s one huge feature with On1 Photo RAW — layers. Outside of that, the program has everything you’re used to coming over from Lightroom, including presets, brushes, develop adjustments and more.
Interface and Tools: In terms of the interface, it has some similarities with Lightroom that will immediately make you feel right at home.
Catalog: Technically there’s no catalog present with On1 — instead, it provides a browse interface that acts similarly. Here’s a blog post by On1 walking you through the migration process from Lightroom.
Speed: In my tests, the speed left a little to be desired. Because there’s no catalog, there are no previews saved, meaning loading each photo can take around 10 seconds on my iMac. But once a photo loads completely, the adjustments are near-instant.
Conclusion
Adobe Lightroom continues to be a powerful tool that a lot of photographers rely on for day-to-day usage. But tools like Luminar, Capture One, RAW Power and On1 Photo RAW are some great alternatives that will help you get the job done, too.
Lightzone anyone ?
Ted, for this article I focused on more mainstream programs on the market. I’ve not used Lightzone personally…though from what I see, it’s a viable free alternative.
For anyone who’s interested, feel free to check it out at http://lightzoneproject.org/.
I’ve been using On1 and Luminar now that there’s a Windows version. They both do a good job and have that are lacking in my version 6 of Lightroom. I’m not a subscription fan. To really replace Lightroom, they both need Digital Asset Management, ability to export directly from the program to social sites (plugins?) and a print module as good as Lightroom. Rome wasn’t built in a day but I’m hopeful. I can’t see myself spending anymore money on Lightroom
The real problem of switching RAW processing tools is keeping the edits and develop settings on the images.
Until that is possible, changing is a very big loss (or a doubling of costs).
Even the switch from Raw Shooter Premium to Lightroom 1.0 wasn’t easy. And it was the exact same software with a different name…
I used to use OnOne when it was Perfect Photo, all the way through 10.5.They made some incredible promises with Photo RAW and charged us, the users, a small fortune to be their beta testers. Photo RAW was a miserable flop. Wouldn’t work, crashed, hung etc etc. So, what did OnONE do? Released a new version and charged for that as well! Those of us who suffered through the Beta version were given no consideration; pay up or get out. Well, you know the old saying: fool me once…. Now Perfect Photo 10.5 was a winner, still is. I used… Read more »
Bryan, please consider Affinity Photo in your next comparison review. Although it is most often compared with Photoshop, it is a great alternative to Adobe’s subscription model.
I have both Luminar and Affinity and tend to use Luminar for general landscapes and Affinity for photos that required more correction and detail work (portraits and architectural pictures needing perspective correction). Until either software, or both, reveal their DAM systems, I use DigiKam for sorting/tagging purposes-it is a great open source solution.
Thank you and take care.
Hey Tom! Affinity makes some great products, and you’re right — Affinity Photo is a GREAT photo editing tool. But as you said, it’s much closer to Photoshop, in terms of what it offers. It’s not just a photo editor — it offers a lot of tools that designers can take advantage of (like Photoshop) — which is why I didn’t include it with this list.
I haven’t heard anything about Affinity making a DAM system yet (other than rumors), but would definitely welcome that if they released something. Thanks for reading!
I just switched to Exposure X3. It’s been great, particularly since it *doesn’t* have a catalog. Just click on a folder and the photos all show up instantly, ready to edit. (It uses sidecar files to store your edits.)
Could you be more specific as to the size of the photos you are loading that take 10 seconds in ON1? Mine take less than 5 seconds to load on my PC (16 megapixel raw files). It also depends on the size and speed of your system and graphics card.
Personally, I prefer ON1, but have been using Luminar a decent bit too. Something to be desired in Luminars’s interface, though.
It definitely could be. For my tests, I was working with 20MP RAW files.
Luminar doesn’t have a catalog and isn’t a DAM so it is NOT a Lightroom alternative. Period! It is useful and has a number of great components but again, not a LR alternative.
PS the latest version’s performance still is inadequate.
I see what you’re saying, Martin. But Lightroom isn’t only a photo organizer — it’s used for several other tasks as well, most of which Luminar can handle. I’ll be very interested when Luminar releases its DAM later this year!
My big concern is that I have a large Aperture referenced library with many captions and hierarchically arranged keywords (eg taxonomic hierarchies for wildlife such as Animals>Birds>Passerines>Thrushes etc) that I do not want to have to redo. I am looking for something that can import this structure (and I am getting annoyed with Skylum’s refusal to answer questions on whether Luminar’s DAM will do this). I need the most complete and painless way to reproduce my Aperture library in a new program. Any suggestions?
Hey Ronald –
Without knowing what the Luminar DAM will hold, your best bet to move to a new program may actually be Lightroom. Rich Harrington has a great walkthrough of the steps used, and it should bring over both your hierarchies and keywords.
https://photofocus.com/2014/12/15/the-essential-guide-to-moving-an-aperture-library-to-adobe-lightroom/
Hope this helps!
I spent some time trying various photo editors for Windows (I’m devoted to it) and in the end I picked PhotoWorks software. For me, it’s a perfect balance of ease of use, number of editing options, quality and price.
Lightzone anyone ?
I’ve been using On1 and Luminar now that there’s a Windows version. They both do a good job and have that are lacking in my version 6 of Lightroom. I’m not a subscription fan. To really replace Lightroom, they both need Digital Asset Management, ability to export directly from the program to social sites (plugins?) and a print module as good as Lightroom. Rome wasn’t built in a day but I’m hopeful. I can’t see myself spending anymore money on Lightroom
The real problem of switching RAW processing tools is keeping the edits and develop settings on the images.
Until that is possible, changing is a very big loss (or a doubling of costs).
Even the switch from Raw Shooter Premium to Lightroom 1.0 wasn’t easy. And it was the exact same software with a different name…
I used to use OnOne when it was Perfect Photo, all the way through 10.5.They made some incredible promises with Photo RAW and charged us, the users, a small fortune to be their beta testers. Photo RAW was a miserable flop. Wouldn’t work, crashed, hung etc etc. So, what did OnONE do? Released a new version and charged for that as well! Those of us who suffered through the Beta version were given no consideration; pay up or get out. Well, you know the old saying: fool me once…. Now Perfect Photo 10.5 was a winner, still is. I used… Read more »
I just switched to Exposure X3. It’s been great, particularly since it *doesn’t* have a catalog. Just click on a folder and the photos all show up instantly, ready to edit. (It uses sidecar files to store your edits.)
Could you be more specific as to the size of the photos you are loading that take 10 seconds in ON1? Mine take less than 5 seconds to load on my PC (16 megapixel raw files). It also depends on the size and speed of your system and graphics card.
Personally, I prefer ON1, but have been using Luminar a decent bit too. Something to be desired in Luminars’s interface, though.
My big concern is that I have a large Aperture referenced library with many captions and hierarchically arranged keywords (eg taxonomic hierarchies for wildlife such as Animals>Birds>Passerines>Thrushes etc) that I do not want to have to redo. I am looking for something that can import this structure (and I am getting annoyed with Skylum’s refusal to answer questions on whether Luminar’s DAM will do this). I need the most complete and painless way to reproduce my Aperture library in a new program. Any suggestions?
Luminar doesn’t have a catalog and isn’t a DAM so it is NOT a Lightroom alternative. Period! It is useful and has a number of great components but again, not a LR alternative.
PS the latest version’s performance still is inadequate.
I spent some time trying various photo editors for Windows (I’m devoted to it) and in the end I picked PhotoWorks software. For me, it’s a perfect balance of ease of use, number of editing options, quality and price.
Bryan, please consider Affinity Photo in your next comparison review. Although it is most often compared with Photoshop, it is a great alternative to Adobe’s subscription model.
I have both Luminar and Affinity and tend to use Luminar for general landscapes and Affinity for photos that required more correction and detail work (portraits and architectural pictures needing perspective correction). Until either software, or both, reveal their DAM systems, I use DigiKam for sorting/tagging purposes-it is a great open source solution.
Thank you and take care.