Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Desperately seeking Lightroom replacement


Recommended Posts

As stated in the topic... I still do seek a Lightroom replacement as I am sick of the Adobe Creative Cloud. Unfortunately I haven't found a real alternative to Lightroom so far. My search as included ACDsee, ON1, DXO. My hope is that Serif will start the development soon... think the community is asking for a Lightroom competitor for three years now. Will there be an alternative? Or do you have other suggestions?

Kind regards,

Robert.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @Robert Gootz and welcome to the forums.

Take a look at Dark Table, maybe it's an alternative that suits you.

https://www.darktable.org

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X | INTEL Arc A770 LE 16 GB  | 32 GB DDR4 3200MHz | Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (22631.3296)
AMD A10-9600P | dGPU R7 M340 (2 GB)  | 8 GB DDR4 2133 MHz | Windows 10 Home 22H2 (1945.3803) 

Affinity Suite V 2.4 & Beta 2.(latest)
Better translations with: https://www.deepl.com/translator  
Interested in a robust (selfhosted) PDF Solution? Have a look at Stirling PDF

Life is too short to have meaningless discussions!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Darktable is not so bad - simplified in usability - but (nearly) all you need is available. The gui reminds a little bit to Lightroom here and there. Unfortunatly it's simply slow (on Mac) even on a good 8/16-core Machine. Significantly slower than Lightroom ... so only an alternative if you really can't or won’t spend money for an fast commercial tool.


I also don't understand, why Serif still announced no image management tool. Affinity Photo's  code base features nearly everyting that’s needed - the code is already there for developing RAWs - only the image managament is missing. Affinity "Lighttable" ;) would possibly a sales racket. (But on the other hand the market is full of tools like Lightroom - in all price categories. It's not the same as Photoshop, Illustrator or inDesign. It's probably only interessting for user who jumped to Affinity already. Let's see what future will bring.) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Eran Dax Lonker said:

I also don't understand, why Serif still announced no image management tool.

They had one many moons ago in the Plus range, and it had become pretty good. It would be a nice addition to Affinity.

I have just started using Phototheca: https://lunarship.com/

I'm quite pleased with it. It handles RAW files well and I have set the option to open in an external editor to APhoto, which works perfectly (it's on an image's right-click menu for ease of access). It has also recognised and imported key words that I must have set using Serif's old title many moons ago (I have imported my entire library of images). It has geo tagging and facial recognition (which has saved me hours of work). I've only been using it for about a week, but so far, so good.

Ali 🙂

Hobby photographer.
Running Affinity Suite V2 on Windows 11 17" HP Envy i7 (8th Gen) & Windows 11 MS Surface Go 3 alongside MS365 (Insider Beta Channel).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK.

I was also going to suggest FastStone Image Viewer (freeware https://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm), but given your last retort, I won't bother. ;)

I don't see where the OP specified Mac or a 'professional' solution.

 

Ali 🙂

Hobby photographer.
Running Affinity Suite V2 on Windows 11 17" HP Envy i7 (8th Gen) & Windows 11 MS Surface Go 3 alongside MS365 (Insider Beta Channel).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Eran Dax Lonker said:

Ok, the price is only half that of Lightroom per year, but with Lightroom you also get Photoshop.

But the OP already has Affinity Photo ... ;)

Ali 🙂

Hobby photographer.
Running Affinity Suite V2 on Windows 11 17" HP Envy i7 (8th Gen) & Windows 11 MS Surface Go 3 alongside MS365 (Insider Beta Channel).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry - don't get me wrong ... that was not meant to sound derogatory. But is Phototheca a real Lightroom alternative? Lightroom is a bit more than a photo management tool. It's a tool for developing photos in various ways, for instance very enhanced color, exposure etc. changes and improvements.

And like the fact that Affinity's tools sharing features, it would be nice to get another tool that offers managing photos and have a focus on developing them, without the need for opening or switching to Affinity Photo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are making assumptions about what exactly it is the OP wants. This has not been specified, and (s)he has not said why the titles (s)he's looked at already don't fit the bill.

Please let the OP respond to my suggestions: it's his/her thread, after all.

Thanks. :)

Ali 🙂

Hobby photographer.
Running Affinity Suite V2 on Windows 11 17" HP Envy i7 (8th Gen) & Windows 11 MS Surface Go 3 alongside MS365 (Insider Beta Channel).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's also digikam.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, anto said:

You can look also in side to darktable   https://www.darktable.org/ 

or rawtherapy https://rawtherapee.com/

Simple support of raw files has also xnview https://www.xnview.com/en/

They all are free for Linux, Windows, MacOs.

I'd add LightZone and AfterShot Pro to that good list too assuming that the OP wants RAW editor + organiser. Both are cross platform as well.

Links:

https://lightzoneproject.org/

https://www.aftershotpro.com/en/

In addition, professional photographer Joe Cristina has used Exposure X software followed by Affinity Photo to get good final results.

Link:

https://exposure.software/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Eran Dax Lonker said:

Sorry - don't get me wrong ... that was not meant to sound derogatory. But is Phototheca a real Lightroom alternative? Lightroom is a bit more than a photo management tool. It's a tool for developing photos in various ways, for instance very enhanced color, exposure etc. changes and improvements.

And like the fact that Affinity's tools sharing features, it would be nice to get another tool that offers managing photos and have a focus on developing them, without the need for opening or switching to Affinity Photo.

This is where initial clarification would have helped if you see what l mean. Does the OP want a photo organiser, a RAW editor or something that does both like Lightroom?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used Darktable for years it found it superior to LR on many points. Never liked Rawtherepee very much, but it's really not a bad alternative. Both are really superior to  Aftershot Pro which is light years behind all others. I went back to ON1 Photo Raw and I have to admit that it's now on top. You pay once and it it's yours. Get the Trial and I'm sure you will like it.

So my suggestions: FIrst... pay once... ON1 Photo Raw.... Second: free and very good (best than LR on some points) Darktable.

-- Window 11 - 32 gb - Intel I7 - 8700 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060
-- iPad Pro 2020 - 12,9 - 256 gb - Apple Pencil 2 -- iPad 9th gen 256 gb - Apple Pencil 1
-- Macbook Air 15"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Came here with the exact same topic. I'm really, really hoping a software company able to create such great software such as Serif would start the development of a Lightroom replacement. Lightroom is incredibly slow compared to the machine the machine I'm running it on and paying the subscription is incredibly painful. If Serif came out with a replacement product, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Have been asking the same for longer than 3 years! I have recently, much against the grain, succumbed to paying for lightroom as my V.6 would not be fully recognised by Adobe's checking system even though it accepted my password etc. PLEASE HELP US, THERE IS A GREEAT NEED OUT HERE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/9/2021 at 8:40 AM, Sulka said:

Came here with the exact same topic. I'm really, really hoping a software company able to create such great software such as Serif would start the development of a Lightroom replacement. Lightroom is incredibly slow compared to the machine the machine I'm running it on and paying the subscription is incredibly painful. If Serif came out with a replacement product, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

I don't know what platform you're using, Windows or macOS, but you should be able to find plenty of good alternatives to $$$ Lightroom by heading over here: https://alternativeto.net/software/adobe-lightroom/

There's also this review here https://expertphotography.com/best-lightroom-alternative/ and searching online for 'lightroom cc alternatives' will bring up many similar reviews so that you can avoid the permanent subscription extortion racket. Also, check out Joe Cristina's Cutting the Cord video here: 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
21 hours ago, fde101 said:

I don't see Capture One Pro mentioned here, that is one of the really big players in this field.

C1, DXO Photolab and LR are the three big ones. Others are smaller players. It is debatable what are the differences in quality, speed and workflow with the 3 big ones (there certainly are differences though!). Also smaller players may well be good enough likewise considering quality, speed and workflow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Same here. Been using an ancient Lightroom 5.7 for organizing for years, hating every aspect of it. Imho LR is user-unfriendly as hell, nothing is where I expect it to be (regarding the library - development is quite okay though!) - so many times have I messed up the image tags, because I mistook that menu for the well-hidden search... 

AP already has a well-working development persona, there would just need to be a library function with preview-generation, tagging, search, camera import, (batch) export and direct access to the development tab. Then a button to continue editing in AP - voila!
I am sure for lens corrections there is a supplier that sells pre-made databases. Such things as face-recognition or auto-development are not really necessary imho.

Anyway, if Serif decided to build something like this, I am sure there would be plenty of happy takers :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lightroom has better storage system: original raw + external metadata (in catalog, xml) + external cache (can be cleared). If I develop RAW in AP, I get > 120MB file and this is unusable for multiple photos and their archiving. IMHO, develop workflow in LR is faster than AP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: lightroom storage system -looking at the speed at which Lightroom imports data and how the CPU load is spread, Lightroom is entirely single-threaded and as a results, does imports photos at a fraction of the speed it could if it had good support for multi-core CPUs...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I've purchased all the affinity products now and the humungous gap is the Lightroom functionality.  And yes, I know that Lightroom does basic to medium editing nowadays, but fundamentally it's heritage and core function is as a photo library management application.  The only application that comes anywhere near close to this photo management function is exposure software's 'exposure'.  The problem with it is that it's slow to build previews and actually manage your library due to it not having a catalog.  However, they are apparently working on a fix for that that involves some kind of caching.  I've been asking them for a few years now and find it unfathomable that they want to be a photo management app, but can't actually manage photo's in any kind of useful way unless your library is less than 1000 images.

But, it's also not 'that' bad.  Like it works, it's just not fast like lightoom is.  Once you've found your photo though, it's pretty darn good.

 

If Affinity put out a photo management app, I'd buy it in a snap.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Marshalleq said:

I've purchased all the affinity products now and the humungous gap is the Lightroom functionality.  And yes, I know that Lightroom does basic to medium editing nowadays, but fundamentally it's heritage and core function is as a photo library management application.  The only application that comes anywhere near close to this photo management function is exposure software's 'exposure'.  The problem with it is that it's slow to build previews and actually manage your library due to it not having a catalog.  However, they are apparently working on a fix for that that involves some kind of caching.  I've been asking them for a few years now and find it unfathomable that they want to be a photo management app, but can't actually manage photo's in any kind of useful way unless your library is less than 1000 images.

But, it's also not 'that' bad.  Like it works, it's just not fast like lightoom is.  Once you've found your photo though, it's pretty darn good.

 

If Affinity put out a photo management app, I'd buy it in a snap.

 

 

If you look at this official Affinity Photo video here, you will see the host, Joe Cristina, using the combination of Exposure X5* followed by Affinity Photo:

*He also uses On1, Capture One and Luminar among others with Affinity Photo (this is stated in the comments below the video).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure what you're saying by this reply, but I believe you're validating what I said above.

Capture one is one of the few products that's even more expensive than adobe at US$44 per month and it's a photo editor not a photo management product in that, it doesn't manage your library of photos.

Luminar is good value if it has something in it that you want, but is no comparison for Affinity photo in my opinion, I'm guessing Joe has something specific he's using it for.  I personally didn't like how 'fake' the things I was doing were coming out, but perhaps I wasn't using it properly.  And it's also a photo editor not a photo management product in that it doesn't manage your library.

On1 is again a subscription which while is a reasonable price, it's again, not a photo management product but a photo editor.

There was one product I found that was nearly a photo management product (I can't remember the name of it), but unfortunately they did not allow photos to appear in the screen view from subfolders.  That one feature absolutely killed what would have otherwise been a serious competitor to Lightroom.  And although the forums were littered with many people pointing this out in disbelief, the product team weren't interested anyway - which is another good reason not to buy the product bad roadmap and not listening to customer input = bad product.  I got a refund as I actually purchased it without realising it had this major limitation.

And we're left again with Lightroom and Exposure.  I mean Apple photo's is actually quite a good management system if it wasn't for the way it makes you store your photos.

Linux has quite a few good options, darktable (mentioned above) and also my personal favourite, digikam, both which can be installed on Mac.  But, something about the way it works on Mac just doesn't feel as good as it does on linux and again exposure ends up being the best option of the bunch.  If only it wasn't so slow to scroll through large libararys.

What I am actually surprised about is how the people making these products haven't actually realised how much of a hole in the market there is in library management.  Except perhaps exposure, so Kudos to them!  Even my cousin a serious pro in all things adobe (nearly), whom edits (for his real job in his profession) asked me why anyone would want Lightroom - and he owns it.  When I told him he said, oh wow, you mean I can go through all my photos and actually figure out where they all are and organise them?  Yes I say!  Which was very surprising!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.