Lightroom vs. Adobe Bridge + Affinity Photo

[cerenade]

Hello All - I've had Affinity Photo for a little while now, but have only just started to really learn how to use it as I bought a new camera and have started shooting in RAW. (I used Photoshop years ago, but of course there's a bit of a learning curve to getting used to how things work in AP.)

What I'd like to know is, is there anything that Lightroom does that could not be accomplished using Adobe Bridge and Affinity Photo used together?

I decided to take advantage of the free 7-day trial of LR - because it just seems like every "serious" photographer uses Lightroom, so I thought I maybe I should at least check it out. While I do feel that the LR interface is somewhat more intuitive/user-friendly, I'm struggling to find much that it does that cannot be done in AP.

There are a couple things I do like in LR that maybe I just don't know Photo well enough to know where they are... I do like that LR has, in the Develop module, preset color profiles such as 'Adobe Color/Landscape/Portrait/Vivid/etc.' and white balance profiles 'Auto/Daylight/Cloudy/Shade/Tungsten/Fluorescent/etc.' And obviously there are all the filter presets - for which I don't know if there is an equivalent for those in Affinity Photo or not (I'm guessing not, unless you create/buy them separately).

Also, it's nice (in LR) that you can easily view multiple images at one time, edit them in Develop, and go back and forth between Develop and Library as often as you want before committing to the Develop changes you've made. Whereas, Photo requires you to commit Develop changes before you can do anything else with an image.

What I haven't done (in LR) is make changes in the Develop area, the move to Photoshop (the trial comes with PS as well, and I'm very familiar with it - or used to be - but for obvious/various reasons I'd like to stick with Affinity Photo instead), so my question would be, when you do that, do the changes you made in LR Develop remain non-destructive when moving the image into PS for further manipulation and then come back to LR? Or do those changes become 'destructive' as soon as you move the image to PS? Because if so, it really isn't any different from A. Photo, it just becomes more convenient (in LR) to view multiple images in the Develop process at the same time, but it isn't really different any any other way aside from that.

It also seems like batch processing can be done in both, though the process in Affinity Photo is a bit more convoluted compared to LR. I'm mostly OK with that. 

I haven't tried using Bridge (yet), but I'm thinking about it, as it would seem to replace the cataloging/organizing function of LR, which would otherwise (hopefully) eliminate the need for LR altogether.

So basically - aside from

• Color & white balance profiles
• Tons of filter presets
• Cataloging/organizing/keyword adding
• Marginally easier batch processing (maybe?)

...is there any real reason for keeping Lightroom, if I use Bridge alongside Affinity Photo?

It's only $10/mo., but I really don't want to be under a subscription model if it's not necessary. I just don't get the appeal of LR unless you're mostly using a lot of presets, but maybe I'm missing something?

[sat312]

Reading your post I thought I had submitted a query  I've been down this path for a very long time and funny thing is that I was just looking at Digikam this morning. I have been trying out other photo managers as well like XNVIEW MP but for some reason they have all come short to Adobe Bridge. DigiKam and XNVIEW are very good and can be setup to be similar to Bridge but I still keep coming back to Bridge.

Bridge provides filters that are in my opinion very easy to use and which provide the means to search for photos with a simple checkbox. As an example within a directory Bridge filters will show the various search criteria I can search for like images with .afphoto extension or those taken at ISO 3200. For me this makes it less of a chore. Don't get me wrong the others can do the same but you will need to create filters and this for me is too much work.

For Affinity XNVIEW MP will show thumbnails for .afphoto extensions. Digikam does not identify .afphoto. Bridge on the other hand recognises this extension but will only display the Affinity logo icon as the thumbnail. What I do is to stack the various image formats within a group.

One big issue I had was opening multiple external editors by using "Open With" option as Bridge will only show the windows default app for the particular extension. I use multiple external editors for RAW processing before bringing into Affinity for photo editing, i.e. DXO Photolab4, NX Studio, Darktable.

Look for youtube video by Robin Walley on Best Free Photo Manager for Affinity Photo. I've gone around the houses and I have concluded that he is right.

LR is very good for cataloguing and will hold all changes in a non destructive form but there is no integration with Affinity. This means if you run affinity as your external editor the changes will not be recorded in LR. So from that part it is no different to Bridge but you will be paying a subscription for LR and Bridge is FREE!  

Also note, as you have subscribed to LR, when you end your subscription you should be able to continue using it without the Develop module. Well that was the case for LR Classic.

I hope this has helped.      

[CCS]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:00 PM, cerenade said:

it just seems like every "serious" photographer uses Lightroom,

A bit off-topic!

Back in the seventies until the early nineties of the last century about 90% of the Photo-Journalist used Nikon-Cameras. So many people thought to be a "serious" Photographer requires Nikon-Equipment. But even if you ignore the alternatives above 35mm you will find that there were many excellent photographers using Asahi Pentax, Minolta etc.. I remember asking a professional art-photographer using Pentax on some rather rough jobs, why he doesn’t use Nikon (saying went, that you could use a Nikon for driving a nail if you don’t have a hammer 😉). He answered, that he is just a poor artist and simply can’t afford them – and he added: I can’t complain – my Asahi -Cameras do an excellent job. He was quite successful, but never made it to the 0,1% of artists, that make a lot of money (while still being alive …). On the other hand, I remember a wedding Photographer who changed directly from Pentax to Hasselblad. He made great pictures with his “cheap” cameras, but he was tired of all the rich uncles and nephews (There must have been some female amateurs too, but I can’t remember – unlike today, now it’s “always” the male using a Phone to snap a shot, serious photographers are mainly women) who pitied him for his poor equipment.

Well, Adobe was a pioneer in picture processing, so it comes to no surprise, that PS and LR are still the – I’d guess –most commonly used tools. But more and more photographers are fed up with the gagging subscription policies. Of course it’s only about 12,- EUR a month. But what e.g., if you retire and can’t afford the subscription anymore? And it’s not only the subscription-fee, Adobe forces you to always use a new OS. I stuck to Win 7 to long and suddenly found my Creative Cloud refusing to work (of course they kept on charging me - that was the end of my relation with Adobe). Or, as a last example, some of us experienced after the flood-catastrophe in 2021 here in the Eifel-Region, that you are cut off from the internet for many weeks and, adding to all the trouble, finding your Adobe-Tools refusing to work, because they can’t check the license online? Or, or, or???

Other programs can be used for decades (I know a professional photographer still working with CS2). You only miss the new gimmicks. Tools that are widely spread among professionals are DxO and Capture One. For both you can choose either a subscription or perpetual license. Well, both are rather expensive so even some professionals use cheaper programs like ACDSee or Open Source programs. I’m too still searching 😉

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/192224-affinity-ps-but-how-to-replace-lr/#comment-1157465

And thank you @sat312

 

 

[cerenade]

Thanks @sat312 & @CCS .

I gave up LR after the trial period, and have decided to stick with Affinity Photo for now and add or switch to PhotoLab the next time it goes on sale. I missed their Black Friday deal by 1 day.

I still like and will use AP, but there are a few features in PhotoLab I'm interested in, and want to have it just to have another tool in the toolbox, so to speak.

Edited January 2, 2024 by cerenade
Clarification

[cerenade]

 

On 12/30/2023 at 12:54 PM, sat312 said:

Look for youtube video by Robin Walley on Best Free Photo Manager for Affinity Photo.

Oh - and yes - Robin Walley is the best! I'll look for that video.