Lightroom alternative

[majkelos]

Hi, just my two cents.

If You will make app like Lightroom (DAM, presets etc) with fast of Affinity Photo Beta (Metal accelerated) You will rock the world

Best regards!

[abarkalo]

Yes I believe that Affinity can make a much better DAM than what exists right now. Adobe's Bridge handles Adobe files very well but it doesn't preview anything from Affinity - of course by design. Also, it is a slow beast and working with tags, especially hierarchical tags is a nightmare.  I avoid this thing if I want my laptop not to run hot. Pixave is a super elegant DAM and beautiful and it supports Affinity very well.  But its tagging system is a bit strange, and finally I let it go because there wasn't any universal search (no searching by tags or notes - what's the point?).  So I just use basic Finder on the Mac is it's doing a good job but I wish thumbnails worked like they do in Pixave or Bridge.  

As for comparing Lightroom, that's only for photos but I would like the DAM to work with Designer and Publisher files (bound document modes also like PDFs).  I do like the tagging and thumbnail UI in Lightroom, but again it's only for photos.  And it seems slow where Affinity's DAM would be lightning fast.

[fde101]

This has come up numerous times, and the Serif team has already given hints that at least some preliminary work toward creating a DAM solution of some kind has been started on, but getting Publisher out is obviously the priority right now, and the DAM is probably a few years out.

[Jörn Reppenhagen]

There's another point to consider ...
Recently, Skylum added "DAM" functionality to their "Luminar" product, obviously concentrated on nothing else than creating that addition.
The outcome became a disaster.

Why?

They announced working on a DAM - thus people demanded seeing progress, increasing the pressure on the developers.
User's voices got louder, demanding the launch of that DAM version. "ON THE DOUBLE!"

Thus the results of an over-hastingly work got launched to calm down that voices.
Rendering the software close to useless for a great deal of owners (including me, which of course is the worst part ).
Providing a "DAM" reminding of cheap smartphone gallery apps, a rag rug with almost no practical use, a toy with severe lack of a solid base for building. Not even showing file names or file types, not even being able to exclude pictures from child folders. You can imagine the chaos. And killing all your work if you added a drive which was not present at the time of initial installation. All catalog data gone, all edits gone, pictures uneditable. And more, more, more.
No support anymore because all support guys were busy with calming down angry users.
Then the same voices previously demanding a quick DAM launch went ballistic because of that problems. As usual.

And that's still the present situation.

So let developers do their thing, don't demand a clear yes or no or a roadmap. Either statement would put pressure on them.
I see developers taking great care of a sound evolution of Affinity Photo.
So I guess if there will ever be a DAM, it will be a well-thought-out one.

Sometimes patience is a better driver of progress.

[kirk23]

On 9/13/2021 at 1:35 PM, akanaman said:

nothing can beats adobe lightroom

Working in cloud  you have to buy space for  is a big disadvantage imo.      And Lightroom Classic is  worth looking for because of a single reason : quick RAW processing.       But as a DAM  it has much to desire really. 

[fde101]

My own analysis:

Aperture is still the best, and is what I would likely still be using had it had not been discontinued only to become incompatible with current Macs and operating systems.

Capture One is the best (still available) option out there right now for most use cases.  Not free, but the best available for most users.

DXO PhotoLab is the next best option for most use cases and beats Capture One for a few, particularly when combined with the available add-ons.

On1 Photo RAW is another option which is out there at a lower price point which has a fair range of functionality.

If you need free, try RawTherapee.

[Scapa]

While I can't wait for a Serif-quality DAM, I think it would only make sense if they'd super-power their raw engine. As much as I love all three products of the Affinity range, the raw engine really lacks so much.

I'm a dog photographer and for that I rely on great shadow and highlight recovery sliders. (There is not much chance to adjust the exposure while shooting series of running dogs in an open field where they rush from shadow to sun to shadow and so forth).

So far, Capture One has convinced me with these tools. Their price tag however... That's another story.

[myahug424]

Thanks for this great info

[RichardMH]

On 9/28/2021 at 6:38 PM, Scapa said:

While I can't wait for a Serif-quality DAM, I think it would only make sense if they'd super-power their raw engine. As much as I love all three products of the Affinity range, the raw engine really lacks so much.

I'm a dog photographer and for that I rely on great shadow and highlight recovery sliders. (There is not much chance to adjust the exposure while shooting series of running dogs in an open field where they rush from shadow to sun to shadow and so forth).

So far, Capture One has convinced me with these tools. Their price tag however... That's another story.

I use the free  Capture One Express for the RAW conversion. If I had to pay I'd be looking at Iridient, which to me looks as good as Capture One.