Lightroom alternative for both Windows and Mac?

Thanks very much for detailed walkthrough.

Not sure it fits my workflow, I'll have a look at them non the less.
 
To be fair, I only used Lightroom because it came in the package. I could have done most of what I used it for with Adobe Bridge, except printing
 
Pneumatic said:
That's great to hear that LR has fixed the issues. Will try out Capture One anyway as I'd like to explore it a bit more!
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The default fuji decoding engine in Lightroom hasn’t changed since 2015. Every time a new version comes out people post this, but it hasn’t actually changed. I suspect people are going back over old files and misremembering how they look. I’ve checked with files I rendered out years ago, and it’s exactly the same..this from Thomas Fitzgerald so can’t confirm but may be the case.
Green foliage when zoomed in looks crap in only my experience even after using LR denoise,infact,apple photos green foliage is on par with capture 1 and miles better than LR in my comprehensive testing(obsession lol)
 
mstphoto said:
I downloaded a trial version of Photolab 7
It doesn't do as much as LR but I found it a really good piece of software.
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What's their DRM like these days?

I've been looking over a lot of older pictures recently, and can generally spot the ones processed through DXO OP from the fine details and odd colour rendering. IIRC the software used to be very automated, but I've not tried it for some years now.
 
Looking to bin Adobe I think, so have similar questions about alternatives.

I've got DXO Photolab (v4 and v7) software installed as well as PureRaw (v4), but have never used it in favour of Lightroom, PS - I just never got around to it, though kept upgrading. I DO use the Nik software though. I *think* they might cover most of my processing needs - I hear good things - apart from....

Panoramas - I do a lot of these, and DXO doesn't! Any suggestions for RAW stitching software?? (or it'll at least take a RAW file and output a TIF or something similar?) (And should RAW even be capitalised?! Huh...)

Focus Stacking - not something I do, but have recently starting taking stacked photos, though haven't processed them yet. I can't help thinking DXO might not do focus stacking if it doesn't do panos?

Importing and Library Management - my image storage system is pretty robust, all my RAW images now have sidecar .XMPs so not reliant on the Lightroom database so much now, but still need something to allow me to import photos and rate them / tag them / sort them / search them quickly.

I hear what people are saying about still being able to use Lightroom to do that without a license, but not sure I want to have Adobe products anywhere near my system right now. Yes, that's right, my Windows system utilising Edge, Google and Chrome, still using Facebook to post images, etc etc. Yeh I know :/ I'll be working on those too....
 
James Blonde said:
Panoramas - I do a lot of these, and DXO doesn't! Any suggestions for RAW stitching software?? (or it'll at least take a RAW file and output a TIF or something similar?) (And should RAW even be capitalised?! Huh...)

Focus Stacking - not something I do, but have recently starting taking stacked photos, though haven't processed them yet. I can't help thinking DXO might not do focus stacking if it doesn't do panos?
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On1 Photoraw does both those and cataloguing. It would be my go-to after LRC.
 
I have the regular 'perpetual' licence suite and that's all, but I don't use cloud software or storage for anything. I had the plus access for a year which was good, but didn't continue.
 
James Blonde said:
Panoramas - I do a lot of these, and DXO doesn't! Any suggestions for RAW stitching software?? (or it'll at least take a RAW file and output a TIF or something similar?) (And should RAW even be capitalised?! Huh...)

Focus Stacking - not something I do, but have recently starting taking stacked photos, though haven't processed them yet. I can't help thinking DXO might not do focus stacking if it doesn't do panos?

Importing and Library Management - my image storage system is pretty robust, all my RAW images now have sidecar .XMPs so not reliant on the Lightroom database so much now, but still need something to allow me to import photos and rate them / tag them / sort them / search them quickly.
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Affinity Photo (possibly on sale at the moment) dies pano stitching and focus stacking very well, and will also take care of most of your PS workflow (though slightly differently, of course). It doesn't do any DAM (Digital Asset Management) stuff, as far as I know.
 
ChrisR said:
Affinity Photo (possibly on sale at the moment) dies pano stitching and focus stacking very well, and will also take care of most of your PS workflow (though slightly differently, of course). It doesn't do any DAM (Digital Asset Management) stuff, as far as I know.
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Turns out I'd previously bought Affinity so get an upgrade discount on top of the massive discount they're offering at the moment - and it's not horribly expensive anyway! My Adobe license runs out in the middle of next month, so gives me a bit of time to get my head around it before I bin Photoshop

A friend has suggested Photo Mechanic for the DAM. It's a lot more expensive, but will maybe give it a trial
 
I used Lightroom some years ago, and then I switched to Capture One. I've been very happy with it. I obtain better results than with Lightroom, especially in colour grading, but your mileage may vary.

Photoshop is too expensive for my needs as I'm much more on the Lightroom-like route than the Photoshop one. I use Affinity Photo. It's nice and cheap.
 
I've used PS and Lightroom for years, but It's Adobe's business practices and terms of service changes that are putting me off them right now - enough to make me look at alternatives and cancel my subscription.

I get that many of the publicised issues may not affect us in the UK, but if, as a company, they're happy and willing to enable theft of content from their loyal, paying customer base to train their AI models that they're selling to replace the work their loyal, paying customer base are doing, then I'm out. Also wonder if those uploading to stock sites would have done it if they'd known their work would be used to train AI.

and yeh, I know it's been going on for years, I know all big tech are doing similar, I know this is just a hobby I've taken too far and my work is never going to make me millions or do a lot for the progression of AI photography / art, but I think I've just been sufficiently P'd off / tipped over the edge by this one. I'm paying them to steal my work to replace photographers, graphic designers, etc?
 
Quote from some commentary on this issue:

Adobe went on to reiterate its commitments to not train Firefly AI models on customer content and to never assume ownership of a user’s work.

Adobe design leader Scott Belsky had earlier said on X, “I can clearly state that Adobe does NOT train any GenAI models on customer’s content, and we obviously have tight security around any form of access to customer’s content. As a company that stores cloud documents and assets for customers, there are probably circumstances (like indexing to help you search your documents, updating components used from CC libraries across your documents, among others) where the company’s terms of service allow for some degree of access.”
 
As I said, this might not even affect the UK. All of the content I've seen on YouTube about this has been US based photographers / videographers / designers talking about the Terms of Service issue. It was Tony and Chelsea Northrop that first brought it to my attention last week, but I've seen many videos and articles throughout this week from large, well known accounts, so I don't think we're looking at fringe or crank accounts, but please do look it up for yourself, take it with as big a pinch of salt as you want.

Whatever way you look at it, the situation is incredibly messy, and the clarifications have arguably made the situation worse by using poorly phrased, limited examples, weaselly words, answering different questions to the ones being raised and failing to acknowledge that clarifications are not legally binding - only the ToS is, and it's basically saying that they can do anything they want with your content.

So I've lost trust and I'm looking for options. Maybe they'll get it back before July when my subscription ends or maybe I'll not get on with the alternatives and chicken out, or will have forgotten all about it by then.

Sounds like they're going to make a new update to the ToS on 18 June, so maybe they'll rectify this issue then. Maybe these clarifications are the start of some rapid and meaningful backpeddling by Adobe.
 
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