Question on lightroom alternative and photo ninja!

[Lemaildetom]

Hi all,

I'm just about to buy a new Fuji camera with the x-tran sensor. There is numerous article on how lightroom isn't so good with these sensor and photo ninja seems to be hightly praised (irrident is another praised one).

I was thinking to give photo ninja a try and hoping to like it but it seems that in the little post process I do there is two things that photo-ninja wouldn't do:
- had graduated filter (for exemple to lesser the exposure to bring detail in a blown out sky)
- cloning, I really don't clone much but sometime a dust spot or a plastic bottle in a nice landscape or a misplaced bird in the sky...

Is there a software or freeware that could complement photo ninja for doing these two action? I think lightroom is way to big for doing only doing this kind of things.

PS: Things I really use only 5-10% of Lightroom function I don't use
-the tagging
-the catalogue
-the printing
-the web design
-....

 

[BrynBoru]

If you already have Lightroom, why spend another $129? Don't know much about it, but it seems to be for people who prefer to have their raw shots pre-processed by PN rather than using LR's extensive editing tools. Maybe it works for professionals who shoot loads of raw images and want usable jpegs quickly, rather than discerning editors who like to take time to process their raw images in their own way in LR. However, this is only a comment based on my reading of some reviews and not based on any knowledge of PN. If you can afford it, it seems like a useful addition to Lightroom. Sorry I can't offer you a comparison, but it would take a lot to get me to move away from Lightroom, which does 99% of my work in conjunction with NIK plug-ins.

 

[Lemaildetom]

In my mind it is actually the other way round. Amateur have time to fiddle with each picture and don't work on batch of picture. While Lightroom is better for big Batch edit and using your own preset (pro)?
Anyway there is a photo ninja trial for 2 weeks, i might try this once I get the camera.

 

[Alastair]

Lightroom has definitely improved how it handles x-trans raw files, although it's my opinion that the in-camera raw processing options are still superior - at least for the Fuji standard film simulations and the available raw processing options.

 

[Lemaildetom]

I have LR 3... So it's pretty expensive to move up to 5. That also why I've been considering changing workflow and looking into other software!

 

[BrynBoru]

I have LR 3... So it's pretty expensive to move up to 5. That also why I've been considering changing workflow and looking into other software!

Which, (depending on the number of images you have) means also throwing out the database system that you may have built-up as well, as Lightroom is not only an image processor, but also a management system based on keywords etc.

 

[Alastair]

I have LR 3... So it's pretty expensive to move up to 5. That also why I've been considering changing workflow and looking into other software!

It's not really practical holding on to a version of Lightroom older than your camera model. And it's only with quite recent updates to the current version of LR that it's got better with the x-trans files. And only a couple of updates since LR included the Fuji presets.

ID is supposed to be very good with x-trans files, but as it's Mac only I have no direct experience. I'm happy with LR and keeping up-to-date with the latest version every other year is just one of the costs of digital photography I accept. Even with the excellent Fuji jpgs straight out of the in-camera processing engine, you can't take digital photography seriously without a decent processing package. Added to which with LR are the cataloguing options.