Raw therapee vs lightroom?

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AndyG123

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Andy
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Hi guys, i am currently editing my raw shots in Adobe photoshop camera raw filter, which is fine for individual images. (spare license from work, for photoshop)
At work I have a full Adobe cc suite and get to use lightroom for work but no spare license on this unfortunately, but my personal use I can't justify buying lightroom.
Has anyone actually tried the raw therapee free app? Any comparisons vs Adobe lightroom are welcome. Or anything missing which will effect my images.
 
I'll happily admit all of my photos have been processed using free apps. Gimp, raw therapee, Picasa, Nik collection. I've not tried it yet, but I think there is also dark table for Windows too.

I've been perfectly happy using them, but then I only do this for fun.
 
One thing to watch out for is that the default raw conversions are lightly to look significantly different (though of course there's a lot of potential for tweaking in both packages). As you have a Nikon, you might also want to look at Nikon's own free raw converters, which do batch conversions and (IMHO) do them very well (though they won't win prizes for speed):

https://nikonimglib.com/ncnxd/
https://nikonimglib.com/nvnxi/

Take the same raw file and run it through one of the Nikon packages, RT and LR/ACR and see what you think. Workflow and convenience are important, of course (LR tends to score highly there), but you can also save a lot of time by getting a default conversion that doesn't need much tweaking to get to the result you prefer (which is rather subjective).
 
LR has camera profiles that are a pretty decent match for the oe software colour profile actually, but yes there are cheaper and much more free options. That said, LR 7 is coming out soon as a stand alone product and I think it's usually about a hundred quid for a permanent license. Not a bad investment compared to the cost of the camera gear we carry around.

Edit- hate to sound like a fan of Adobe's rapacious marketing machine. I'm not, but the cost isn't the reason.
 
drounding said:
I didn't know that - the reason I've never upgraded from LR5 was because it wasn't standalone.
Click to expand...
I thought Lr6 was available as standalone? I'm still on Lr5.7, but mrs has just bought an 80D so an update for Lr is on the cards, but I'll probably wait until Lr7 comes out.
 
Yes, LR6 standalone upgrade is about £60, but LR7 announcement is expected next month or later this.
 
Had a play with a few things since last night, and no surprise, workflow and speed lightroom wins hands down.
 
I tried several programs and found I get great images easily from Raw Therapee. It seemes to like my raw files. YMMV.
The good thing is the updates continually add the new cameras.
 
drdocmatt said:
LR has camera profiles that are a pretty decent match for the oe software colour profile actually, but yes there are cheaper and much more free options. That said, LR 7 is coming out soon as a stand alone product and I think it's usually about a hundred quid for a permanent license. Not a bad investment compared to the cost of the camera gear we carry around.

Edit- hate to sound like a fan of Adobe's rapacious marketing machine. I'm not, but the cost isn't the reason.
Click to expand...

Not so :(
 
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