Returning as a hobbyist

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703
Name
Lee
Edit My Images
No
After a break of 5/6 years since working as a portrait and wedding photographer, I’m picking the camera back up as a hobbyist. Luckily I kept an old body with a few lenses and some bits of lighting, but I did get rid of my pc that had lightroom and photoshop on it. As I’m only dipping in casually this time around, I was hoping someone could advise me on some free software that can process raw files with similar functions to lightroom. Any recommendations?
 
Canva Affinity is worth a look too. I've never used Lightroom, I think Affinity might be more like Photoshop than LR, but it does all I need for photo editing.
 
Darktable, DigiKam, Raw Therapee, all good & free raw editors. I believe On1 Effects is still free too, and that will do a lot of image processing & more.
 
:welcome: back :wave:
 
You didn't say what brand of camera that you have. The ones that I have been using for the last 8 years or so are all Canon. I have two 77D and one 90D at present, but have had most of the better brands at one time or another since I went totally digital in 1998.

The Canon website has some free software that can be downloaded that is similar to Lightroom, and a companion that handles the remote control of your camera from the computer or cell phone as well as the downloading of photos from the camera into this Canon Lightroom equivalent. All you need to be able to download them is your camera model and serial number. I've been using these for about 6 years now. Why buy Lightroom and Capture 1 if you can download similar from the Canon website? As a Photoshop replacement, I use Affinity Photo. It's also free, but with a few restrictions, or can be bought without restrictions for less than $100. The software does not stop working when the upgrade, if you are happy with it, and they offer alternatives for all of the other graphics program that Adobe offers, also at low prices. These are very similar to how the Adobe programs work and if you have been a Photoshop or Lightroom user, just learning the differences will have you up to speed using them.

I had been a customer of Adobe products since about 1998 (Photoshop 3 maybe?), but about 5 years ago I had significant difficulty getting their Pakistani or whatever help desk to help me through an upgrade problem. I looked for alternatives and have been an Affinity customer ever since. There are many Affinity help videos on Youtube, so watching a few will give you a good idea of how they compare.

Charley
 
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