Alternative Lightroom Mac
Fonda Stacer
Adobe Lightroom is a photo organization and management tool. Designed for photographers, it features lightweight image editing tools, cataloging, RAW file editing, and more. When we tested out Lightroom, we found it clean, fast and powerful, praising the clarity and freedom of the workspace and some of the best photo cloud storage integration.
When it comes to photo editing, organization, and management, Adobe Lightroom remains the industry-standard. The go-to tool for photographers to catalogue and edit photos, and RAW image processing, it seamlessly fits into the Creative Cloud ecosystem of apps for those pairing it with Photoshop or Illustrator. But it's not the only photo editor and manager out there.
Our team of creatives went hands-on with a range of the best alternatives to Lightroom to see which apps can match Adobe. Exploring each option, we compared accessibility, compatibility, user interface and overall experience when organizing and editing photos. Benchmarking performance using some of the best laptops for photo editing and best photo editing PCs we could, we wanted to see where other photography software matched, beat, or missed the mark as a true alternative to Lightroom.
Since then, other image enhancement filters powered by artificial intelligence (AI) have been added, which have made Skylum Luminar a genuine rival to Lightroom. For example, Accent AI will analyze a photo to automatically calculate the best edits to make.
The pricing for Skylum Luminar is modest at around $200 for a one-time license or you can choose a monthly subscription of around $9 for the Explore plan, or around $12 for the Pro plan. However, there's no free trial but there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Skylum Luminar is available as both a standalone app and a plugin for other apps like Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photos for macOS.
You can either pay for a subscription or purchase the software outright. Subscribers get free updates, and outright purchasers can get updates at special prices. You can also get licenses that support just one brand of camera - Sony, Fujifilm, or Nikon - for a reduced fee.
The image editor, which is available for Mac and PC, converts RAW images and automatically corrects optical flaws, extends dynamic range, and removes digital noise. These features are in the Nik Collection suite of tools, which used to be a Google product.
PhotoLab has always had image-editing capabilities, but it also recently had photo libraries added for managing images, now making it a contender for the best Lightroom alternative title. Similar to other apps, DxO PhotoLab will efficiently organize images found on your hard drive, rather than requiring you to import them into the program.
Next, look at how you intend to use the tool. Is it for simple photo organization and management, do you need Photoshop-levels of image editing, or comprehensive photo cataloging options? Not all alternatives to Lightroom are created equal.
We've extensively tested a range of substitute Adobe apps across the creative and office suites. This includes the best Photoshop alternatives, the best Premiere Pro alternatives, best InDesign alternatives, and the best Adobe Acrobat alternatives for PDF editing.
Our experts have tried each of these tools. In every case, apps were assed to judge closely they mirror the Adobe experience - from user interfaces and learning curves, to advanced capabilities and pricing models.
In nearly 3 years, I have tested Phase One Capture One, On1 Photo RAW and Skylum Luminar. Now I made a decision. To cut a long story short: My alternative to the Lightroom perpetual license is the Lightroom subscription model.
You: Are you f&%$# kidding me? I hear you. If you visited this post to read about a non-Adobe alternative, I have to disappoint you. But I encourage you to read on to understand why I came to this conclusion.
Believe me, I did take my time testing software alternatives to Lightroom. I did own licenses for Photo RAW and Luminar and updated them at least twice. For Capture One, I used their evaluation version. I have published an infrared photography specific part of this comparison in my article Why You Should No Longer Consider Luminar 4 for Infrared Photography, if you are interested.
One of the most heard complaints is the (lack of) speed in Lightroom. That is true. But then it is not. It is only true if you compare the software alternatives to the last perpetual Lightroom version 6.12. For a true comparison, you will need to compare against the latest version of Lightroom Classic. Once you start comparing the latest versions, Lightroom does not feel slow at all.
In the end, none of the alternatives were a perfect fit for my work style. I use the map module a lot, I print a lot and I work a lot with infrared pictures. Here, Lightroom is still the leader of the pack, especially when it comes to more complex print layouts.
I have to say that I liked the layer model in Photo RAW a lot. Truly I hope this is something we will see in Lightroom at a later time. The ability to blend pictures was simple and yet powerful. I know I can do it in Photoshop, but that adds another workflow step with another intermediate file.
Eventually, I had to make a decision because my new Nikon Z6 was not supported by Lightroom 6.12. To convert all my Nikon RAW files to DNG is not an option for me. So, new software was required.
What helped me the most was a set of videos offered by Matt Kloskowski. Matt compares most of the Lightroom alternatives and adds his conclusions. The videos are available for free (registration is required): Making the Switch From Adobe?
It was this set of videos which got me seriously thinking about the Adobe subscription model. So, ironically, watching videos on how to switch away from Lightroom made me reconsider Adobe.
Photo RAW is something I really wanted to like. They update the software frequently, it is stable and fast. What did not work for me was the printing module. Other than that, I would recommend that you at least take a look at it. I plan to keep it on my PC just to see where the development is heading.
Skylum should receive the price for the most ridiculous software upgrade: In Luminar version 3, they had introduced a handy channel mixer tool (together with other tools), which they removed again in version 4. Huh? How does this help their users? Sorry, but this kind of unpredictable feature planning is a no-go.
At this point, I was already leaning towards Adobe. And again, Matt Kloskowski was the reason for my final decision. He wrote a blog post with the title: Why Is No One Mad at Capture One? where he compares the pricing models and the features added in the last 12 months to Lightroom and Capture One. For me, this was the final piece of the puzzle.
Hi Robert, I disagree with your release info. On Github there have been commits within the last month so it is clearly still in active development.
I raised an issue with them and had a reply within a week with a fix.
Yeah, I resigned myself to the Adobe subscription a couple of months ago. A couple of photographers were giving me the run down on the updates since Lightroom 6.12. I instantly regretted not updating to subscription earlier. Photoshop included.
Personally I have never used (Alien Skin) Exposure for IR photography. From your link I see there are a lot of presets to simulate specific IR film emulations, but nothing specific for the treatment of IR pictures. Specifically interesting would be how Exposure can handle the low white balance settings needed to get rid of the red cast. Perhaps you may want to try and share your experience here?
Price-wise I have to say it it appears to be more expensive or equivalent to the Adobe Photography bundle I am using today. Especially with the latest changes to masking, I rarely find myself using Photoshop. So personally, Exposure does not offer anything to me I would want right now. But please let us know how it worked for you!
I still have and use LR6 and Photoshop 4. I import my raw files through the DNG converter, which lets this older software process images from newer cameras (Sony A7R4 for example). That said, I find I use DxO and On1 more often and really only need to update every other release (every 2 years for about $80.00 each)
Did the exact same process 6 months ago and came to this exact same conclusion ?
I stay with Adobe because of LR catalog and export plugins, the desktop + mobile ecosystem where you can have your whole smart previews in the cloud and editable from everywhere, and the Photoshop extensions I have. This is more important to be able to change the sky of a few pics ?
The only thing missing in LR that I would love to have is layers with all the capabilities like channel mixing and so on.
Much of the excitement surrounding Luminar has been centred around the AI photo editing features. However, Luminar is actually a competent non-destructive RAW photo editor, too, offering all the main tools required to get images looking better.
Luminar Extensions are an exciting new way to enhance the Neo software further, allowing you to do things like upscale your photos without losing quality, turn city lights into starbursts, sharpen subjects and more.
You can locate your images by searching by keyword, metadata, date, and even the time the image was taken. This is crucial to those of us who depend on our metadata for finding and managing our photos. You can also create custom camera profiles with the new X-Rite Camera Profiler.
The develop module is structured much like the Adobe Lightroom photo editor and is a bit more complex for those new to image editing. That being said, ON1 has all the photo adjustments you would expect from a Lightroom replacement, including various new AI features.
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