Software Recommendations Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people seeking specific software recommendations. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
With the final nail in the coffin for Lightroom standalone licenses - it's time to start considering what alternatives are out there that offer similar power / features while still being cost effective.
What experience / recommendations are there for alternatives (Windows based)? For example, On1 Photo Raw, Affinity Photo Raw, Core Aftershot etc.
I'm moving from LR5 and am happy for a paid product (upto say USD $150 maximum) that has good features.
I have been contemplating the same move. I have not chosen a new home yet but here is the list I created to start my evaluations (these are in no particular order):
I only just started looking for people's reviews and thoughts but here are a few. These are not always dealing with the latest version but I am more interested in people's overall thoughts and experiences.
Take a look at SILKYPIX, a RAW development product originally from Japan. The workflow is a bit different than the Adobe way of doing things, and it comes in three different levels.
It is non subscription and there is a full featured 30 day trial, so you can see if it suits you are not.
There is an upgrade path from the many OEM versions bundled with digital cameras (it is bundled with a lot of cameras). The only feature missing in the transition is a photo organizer. The RAW engine is quite good, and the PRO version has some specialized tools for underwater photography and monochrome photos. It also gets upgraded about once a month with new camera support (it seems a lot faster than Adobe for this, but they seem to be much tighter with the hardware makers).
As a follow up to this - I made the jump onto Affinity Photo - as an alternative to my existing main editor which is Photoshop Elements. Initial thoughts it is more fully featured & comparable to PS ie Actions, Channels etc which is quite the bonus and you arent tied into a subscription & get free updates.
The downside is that photoshop plugins - in my case NIK software and Imagenomic Portraiture plugins (mostly work in NIKs case) and dont work in Portraitures case - so for skin smoothing I may need to finish a photo off in Elements until Affinity improves.
Next step is an alternative to LR - so far I've been looking at On1 Photo Raw and Luminar - initial advise is that Luminar is good for quick raw edits (doesnt have photo management YET - but is coming) with Photo Raw being the more advanced of the two and more comparable to LR. So I think I might go down the On1 track at some point.
I must say Luminar 2018 with its recent updates to Luminar 2018 Jupiter Offer is a good alternative. I must say during checkout apply discount code. The discount code I found is here https://www.madestuffeasy.com/macphun-luminar-2018-discount-coupon/ Luminar 2018 Jupiter Offer
