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141 - Photoshop and Lightroom Alternatives: Exploring Your Photo Editing Options · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:02
  Casey Fatchett: Hey, there photographers in this nerdlet
• 0:05
  episode of the podcast. I'm going to talk to you quickly
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  about some alternatives to Adobe, Photoshop and Lightroom.
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  There are lots of reasons lately, a lot of people are
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  looking to get away from Photoshop and Lightroom because
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  a they upped the cost of the subscription the photography
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  package subscription for Adobe, Photoshop and Lightroom doubled.
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  It's gone up to like $20 a month. It was $10 a month for
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  over a decade, it was $10 a month. So people are looking to
• 0:41
  jump ship and go somewhere else and use different photo editors.
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  There are some good options out there for you. It depends on
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  what you're looking for, why you're leaving, and what you
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  need out of your photo editor. I'm going to start with one that
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  the pros love, that's Capture One. Capture One. Very similar
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  workflow to Photoshop and Lightroom, I have found like it
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  is the people who go crazy about color love Capture One.
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  Photographers who want like the color controls this. This is
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  what they go for, and for people who love to shoot tethered
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  photography, if you're shooting connected to the camera, the
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  capture, capture, one interface is the the most stable for
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  shooting tethered. I've had problems with pretty much in
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  some varying degrees with every other possible option of
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  shooting tethered, occasionally you have things freeze up or
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  crash on you. Capture One never has that issue. So again, if
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  you're looking to shoot tethered capture one might be the option
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  for you. Here's something to keep in mind, you're not saving
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  any money switching to capture one. It is just as expensive, if
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  not, you know, slightly more expensive than Adobe and yeah,
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  just keep that in mind. So if you're looking to leave to save
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  money, Capture One might not be the option for you. Next up on
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  1o n1 software's Photo Raw program. Photo Raw is both a
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  catalog like Lightroom, and it is also a photo editor, like
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  Photoshop. It kind of combines the two you have. It's an all in
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  one single program. It's you have catalogs. You can create
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  different catalogs of images. You can keyword images, so that
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  you can sort by keywords they have. It has AI powered editing.
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  You know, Sky swaps different types of things. It has a great
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  portrait editor built into it. You can use this as its own,
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  like standalone program. It can also, if you're still going to
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  use Photoshop and Lightroom. You can use it within Photoshop and
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  Lightroom to launch it directly into the these programs that
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  have. If you get the max version of on one photo plus Photo Raw,
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  sorry, on one Photo Raw, you get max. You'll get the different,
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  basically panels of types of editing you can do in on one
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  photo, raw, which is like effects, resize portrait. And I
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  think there's maybe one more, not sure, off the top of my
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  head, but you get all those can launch, be launched directly
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  from Photoshop or Lightroom. So like, if I want to do some
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  portrait editing, I can, you know, do that by just launching
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  it directly from Lightroom or Photoshop, and then it close, it
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  saves, goes right back to late room or Photoshop. So that's
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  nice. But if you just want to have a standalone you want to
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  still want to get rid of Adobe programs and use this. This is a
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  great option. You can shoot tethered. You do lots of stuff
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  with it. It's, you know, something that you might can
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  want to knot into if you're looking to batch process 1000s
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  of images or hundreds of images. It's a slower than Lightroom
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  when it comes to that. And it gets a little has a little
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  trouble handling it. It has gotten faster over the various
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  versions. I've been using versions of on one for probably
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  10 years now, and it's gotten better and like faster over the
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  years. But it's still like, if you're trying to batch process,
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  you know, 1000 images, like if you're a wedding shooter, it's
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  going to be considerably slower than Lightroom. So keep that in
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  mind. As far as pricing goes, you have an either or option
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  here with on one photo, raw. You can do a subscription, which a
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  subscription. Is, is fine. It's less expensive than Photoshop
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  and Lightroom. Or you can buy your program outright. You can
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  just buy it. It's like, you get the license for it. And I think
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  they include upgrades for one year, and then after that, you
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  have to pay for, you know, upgrading it. And I think it's,
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  I mean, there's, they have sales all the time. I've upgraded
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  like, I'll upgrade it like, every few years, and it cost me
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  50 bucks to upgrade it usually, because there's, there'll be a
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  sale, and I'll get it when there's a sale and upgrade it
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  for 50 bucks. You're looking at like $300 I think, to buy out
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  right for the max version, which includes all the other
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  applications. It might be less, maybe like 200 for just on one
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  photo draw, not max. Next option, Luminar Neo. Luminar Neo
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  is kind of an AI heavy. Photo Editor, which, you know, I would
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  say, it doesn't have all the granular controls and editing
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  that on one photo, raw has, or capture one or, for example, in
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  Photoshop and Lightroom, it doesn't have quite that, like,
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  get down to, like, the little fine edits, because it's doing
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  more. It's letting the AI do a lot of the work for you. And
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  also, in my experience, it can get a little buggy when it comes
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  to dealing with very large files, like really big RAW
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  files. It doesn't, you know, the batch editing is not good. It
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  does. It doesn't really have a cataloging system. And hey,
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  there's a it doesn't work great as catalog. You can have
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  different you can have different catalogs in there. You don't
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  necessarily have to import everything into your into the
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  program itself, but it's not as good of a catalog, or you can't
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  really, you can't do the metadata in tagging your images
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  and searching through that. It's that's a it's lacking as a
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  catalog, much less so than on one on one is a much better,
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  like all in one than Luminar, but Luminar much less expensive.
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  Luminar is going to be much less expensive. Again, same sort of
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  thing. You can get a subscription to it, or you can
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  buy it outright, and, yeah, it's a think you're subscribing.
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  It's, it's, again, it's way cheaper. I will include links to
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  all of these programs in the Episode Notes. I just want to
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  quickly give you some options. Two other options that you have
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  out there, dark table. Dark table is totally free and open
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  source, and this is kind of like an open source version of
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  Lightroom, and it gives you even, actually a little bit,
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  some more controls. It doesn't have all the features that like
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  that the modern Lightroom now has, of like, you know, the AI
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  edited name, powers that, and denoising and such that, that
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  Lightroom has in its most recent versions, but it is very, very
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  similar to Lightroom, and it's free, so that's an option for
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  you as well. And then lastly, last one I'm going to mention is
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  Gimp. Gimp. People are like, Oh, I don't like Gimp. Why? Because
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  it's, again, it's an open source program. It is free, but the
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  learning curve is very, very high here for GIMP, like it's
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  it's not necessarily intuitive, because it's free. You know,
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  people put this together, open source. It works on Linux, it
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  works on Mac, works on Windows. It's kind of like a combination
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  of Photoshop and Illustrator and kind of InDesign. It's for like
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  graphic designers and photo editing and artists who like
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  people who like to basically paint or draw directly into
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  their computer. Love it again. It's free Elkin. It will include
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  links to all these programs in the Episode Notes and discounts
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  on some of the ones that you'd be paying for. I will include
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  discount codes for those in the Episode Notes. So to So to sum
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  up what program you might leave Lightroom and Photoshop for, it
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  really depends on what it is that you're looking for. Is it?
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  Are you looking for something that is less expensive? Are you
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  just trying to get away from Adobe? If you're just trying to
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  get away from Adobe, you may want to go with something like
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  capture one if it's. A because of expense, but you want
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  something very similar you might turn to on one Photo Raw, if you
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  I think the that Luminar Neo is best for photographers who were
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  just starting out with photo editing. It can get it's the
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  learning curve is very, very easy it's a very easy learning
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  curve for use. It's pretty straightforward. Photo Raw. You
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  might need to take a little bit more time to really learn it.
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  It's not as intuitive as Luminar is. And then you have things
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  like GIMP, which has a really steep learning curve, but it's
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  free, and dark table, which, again, same thing. It's free,
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  but you might have a little bit more of a learning curve, unless
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  you have a lot of experience already. So keep those things in
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  mind. In my opinion, Photoshop and Lightroom are still like,
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  for the money, the best options available. There's a reason
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  they're the benchmark for the industry, and it's because these
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  they've put a lot of money into developing these programs and
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  the different tools that you have, and they have that
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  photographers bundle was seriously under priced for a
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  while. And, you know, the jump up to $20 it's, I don't
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  necessarily agree that I would double the price of something
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  like that. It's not necessarily a good business to do that, but
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  that for the value for what you get, honestly, probably still
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  undervalued to some extent, I get the whole creative cloud
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  package because I use Premiere, and I use InDesign, and I use
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  Illustrator, and I use audition for editing, and, you know, it
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  cost Me 60 bucks for that, and I have access to all of their
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  programs, Photoshop, Adobe, express, which you can do video.
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  And it's like, it's like Canva, but like, way better than Canva.
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  And, yeah, you get a lot out of it, a lot out of that
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  subscription, if you want to, but if you are looking for other
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  options, they are out there. Check the Episode notes. There's
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  lots of information there. And until next time, stay safe and
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  stay nerdy.