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This is why I refuse to buy software-as-a-service. If I run software on my own hardware, I want to own it. When Adobe introduced recurrent billing, I decided to

This is why I refuse to buy software-as-a-service. If I run software on my own hardware, I want to own it. When Adobe introduced recurrent billing, I decided to switch. Fortunately a bunch of affordable, non-subscription competitors to Photoshop and Illustrator have sprung up in the recent years. For example, Affinity Designer is a great replacement for Illustrator, and its cheaper than the academic Illustrator license I got years ago. Maybe if I was a full time designer, I could justify renting Adobes tools, but for an occasional user they are way too expensive.

voltagex_ 11y ago
I wonder if there's any (paid or unpaid) alternatives to Lightroom (and Apple Photos).
- rangibaby 11y ago
  I think Dark Table is meant to be an open source version of Lightroom: http://www.darktable.org http://www.darktable.org
  - ekianjo 11y ago
    It is not as powerful as Lightroom, but it's a good start and it keeps improving.
- bwang29 11y ago
  You can try out Polarr at http://polarr.co/ http://polarr.co/
  - Veratyr 11y ago
    I'm not sure if you're the right person but someone on Reddit who appeared to be from the Polarr team was promoting and gave me a free copy of the Mac app. I wrote up a ton of feedback and PM'ed it but didn't get a response. I have a feeling the account wasn't actively monitored (it was called "polarr_throwaway"), is there somewhere better to send such things? Also I think Polarr is fantastic! It's incredible what you guys can do with a little bit of JS. If you had library/organisation features I think I could ditch Lightroom/Capture One entirely. I wish you open sourced some of your stuff, I'd even add the features I want myself. Picky also looks extremely promising. Does it do duplicate detection of some sort? That alone is a huge problem I have with LR and C1Pro. I spend a ton of time just picking out the least blurry from a series of photos that are otherwise exactly the same.
    - bwang29 11y ago
      Thanks. Didin't find the reddit comment through, could you email borui@polarr.co?
- Veratyr 11y ago
  There are numerous, with upsides and downsides: - Capture One Pro (Paid): This is the most complete alternative in my opinion. It can handle ingestion, taxonomy and editing. Ingestion and taxonomy are adequate but not fantastic. Editing is superior to Lightroom in my opinion. It's a little more complicated than Lightroom but I usually produce better results in a shorter amount of time. Also the processing quality in Capture One Pro is pretty consistently better than Lightroom in my experience. - Photo Mechanic (Paid): This is solely for ingestion and to a limited degree, taxonomy. It has zero functionality for editing but plenty for moving photos around, copying them from places and to places etc. I often see it recommended by professionals as the fastest way to pull in and pick photos from a shoot. - DxO Optics Pro (Paid): Zero taxonomy or ingestion capability. This is solely an editing tool. Its main target is superior optical correction and processing quality. I find it delivers on both of these but I also find its "magic" features like "smart lighting" to get in the way. Capture One Pro usually produces better results for me. One thing DxO does to fantastically though is noise reduction. Whatever PRIME is, it does a damn good job. On the other hand, DxO seems to have issues with my Sony A7II where the colour is consistently wrong (colours always have a red offset). I haven't noticed this with other cameras though. - Polarr (Paid, with a free online version): Solely for editing. It's very much like Snapseed (an Android/iOS app) on the desktop. Interestingly, their desktop app appears to be a repackaged version of their web app (https://www.polarr.co/ https://www.polarr.co/). I find it to be very high quality and very easy to use but I really prefer having my editor integrated with my library and keep coming back to Capture One Pro. If you're editing things separately, I think Polarr is a fantastic choice. I'd actually rate it higher than DxO Optics Pro (based on the output I've had from it). - Darktable (FOSS): Does ingestion, taxonomy and editing but doesn't really any of them well. The UI is confusing and (at least to me) unappealing, the editing tools are limited and the taxonomy, while more present, is too complicated to figure out. I've tried to like Darktable but I just can't. - RawTherapee (FOSS): Zero taxonomy but all the knobs and sliders you'd want when it comes to editing. They've put _a lot_ of effort into their image processing and it's high quality and extremely customisable. You can fiddle with demosaicing algorithms and the like all you want. Hell, you can even implement one yourself with little effort (I wrote one that's currently sitting in a PR somewhere). Same issue with this that I had with Polarr though, I like having my library and my photos integrated. - Nik Collection (Paid): A product that was acquired by Google and still appears to be developed. They have a bunch of individual tools tailored to particular kinds of output that seem to produce high quality results but should really be integrated into a single package. No taxonomy or ingestion, pure editing.
ghrifter 11y ago
What are the alternatives to photoshop? Gimp? Luckily I still have photoshop cs5.5
- rickycook 11y ago
  like affinity designer, affinity photo is pretty nice
- jakobegger 11y ago
  On the Mac there's Acorn, which is enough for my needs, even though I run into bugs every time I use it. But it is very reasonably priced, and it does all I need.

voltagex_ 11y ago

I wonder if there's any (paid or unpaid) alternatives to Lightroom (and Apple Photos).

rangibaby 11y ago
I think Dark Table is meant to be an open source version of Lightroom: http://www.darktable.org http://www.darktable.org
- ekianjo 11y ago
  It is not as powerful as Lightroom, but it's a good start and it keeps improving.
bwang29 11y ago
You can try out Polarr at http://polarr.co/ http://polarr.co/
- Veratyr 11y ago
  I'm not sure if you're the right person but someone on Reddit who appeared to be from the Polarr team was promoting and gave me a free copy of the Mac app. I wrote up a ton of feedback and PM'ed it but didn't get a response. I have a feeling the account wasn't actively monitored (it was called "polarr_throwaway"), is there somewhere better to send such things? Also I think Polarr is fantastic! It's incredible what you guys can do with a little bit of JS. If you had library/organisation features I think I could ditch Lightroom/Capture One entirely. I wish you open sourced some of your stuff, I'd even add the features I want myself. Picky also looks extremely promising. Does it do duplicate detection of some sort? That alone is a huge problem I have with LR and C1Pro. I spend a ton of time just picking out the least blurry from a series of photos that are otherwise exactly the same.
  - bwang29 11y ago
    Thanks. Didin't find the reddit comment through, could you email borui@polarr.co?
Veratyr 11y ago
There are numerous, with upsides and downsides: - Capture One Pro (Paid): This is the most complete alternative in my opinion. It can handle ingestion, taxonomy and editing. Ingestion and taxonomy are adequate but not fantastic. Editing is superior to Lightroom in my opinion. It's a little more complicated than Lightroom but I usually produce better results in a shorter amount of time. Also the processing quality in Capture One Pro is pretty consistently better than Lightroom in my experience. - Photo Mechanic (Paid): This is solely for ingestion and to a limited degree, taxonomy. It has zero functionality for editing but plenty for moving photos around, copying them from places and to places etc. I often see it recommended by professionals as the fastest way to pull in and pick photos from a shoot. - DxO Optics Pro (Paid): Zero taxonomy or ingestion capability. This is solely an editing tool. Its main target is superior optical correction and processing quality. I find it delivers on both of these but I also find its "magic" features like "smart lighting" to get in the way. Capture One Pro usually produces better results for me. One thing DxO does to fantastically though is noise reduction. Whatever PRIME is, it does a damn good job. On the other hand, DxO seems to have issues with my Sony A7II where the colour is consistently wrong (colours always have a red offset). I haven't noticed this with other cameras though. - Polarr (Paid, with a free online version): Solely for editing. It's very much like Snapseed (an Android/iOS app) on the desktop. Interestingly, their desktop app appears to be a repackaged version of their web app (https://www.polarr.co/ https://www.polarr.co/). I find it to be very high quality and very easy to use but I really prefer having my editor integrated with my library and keep coming back to Capture One Pro. If you're editing things separately, I think Polarr is a fantastic choice. I'd actually rate it higher than DxO Optics Pro (based on the output I've had from it). - Darktable (FOSS): Does ingestion, taxonomy and editing but doesn't really any of them well. The UI is confusing and (at least to me) unappealing, the editing tools are limited and the taxonomy, while more present, is too complicated to figure out. I've tried to like Darktable but I just can't. - RawTherapee (FOSS): Zero taxonomy but all the knobs and sliders you'd want when it comes to editing. They've put _a lot_ of effort into their image processing and it's high quality and extremely customisable. You can fiddle with demosaicing algorithms and the like all you want. Hell, you can even implement one yourself with little effort (I wrote one that's currently sitting in a PR somewhere). Same issue with this that I had with Polarr though, I like having my library and my photos integrated. - Nik Collection (Paid): A product that was acquired by Google and still appears to be developed. They have a bunch of individual tools tailored to particular kinds of output that seem to produce high quality results but should really be integrated into a single package. No taxonomy or ingestion, pure editing.

ghrifter 11y ago

What are the alternatives to photoshop? Gimp? Luckily I still have photoshop cs5.5

rickycook 11y ago
like affinity designer, affinity photo is pretty nice
jakobegger 11y ago
On the Mac there's Acorn, which is enough for my needs, even though I run into bugs every time I use it. But it is very reasonably priced, and it does all I need.