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Leave it. Rawtherapee, darktable, digikam are all excellent, open source raw (and sometimes more) editors. Hugin ( http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ http://hugin.s

by pmlnr 6y ago

Leave it. Rawtherapee, darktable, digikam are all excellent, open source raw (and sometimes more) editors. Hugin ( http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ ) can create brilliant panoramas, even from a bad batch. Note: there is still no alternative to PS, given it's both a raster and a vector editor.

pizza234 6y ago
A few years ago I've tried a couple of alternatives, and Lightroom was by far the easiest to use. If the audience is casual editing (ie. a short time to improve a photo, and little user skills), I think Lightroom is significantly ahead of the competition - in particular, UX has never been a strong point of open source software. I don't know if the latest years changed the landscape, but I suppose not - Adobe kept enhancing Lightroom. License wise... that's definitely another story (I personally preferred when a license was valid for a single major version).
- Jnr 6y ago
  Sadly those mentioned open source products are still light years away from what Lightroom can offer. It is like comparing Gimp to Photoshop. Yes, they can do some of it, but they can't do it better or even close to that if you are serious at what you do. I am a developer, I have been Linux user for years and photography is my hobby. I periodically try some Lightroom "alternatives" in hopes of finding something good, but they are still nowhere near of replacing it. And with the limited budget they will probably never be as good. I know only one great open source software example in the arts field, and that software is Blender. Blender can probably do it because they have been receiving millions in donations from major game development companies in the recent years. Unless something similar happens in the field of photography, I don't think we'll be able to get away from proprietary software soon.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - robotmay 6y ago
    Honestly darktable is more than a replacement for Lightroom for me. However I never liked Lightroom in the first place; Aperture was far superior for my use-case. But I am very comfortable editing photos and I don't go to extremes with editing, and I don't need anything more than what Aperture offered 10 years ago.
  - computeruser00 6y ago
    Blender looks great but is a bit oddball too (though less so now). I’d also nominate QGIS as a good open-source app (UI). Maybe not “art,” but I think it’s become almost de facto for what a hobbyist will reach for first, and it’s generally quite user-friendly. But they are rare!
- matwood 6y ago
  Agreed. I’ve tried to leave LR, but nothing comes close to matching all the features (including things like DAM) across all platforms.
- publicola1990 6y ago
  UX has never been a strong point of Adobe either. I find gimp's MDI workflow better than PSs single window UI.
  - pizza234 6y ago
    More than the interface (which is a matter of taste; I prefer single-window), I refer to the experience as a whole. I've used only Lightroom (as Adobe product), and it's hard to define what casual editing is, but the basic enhancement functionalities were easy to use, and especially, they were very effective (again, for a casual user). It had, as far as I remember, very good automatic enhancement, that one could use as a base. The other products I tried weren't so effective. If, as I suppose, this type of functionality requires a significant investment to develop, then it's out of reach for non-very-well-funded open source development. Dehazing was another typical example of LR functionality: it's stupid simple (a slider), and does effectively what's supposed to do for a casual user.
sneak 6y ago
Darktable is anything but "excellent", and has been, in my view, unusable for close to ten years. One tiny example: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/7332 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/7332
- pkalinowski 6y ago
  Man, this is perfect example of why most open source software has no chance to compete with commercial one. One day I wanted to improve getting started documentation in open source f.lux alternative for linux, because it didn't work for me in Ubuntu without any visible error. I found the solution investigating terminal logs and did a 5 point write up "How to setup on Ubuntu". Readme pull request got denied because "only one point applies to Ubuntu" (others were applicable to other distributions, too). Somebody even commented few months later that he found my pull request and it helped him make it work on his machine. This mostly made me stop contributing to other projects.
  - humanlion87 6y ago
    Are you saying that every big you report against a commercial software gets fixed? I think you can find all kinds of people equally in both open-source software and commercial software makers.
- sib 6y ago
  That really is a perfect example of why Darktable will never (I know, it's a long time) replace Lightroom on macOS at least. (Most) users are not going to adjust their core working styles - which have been consistent on the Mac platform for 35+ years - to use a piece of software that gives inferior results, just to save $10 / month - which also gives access to Photoshop, for which there is no true replacement in any case.
- fabianhjr 6y ago
  That issue report is a duplicate of https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/4384 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/4384 And as mentioned in the issue you linked it isn't a bug but a feature request to support macOS hotkey conventions. There is a workaround in the meantime documented and a suggestion on how to address the feature request (that requires refactoring of the codebase) on the non-dupe ticket. Since this is libre software anyone can improve the code along those lines and send a merge request or even commission a developer to do that refactoring; the DarkTable maintainers _didn't_ refuse contributions nor marked it as wontfix however that doesn't mean that the maintainers have development-time to spare in that macOS-specific code. On the other hand if not using macOS hotkey convention is an example of it being "unusable" then I guess it is really great for something most people don't pay a penny or contribute otherwise for.
nbzso 6y ago
"Note: there is still no alternative to PS, given it's both a raster and a vector editor." Actually this is the core idea behind Affinity Designer and I use it in my design workflow exclusively. Using Photoshop or Illustrator at this point in time is simply the power of habit. There are specific functionalities that are better, but in general are non business critical at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPXGLr95nN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPXGLr95nN8
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I so wish Affinity worked on Linux. Too bad, that's the reason why I still haven't bought it.
  - nbzso 6y ago
    The moment this happens I will install Debian on all office macs without thinking:))
- Cullinet 6y ago
  Deneba Canvas[0] is both raster and bitmap and using its own graphics engine is supremely consistent cross platform and the color engine is the Kodak pre-press one of old I've output countless high value advertising pages thru. [0]https://www.canvasgfx.com/en/products/canvas-x/ https://www.canvasgfx.com/en/products/canvas-x/
  - nbzso 6y ago
    1-Year Subscription | $149 Thanks but I will stick with traditional license of Affinity Designer.
  - recursive 6y ago
    > both raster and bitmap What's meant by bitmap in contrast to raster? In the context of graphics, I regularly use them as synonyms.
ognarb 6y ago
I hope one day Krita developers could improve their vector layers. Krita is already great for raster graphics, but the vector layers is not polished at the same level. But I understand that Krita small workforce can't focus on everything, so the only solution is to either contributewith code or with money to the project.
jrockway 6y ago
I use Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop, though only because I can also use it on my iPad. GIMP is quite good these days, and meets my needs (as someone who is not a hardcore professional artist).
koluna 6y ago
As someone who worked with Rawtherapee, it’s without exaggeration that I will say that the tool is _nowhere close_ to ready for serious photo editing. Frequent crashes, poor performance and inability to deal with large RAW files is a dealbreaker.
klodolph 6y ago
Even if you only use Photoshop as a raster editor, it can be very hard to find a replacement, depending on your workflow. Even the latest versions of GIMP and Krita are nowhere near capable of doing the things that I did in Photoshop 2.5 back in the early 1990s. I am not sure what the priorities are of the GIMP devs, but it seems like they aren’t at all serious about making a Photoshop alternative.
- COGlory 6y ago
  What features did Photoshop 2.5 have that GIMP doesn't?
  - klodolph 6y ago
    Color spaces is the big one—such as Lab and CMYK. I’d also count 16-bit support, since GIMP’s 16-bit support isn’t very good. The list gets much, much longer when you compare GIMP to newer versions of Photoshop, like Photoshop 5 from 1998. Photoshop 5 completely blows GIMP out of the water in terms of both features and usability, it’s a complete joke. I don’t use Photoshop any more, and I’ve exited the Adobe ecosystem, but once you’ve used tools like Photoshop, using GIMP feels like swapping your nice DSLR for an old point-and-shoot. Sure, you’re saving a lot of money, but you are constantly reminded that you developed a bunch of skills that you can’t use any more.

by pmlnr 6y ago

pizza234 6y ago

A few years ago I've tried a couple of alternatives, and Lightroom was by far the easiest to use. If the audience is casual editing (ie. a short time to improve a photo, and little user skills), I think Lightroom is significantly ahead of the competition - in particular, UX has never been a strong point of open source software. I don't know if the latest years changed the landscape, but I suppose not - Adobe kept enhancing Lightroom. License wise... that's definitely another story (I personally preferred when a license was valid for a single major version).

Jnr 6y ago
Sadly those mentioned open source products are still light years away from what Lightroom can offer. It is like comparing Gimp to Photoshop. Yes, they can do some of it, but they can't do it better or even close to that if you are serious at what you do. I am a developer, I have been Linux user for years and photography is my hobby. I periodically try some Lightroom "alternatives" in hopes of finding something good, but they are still nowhere near of replacing it. And with the limited budget they will probably never be as good. I know only one great open source software example in the arts field, and that software is Blender. Blender can probably do it because they have been receiving millions in donations from major game development companies in the recent years. Unless something similar happens in the field of photography, I don't think we'll be able to get away from proprietary software soon.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- robotmay 6y ago
  Honestly darktable is more than a replacement for Lightroom for me. However I never liked Lightroom in the first place; Aperture was far superior for my use-case. But I am very comfortable editing photos and I don't go to extremes with editing, and I don't need anything more than what Aperture offered 10 years ago.
- computeruser00 6y ago
  Blender looks great but is a bit oddball too (though less so now). I’d also nominate QGIS as a good open-source app (UI). Maybe not “art,” but I think it’s become almost de facto for what a hobbyist will reach for first, and it’s generally quite user-friendly. But they are rare!
matwood 6y ago
Agreed. I’ve tried to leave LR, but nothing comes close to matching all the features (including things like DAM) across all platforms.
publicola1990 6y ago
UX has never been a strong point of Adobe either. I find gimp's MDI workflow better than PSs single window UI.
- pizza234 6y ago
  More than the interface (which is a matter of taste; I prefer single-window), I refer to the experience as a whole. I've used only Lightroom (as Adobe product), and it's hard to define what casual editing is, but the basic enhancement functionalities were easy to use, and especially, they were very effective (again, for a casual user). It had, as far as I remember, very good automatic enhancement, that one could use as a base. The other products I tried weren't so effective. If, as I suppose, this type of functionality requires a significant investment to develop, then it's out of reach for non-very-well-funded open source development. Dehazing was another typical example of LR functionality: it's stupid simple (a slider), and does effectively what's supposed to do for a casual user.

sneak 6y ago

Darktable is anything but "excellent", and has been, in my view, unusable for close to ten years. One tiny example: https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/7332 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/7332

pkalinowski 6y ago
Man, this is perfect example of why most open source software has no chance to compete with commercial one. One day I wanted to improve getting started documentation in open source f.lux alternative for linux, because it didn't work for me in Ubuntu without any visible error. I found the solution investigating terminal logs and did a 5 point write up "How to setup on Ubuntu". Readme pull request got denied because "only one point applies to Ubuntu" (others were applicable to other distributions, too). Somebody even commented few months later that he found my pull request and it helped him make it work on his machine. This mostly made me stop contributing to other projects.
- humanlion87 6y ago
  Are you saying that every big you report against a commercial software gets fixed? I think you can find all kinds of people equally in both open-source software and commercial software makers.
sib 6y ago
That really is a perfect example of why Darktable will never (I know, it's a long time) replace Lightroom on macOS at least. (Most) users are not going to adjust their core working styles - which have been consistent on the Mac platform for 35+ years - to use a piece of software that gives inferior results, just to save $10 / month - which also gives access to Photoshop, for which there is no true replacement in any case.
fabianhjr 6y ago
That issue report is a duplicate of https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/4384 https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/issues/4384 And as mentioned in the issue you linked it isn't a bug but a feature request to support macOS hotkey conventions. There is a workaround in the meantime documented and a suggestion on how to address the feature request (that requires refactoring of the codebase) on the non-dupe ticket. Since this is libre software anyone can improve the code along those lines and send a merge request or even commission a developer to do that refactoring; the DarkTable maintainers _didn't_ refuse contributions nor marked it as wontfix however that doesn't mean that the maintainers have development-time to spare in that macOS-specific code. On the other hand if not using macOS hotkey convention is an example of it being "unusable" then I guess it is really great for something most people don't pay a penny or contribute otherwise for.

nbzso 6y ago

"Note: there is still no alternative to PS, given it's both a raster and a vector editor." Actually this is the core idea behind Affinity Designer and I use it in my design workflow exclusively. Using Photoshop or Illustrator at this point in time is simply the power of habit. There are specific functionalities that are better, but in general are non business critical at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPXGLr95nN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPXGLr95nN8

StavrosK 6y ago
I so wish Affinity worked on Linux. Too bad, that's the reason why I still haven't bought it.
- nbzso 6y ago
  The moment this happens I will install Debian on all office macs without thinking:))
Cullinet 6y ago
Deneba Canvas[0] is both raster and bitmap and using its own graphics engine is supremely consistent cross platform and the color engine is the Kodak pre-press one of old I've output countless high value advertising pages thru. [0]https://www.canvasgfx.com/en/products/canvas-x/ https://www.canvasgfx.com/en/products/canvas-x/
- nbzso 6y ago
  1-Year Subscription | $149 Thanks but I will stick with traditional license of Affinity Designer.
- recursive 6y ago
  > both raster and bitmap What's meant by bitmap in contrast to raster? In the context of graphics, I regularly use them as synonyms.

ognarb 6y ago

I hope one day Krita developers could improve their vector layers. Krita is already great for raster graphics, but the vector layers is not polished at the same level. But I understand that Krita small workforce can't focus on everything, so the only solution is to either contributewith code or with money to the project.

jrockway 6y ago

I use Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop, though only because I can also use it on my iPad. GIMP is quite good these days, and meets my needs (as someone who is not a hardcore professional artist).

koluna 6y ago

As someone who worked with Rawtherapee, it’s without exaggeration that I will say that the tool is _nowhere close_ to ready for serious photo editing. Frequent crashes, poor performance and inability to deal with large RAW files is a dealbreaker.

klodolph 6y ago

Even if you only use Photoshop as a raster editor, it can be very hard to find a replacement, depending on your workflow. Even the latest versions of GIMP and Krita are nowhere near capable of doing the things that I did in Photoshop 2.5 back in the early 1990s. I am not sure what the priorities are of the GIMP devs, but it seems like they aren’t at all serious about making a Photoshop alternative.

COGlory 6y ago
What features did Photoshop 2.5 have that GIMP doesn't?
- klodolph 6y ago
  Color spaces is the big one—such as Lab and CMYK. I’d also count 16-bit support, since GIMP’s 16-bit support isn’t very good. The list gets much, much longer when you compare GIMP to newer versions of Photoshop, like Photoshop 5 from 1998. Photoshop 5 completely blows GIMP out of the water in terms of both features and usability, it’s a complete joke. I don’t use Photoshop any more, and I’ve exited the Adobe ecosystem, but once you’ve used tools like Photoshop, using GIMP feels like swapping your nice DSLR for an old point-and-shoot. Sure, you’re saving a lot of money, but you are constantly reminded that you developed a bunch of skills that you can’t use any more.