5 ms·

Yep I chucked my adobe sub this year as well finally. Was hard getting off lightroom but I found that the apple photos app is good enough on the mac.

CharlesW 4y ago
> Was hard getting off lightroom but I found that the apple photos app is good enough on the mac. Same, after spending many weeks evaluating commercial and open-source alternatives. (For Lightroom users who can't imagine Apple Photos replacing it, for advanced editing you'll be using Photos in concert with other apps via Photos' extensions mechanism and/or "Edit With".)
- matwood 4y ago
  Are you editing RAWs from non-phone cameras? I keep trying to get off LR, and use Apple Photos for DAM/editing. But, I keep running into odd edges. Editing in external applications also isn't very seamless. Just wondering if I'm missing something b/c I'd love to use Apple Photos for everything b/c of all the other benefits.
  - b212 4y ago
    As a heavy Fujifilm user I can recommend Capture One. It’s much cheaper than Lightroom and there’s actually free version for Fuji’s raws. I’ve tried many other apps and they all seemed really weak compared to Lightroom. This one is still not as good UX-wise but actually often gives better output that Lightroom itself. Never heard of people using Photos for RAWs, would love that too.
    - rqtwteye 4y ago
      " It’s much cheaper than Lightroom " That's not true for the full version.
      - coder543 4y ago
        Capture One does sell perpetual licenses, so I guess it depends on how often you upgrade. Regardless, I tried Capture One and Lightroom Classic side by side, and I liked Capture One a lot better. Even though it is more expensive for people who intend to upgrade regularly, it is worth every penny in my opinion, but I also think a lot of people will be able to get along fine on the freeware license. Capture One handled importing new batches of photos surprisingly better than Lightroom Classic, which actually locked up for long periods of time, and all sorts of other operations seemed faster, as if the underlying engine was not ancient. I don't remember all the details as I did this comparison about a year ago. I did not consider Lightroom CC to be a valid option for various reasons. I also strongly appreciate being able to have a perpetual license, instead of being forced to subscribe for the rest of my life if I want to be able to continue accessing all of my RAWs with the adjustments I make, and not just the exported photos. The one thing I disliked about both Capture One and Lightroom at the time is that neither supported proper, end-to-end HDR workflows. I have HDR displays. The RAW files contain a stunning amount of dynamic range. Even the common iPhone captures HDR photos (and I don't just mean HDR processing that gets stuffed into an 8-bit JPEG, I mean an actual HDR photo in 10-bit HEIF with an HDR curve). I want to be able to edit and view my RAW photos with extended dynamic range, not be limited to viewing an 8-bit SDR image while editing, and not be limited to exporting crappy 8-bit JPEGs that are missing so much dynamic range (or gargantuan TIFF files that have limited use cases). Adobe has started adding some HDR stuff this year, and that's the only thing Adobe offers that Capture One lacks that I'm even remotely interested in. Incidentally, I'm also upset that Chrome removed JPEG XL, which promises to be a common format with proper HDR support.
        astrange 4y ago
        > Even the common iPhone captures HDR photos That’s not an “even” thing; the iPhone has the /only/ end to end HDR still photo pipeline. Other cameras can do HDR video but not stills. The newest Sony and Canon cameras do support an HDR still colorspace, but not sure what image formats work with it.
        coder543 4y ago
    - kybernetyk 4y ago
      >It’s much cheaper than Lightroom No. There's no more brand specific versions at half the price. You now pull the full price - even with a Fuji or Nikon. The subscription is roughly $19/month (if you pre pay annually - else it's $29/month) which is more than Adobe's offering. And the perpetual licenses got shitcanned recently (I bought one on Black Friday) - when you buy a perpetual license you won't get any minor updates for that version anymore. You buy C1 23.1 and they release 23.2? Well, bad luck. But there's a loyalty program where you can buy a paid update. Hehe. Oh, and their iPad version is an extra subscription at $5/mo. As a company I detest C1 more than Adobe. But their processing is so great. When I import my RAWs into C1 I don't have to do much with them. They look astounding out of the box.
  - hutattedonmyarm 4y ago
    Been using RAW Power for that, and I'm quite happy. It integrates with Photos: you can open your photo library in RAW Power and save edits back
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > Are you editing RAWs from non-phone cameras? Yes, I have many years' worth of (over 10,000) RAW photos from DSLRs and compact cameras. > Editing in external applications also isn't very seamless. Just wondering if I'm missing something… I don't think you are — external editing is just not as elegant as an all-Lightroom workflow. That said, RAW Power (created by the former lead of the Aperture and iPhoto engineering teams) is quite nice and supports working directly with the Apple Photos library.
- coder543 4y ago
  I don't see how that's a Lightroom alternative. It would take forever to process a batch of RAW photos that way if it is more than a couple of photos. I'm also confused how Apple Photos would know what adjustments you made to the RAW in an external program, or how you would go about exporting non-RAW files in this scenario. Something like Capture One is much better suited as a replacement for Lightroom. I wish that Apple had a Lightroom alternative, but they got rid of Aperture, so... they're probably not interested in competing in this space again any time soon.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > It would take forever to process a batch of RAW photos that way if it is more than a couple of photos. Apple Photos has great built-in RAW support, so no processing is needed. If I want to use a different RAW processor, that's straightforward as well. > I wish that Apple had a Lightroom alternative, but they got rid of Aperture, so… Check out RAW Power¹ (macOS and iOS), created by the former lead of the Aperture and iPhoto engineering teams. It's able to use your Apple Photos library directly. ¹ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/
coredog64 4y ago
Really. Apple Photos has been a dumpster fire for my wife. It randomly freezes, she can’t get her photos back out to upload them, etc. It’s almost to the point that she’s done with MacOS because of it.
- feifan 4y ago
  Is your photo library on a spinning hard drive or USB drive? I had this problem before which the setup, and it went away when I moved my library to my internal SSD.
  - lapinot 4y ago
    The good old "if it's not working it's because you're not using enough of it" ;)
  - throwoutway 4y ago
    Moving it becomes necessary when you acquire lots of photos and videos
- tjr225 4y ago
- _s 4y ago
  A decade plus library of photos & videos here; probably in the 50k mark now, it’s been pretty flawless for me other than than the iPhoto to Photos upgrade. Never really had any issues with imports and exports (which is how I ended up upgrading). I’ve even used the iCloud sharing more often than not which has been a bit clunky but works once you figure out how to get a link out to people.
Xeoncross 4y ago
lightroom makes it so easy to apply filters in batch to all the photos in a certain room or environment making it much faster to process event photos. I'd love to know if there is a good solution for saving time when you have hundreds of photos to process.
- coder543 4y ago
  If you have photos in Apple Photos, I know you can edit one photo inside Apple Photos, then go to Image -> Copy Edits, and then you can select a batch of photos and paste those edits. Maybe this works for RAW photos too, but I don't know how/if Apple Photos handles RAW files in this scenario. It definitely works for non-RAW photos.
klodolph 4y ago
I think most of the Aperture features got rolled into Photos at some point. Not all of them, but it’s pretty good. (I haven’t done serious event photography since before Aperture was deprecated, though.)
- ubercow13 4y ago
  There is a Photos alternative made by the ex-lead Aperture developer called RAW Power [1] that uses the same Apple raw engine built into macOS but with its own library management and with more fine-grained control of the processing. This may be of interest to anyone looking for a Lightroom alternative but who finds Photos lacking. [1] https://www.gentlemencoders.com/ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/
actualwitch 4y ago
You should try capture one instead of lightroom, it's not just "good enough", it's better. You can pay once and get that version forever too.
- gumboza 4y ago
  I do most of my processing before hitting the shutter. Thus it’s not necessary for me. But I appreciate the suggestion. Edit: I don’t shoot raw now. I’ve found it unnecessary. I’m not a professional :)

CharlesW 4y ago

> Was hard getting off lightroom but I found that the apple photos app is good enough on the mac. Same, after spending many weeks evaluating commercial and open-source alternatives. (For Lightroom users who can't imagine Apple Photos replacing it, for advanced editing you'll be using Photos in concert with other apps via Photos' extensions mechanism and/or "Edit With".)

matwood 4y ago
Are you editing RAWs from non-phone cameras? I keep trying to get off LR, and use Apple Photos for DAM/editing. But, I keep running into odd edges. Editing in external applications also isn't very seamless. Just wondering if I'm missing something b/c I'd love to use Apple Photos for everything b/c of all the other benefits.
- b212 4y ago
  As a heavy Fujifilm user I can recommend Capture One. It’s much cheaper than Lightroom and there’s actually free version for Fuji’s raws. I’ve tried many other apps and they all seemed really weak compared to Lightroom. This one is still not as good UX-wise but actually often gives better output that Lightroom itself. Never heard of people using Photos for RAWs, would love that too.
  - rqtwteye 4y ago
    " It’s much cheaper than Lightroom " That's not true for the full version.
    - coder543 4y ago
      Capture One does sell perpetual licenses, so I guess it depends on how often you upgrade. Regardless, I tried Capture One and Lightroom Classic side by side, and I liked Capture One a lot better. Even though it is more expensive for people who intend to upgrade regularly, it is worth every penny in my opinion, but I also think a lot of people will be able to get along fine on the freeware license. Capture One handled importing new batches of photos surprisingly better than Lightroom Classic, which actually locked up for long periods of time, and all sorts of other operations seemed faster, as if the underlying engine was not ancient. I don't remember all the details as I did this comparison about a year ago. I did not consider Lightroom CC to be a valid option for various reasons. I also strongly appreciate being able to have a perpetual license, instead of being forced to subscribe for the rest of my life if I want to be able to continue accessing all of my RAWs with the adjustments I make, and not just the exported photos. The one thing I disliked about both Capture One and Lightroom at the time is that neither supported proper, end-to-end HDR workflows. I have HDR displays. The RAW files contain a stunning amount of dynamic range. Even the common iPhone captures HDR photos (and I don't just mean HDR processing that gets stuffed into an 8-bit JPEG, I mean an actual HDR photo in 10-bit HEIF with an HDR curve). I want to be able to edit and view my RAW photos with extended dynamic range, not be limited to viewing an 8-bit SDR image while editing, and not be limited to exporting crappy 8-bit JPEGs that are missing so much dynamic range (or gargantuan TIFF files that have limited use cases). Adobe has started adding some HDR stuff this year, and that's the only thing Adobe offers that Capture One lacks that I'm even remotely interested in. Incidentally, I'm also upset that Chrome removed JPEG XL, which promises to be a common format with proper HDR support.
      - astrange 4y ago
        > Even the common iPhone captures HDR photos That’s not an “even” thing; the iPhone has the /only/ end to end HDR still photo pipeline. Other cameras can do HDR video but not stills. The newest Sony and Canon cameras do support an HDR still colorspace, but not sure what image formats work with it.
        coder543 4y ago
  - kybernetyk 4y ago
    >It’s much cheaper than Lightroom No. There's no more brand specific versions at half the price. You now pull the full price - even with a Fuji or Nikon. The subscription is roughly $19/month (if you pre pay annually - else it's $29/month) which is more than Adobe's offering. And the perpetual licenses got shitcanned recently (I bought one on Black Friday) - when you buy a perpetual license you won't get any minor updates for that version anymore. You buy C1 23.1 and they release 23.2? Well, bad luck. But there's a loyalty program where you can buy a paid update. Hehe. Oh, and their iPad version is an extra subscription at $5/mo. As a company I detest C1 more than Adobe. But their processing is so great. When I import my RAWs into C1 I don't have to do much with them. They look astounding out of the box.
- hutattedonmyarm 4y ago
  Been using RAW Power for that, and I'm quite happy. It integrates with Photos: you can open your photo library in RAW Power and save edits back
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > Are you editing RAWs from non-phone cameras? Yes, I have many years' worth of (over 10,000) RAW photos from DSLRs and compact cameras. > Editing in external applications also isn't very seamless. Just wondering if I'm missing something… I don't think you are — external editing is just not as elegant as an all-Lightroom workflow. That said, RAW Power (created by the former lead of the Aperture and iPhoto engineering teams) is quite nice and supports working directly with the Apple Photos library.
coder543 4y ago
I don't see how that's a Lightroom alternative. It would take forever to process a batch of RAW photos that way if it is more than a couple of photos. I'm also confused how Apple Photos would know what adjustments you made to the RAW in an external program, or how you would go about exporting non-RAW files in this scenario. Something like Capture One is much better suited as a replacement for Lightroom. I wish that Apple had a Lightroom alternative, but they got rid of Aperture, so... they're probably not interested in competing in this space again any time soon.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > It would take forever to process a batch of RAW photos that way if it is more than a couple of photos. Apple Photos has great built-in RAW support, so no processing is needed. If I want to use a different RAW processor, that's straightforward as well. > I wish that Apple had a Lightroom alternative, but they got rid of Aperture, so… Check out RAW Power¹ (macOS and iOS), created by the former lead of the Aperture and iPhoto engineering teams. It's able to use your Apple Photos library directly. ¹ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/

coredog64 4y ago

Really. Apple Photos has been a dumpster fire for my wife. It randomly freezes, she can’t get her photos back out to upload them, etc. It’s almost to the point that she’s done with MacOS because of it.

feifan 4y ago
Is your photo library on a spinning hard drive or USB drive? I had this problem before which the setup, and it went away when I moved my library to my internal SSD.
- lapinot 4y ago
  The good old "if it's not working it's because you're not using enough of it" ;)
- throwoutway 4y ago
  Moving it becomes necessary when you acquire lots of photos and videos
tjr225 4y ago
_s 4y ago
A decade plus library of photos & videos here; probably in the 50k mark now, it’s been pretty flawless for me other than than the iPhoto to Photos upgrade. Never really had any issues with imports and exports (which is how I ended up upgrading). I’ve even used the iCloud sharing more often than not which has been a bit clunky but works once you figure out how to get a link out to people.

Xeoncross 4y ago

lightroom makes it so easy to apply filters in batch to all the photos in a certain room or environment making it much faster to process event photos. I'd love to know if there is a good solution for saving time when you have hundreds of photos to process.

coder543 4y ago
If you have photos in Apple Photos, I know you can edit one photo inside Apple Photos, then go to Image -> Copy Edits, and then you can select a batch of photos and paste those edits. Maybe this works for RAW photos too, but I don't know how/if Apple Photos handles RAW files in this scenario. It definitely works for non-RAW photos.

klodolph 4y ago

I think most of the Aperture features got rolled into Photos at some point. Not all of them, but it’s pretty good. (I haven’t done serious event photography since before Aperture was deprecated, though.)

ubercow13 4y ago
There is a Photos alternative made by the ex-lead Aperture developer called RAW Power [1] that uses the same Apple raw engine built into macOS but with its own library management and with more fine-grained control of the processing. This may be of interest to anyone looking for a Lightroom alternative but who finds Photos lacking. [1] https://www.gentlemencoders.com/ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/

actualwitch 4y ago

You should try capture one instead of lightroom, it's not just "good enough", it's better. You can pay once and get that version forever too.

gumboza 4y ago
I do most of my processing before hitting the shutter. Thus it’s not necessary for me. But I appreciate the suggestion. Edit: I don’t shoot raw now. I’ve found it unnecessary. I’m not a professional :)