[Fenwoodian]

I use Luminar, not as an extension, but as a standalone application...

love it, can't imagine using anything else...

+1 - Luminar 4 has replaced PS and Lightroom for me too.

If you start using it, check out this photographers YouTube videos on Luminar 4 - they're very well done!

[Craigbob]

I've been checking out the LR competition (On1, Capture One 20, Luminar 4, and DXO photolab 2&3), here are my thoughts.

On1: The interface takes some getting used to. With my K-1 images I get decent results, but noise reduction lags behind for me. I do like some of the effects/tools it has (dynamic contrast, etc..) speed is OK, about on par with LR. The new mobile version coming out this year intrigues me.


Luminar 4: Still too slow & buggy for my tastes, but light-years better than ver3. Flex is OK, but I keep forgetting that I have it installed.

DXO Photolab 3: I spend more time in this than the other non Adobe products. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love the results I get with it, pretty easy to eork with, & superior noise reduction. I also love the Clearview tool.

I hate that it won't open an image unless it recognizes the lens. I shoot a lot of astroimages through various telescopes and would love to use it for processing tbem. But alas it won't open the images. Grrrrrrr.......

Capture One: Steep learning curve and I love the Highlight a d shadow recovery tools. I can get great results, but I have to work harder to get them (probably due to my lack of experience with it more than anything else). I just wish it had more support for Pentax gear.

Two things none of these have that I use a lot of are collections, especially the Quick collection and synced collections.

Sigh... Looks like I stick with LR for the foreseeable future.

[BruceBanner]

I've been checking out the LR competition (On1, Capture One 20, Luminar 4, and DXO photolab 2&3), here are my thoughts.

On1: The interface takes some getting used to. With my K-1 images I get decent results, but noise reduction lags behind for me. I do like some of the effects/tools it has (dynamic contrast, etc..) speed is OK, about on par with LR. The new mobile version coming out this year intrigues me.


Luminar 4: Still too slow & buggy for my tastes, but light-years better than ver3. Flex is OK, but I keep forgetting that I have it installed.

DXO Photolab 3: I spend more time in this than the other non Adobe products. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love the results I get with it, pretty easy to eork with, & superior noise reduction. I also love the Clearview tool.

I hate that it won't open an image unless it recognizes the lens. I shoot a lot of astroimages through various telescopes and would love to use it for processing tbem. But alas it won't open the images. Grrrrrrr.......

Capture One: Steep learning curve and I love the Highlight a d shadow recovery tools. I can get great results, but I have to work harder to get them (probably due to my lack of experience with it more than anything else). I just wish it had more support for Pentax gear.

Two things none of these have that I use a lot of are collections, especially the Quick collection and synced collections.

Sigh... Looks like I stick with LR for the foreseeable future.

Yeh I felt similarly. I'm no adobe fan, but for $170AUD/year I feel like I do get value because I exploit all the things they offer to strong degree (i.e. I don't feel as though I am using just LR). When exploring other software I never found anything that could do what LR and PS could do together, it seems at this time they do have monopoly of sorts, I welcome other programs to step up, but I fear they will always be one step behind Adobe.

[savoche]

I don't think Lightroom alone is worth ~$160 a year for me. Photoshop? Nah, I can do what I need with just about anything. It's really just Lightroom.

There are mainly two real problems with my stand-alone version; the lack of support for newer cameras and lenses, and that it can be painfully slow (my computer is fairly powerful, it's just that the software isn't very good at exploiting it).

The first is not a huge problem yet, but will probably become more so as time goes by. The second is an annoyance, but hey, it's a hobby.

[morenjavi]

There are mainly two real problems with my stand-alone version; the lack of support for newer cameras and lenses, and that it can be painfully slow (my computer is fairly powerful, it's just that the software isn't very good at exploiting it).

I never upgraded from V4.4, and now I barely use it, but one adtvantage of LR is that it supports DNG, so if you shoot DNG, your camera should be recognised. At least, that worked with my k3-II. About the slowness problem, I suffered a problem years ago with general slowness specially when I exported files, I remember that I erased a file and it seems that everything improved, but I don´t remeber what file is it or where I found such information.

[fuzzyphotos]

Two things none of these have that I use a lot of are collections, especially the Quick collection and synced collections.

Something you might try in Capture one before your trial runs out is smart albums, those may work for your collections. It pretty much will allow you to make a folder with about any criteria, then continues to add to the folder as additional images are created with the same criteria. It may not be the end all but I use them quite a bit. to sort my pictures. I've even gone as far as to sort bi ISO, Camera, Key Words, Aperture, lens, and several others.

[clickclick]

one adtvantage of LR is that it supports DNG, so if you shoot DNG, your camera should be recognised

LR 6.14 will process the DNG files produced by my K-1 II, but it doesn't provide the profile settings, e.g. Camera Bright, Vivid, etc. I like working from the "Bright" setting as a starting point, so this is one where a new version for me would be nice.

[Craigbob]

Something you might try in Capture one before your trial runs out is smart albums, those may work for your collections. It pretty much will allow you to make a folder with about any criteria, then continues to add to the folder as additional images are created with the same criteria. It may not be the end all but I use them quite a bit. to sort my pictures. I've even gone as far as to sort bi ISO, Camera, Key Words, Aperture, lens, and several others.

I'm not worried about the trial ending since I purchased it. But I'll take a look at the Smart Albums.

[morenjavi]

LR 6.14 will process the DNG files produced by my K-1 II, but it doesn't provide the profile settings, e.g. Camera Bright, Vivid, etc. I like working from the "Bright" setting as a starting point, so this is one where a new version for me would be nice.

Correct, for my K3-II I missed to have more profiles, not only the Adobe Standard, that is... well... 'not satisfactory'. My solution was to buy Huelight profiles: you can get Landcaspe, Neutral, Portrait, Standard and Vivid profiles, that are way better that the Adobe profile, and closer to the Camera profiles. They are not too expensive. In C1 I get way better rendering of my K3-II files 'out of the box', but also I bought some LUTs and Film styles from Lutify & 1styles, so now I'm most than satisfied .

I'm not worried about the trial ending since I purchased it. But I'll take a look at the Smart Albums.

In my experience, C1 is not 'as good' as LR regarding cataloging, or maybe I am too used to LR, and there are things that I miss (for example, accept/reject flags). But after switching to C1 I found how to to solve most of my cataloging needs. I created a especific work view for cataloging, and other for editing.
I tool that I'm using a lot now, is the browser. With the browser I can edit files outside any catalog. In LR you always need to import pictures first, then you can edit. In C1 you can choose what you want: use catalog mode, use session mode, or just the browser.
My present worflow is more or less this way:
* I fix metadata (camera maker lens etc) with exiftool.
* If necessary, I convert to DNG and compress with DNG converter. I shoot mostly in RAW, but for casual pics I use loosy compresion and sometimes I reduce pixel count, this way I have a good quality RAW file with a dramatic reduction in size. If I want to keep all the data, I just use the PEF file.
* Add tags, comments, labels... to my files and do basic editig, in 'catalog mode'
* If I need to more editing I switch to 'edit mode' and finish my editing
* I move all files to the 'selected folder' pressing just Ctrl+J.


* At a later time, when I have a good amount of pics in my 'selected folder', I import such pics in a Catalog, and delete from the original folder.
* I can continue editing, etc, on the catalog, if needed.

I make steps 1-4 just for immediate editing and tagging. I make steps 5-6 if I want my files to be in a catalog. Beleive it or not, I have still around 10k pictures if a folder that were never imported to a LR catalog. One feature I miss from LR, is the possibility of calling Adobe Converter once your files are cataloged, in a transparent way.

As C1 is so flexible (catalog, session, browser...) you have a lot of tools to make your own workflow... whether you want to import always to a catalog or just dropping your files in a disk and make casual editing. Like some users pointed here, there are also a lot of ways to organize and search once you have your files in a catalog.

[Craigbob]

Correct, for my K3-II I missed to have more profiles, not only the Adobe Standard, that is... well... 'not satisfactory'. My solution was to buy Huelight profiles: you can get Landcaspe, Neutral, Portrait, Standard and Vivid profiles, that are way better that the Adobe profile, and closer to the Camera profiles. They are not too expensive. In C1 I get way better rendering of my K3-II files 'out of the box', but also I bought some LUTs and Film styles from Lutify & 1styles, so now I'm most than satisfied .


In my experience, C1 is not 'as good' as LR regarding cataloging, or maybe I am too used to LR, and there are things that I miss (for example, accept/reject flags). But after switching to C1 I found how to to solve most of my cataloging needs. I created a especific work view for cataloging, and other for editing.
I tool that I'm using a lot now, is the browser. With the browser I can edit files outside any catalog. In LR you always need to import pictures first, then you can edit. In C1 you can choose what you want: use catalog mode, use session mode, or just the browser.
My present worflow is more or less this way:
* I fix metadata (camera maker lens etc) with exiftool.
* If necessary, I convert to DNG and compress with DNG converter. I shoot mostly in RAW, but for casual pics I use loosy compresion and sometimes I reduce pixel count, this way I have a good quality RAW file with a dramatic reduction in size. If I want to keep all the data, I just use the PEF file.
* Add tags, comments, labels... to my files and do basic editig, in 'catalog mode'
* If I need to more editing I switch to 'edit mode' and finish my editing
* I move all files to the 'selected folder' pressing just Ctrl+J.


* At a later time, when I have a good amount of pics in my 'selected folder', I import such pics in a Catalog, and delete from the original folder.
* I can continue editing, etc, on the catalog, if needed.

I make steps 1-4 just for immediate editing and tagging. I make steps 5-6 if I want my files to be in a catalog. Beleive it or not, I have still around 10k pictures if a folder that were never imported to a LR catalog. One feature I miss from LR, is the possibility of calling Adobe Converter once your files are cataloged, in a transparent way.

As C1 is so flexible (catalog, session, browser...) you have a lot of tools to make your own workflow... whether you want to import always to a catalog or just dropping your files in a disk and make casual editing. Like some users pointed here, there are also a lot of ways to organize and search once you have your files in a catalog.

Interesting Workflow. I'll have to check it out.

[morenjavi]

Interesting Workflow. I'll have to check it out.

Thanks.
Not sure if it's clear, but I make the first steps just using the browser. I created a session that it mostly empty, just for using the browser. This way I can start to work with the pictures immediately without importing to any catalog. About 'edit mode' and 'catalog mode' these are two workspaces I made for cataloging or editing more easily.

As I'm using the browser I can delete bad fils directly from the disk If needed. If I want, I can browse the camera card and move the files directly to the 'Selects folder', it's super fast to get your good pictures just by pressing 'Ctrl+J'. When you later import your pictures to a catalog, all the edits, tags, labels... are imported. Importing to a catalog is super fast too, because you use always the same origin (the session's 'Selects Folder'); just click 'Import', then 'Import all', and you are done. On the session you can delete all the pictures on the 'Selects Folder' and you can proceed with another bunch of pics.


I saw this workflow some time ago described in a site (I don't remember where), and adapted to my needs.

[Fenwoodian]

.
Luminar just released a free new update - version 4.1. I just downloaded it and installed. NICE!!!

[clickclick]

Correct, for my K3-II I missed to have more profiles, not only the Adobe Standard, that is... well... 'not satisfactory'. My solution was to buy Huelight profiles: you can get Landcaspe, Neutral, Portrait, Standard and Vivid profiles, that are way better that the Adobe profile, and closer to the Camera profiles. They are not too expensive. In C1 I get way better rendering of my K3-II files 'out of the box', but also I bought some LUTs and Film styles from Lutify & 1styles, so now I'm most than satisfied .

I need to check into these - thanks. I've been mangling the EXIF tags back and forth so my version of Lr thinks I'm working with a K-1 still. It's a bit of a PITA though, so this is something I need to check into. I was one of the last suckers to buy the desktop version believing Adobe when they said they would continue to support it. That change of course alone has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth and has kept me from signing off on their new subscription model. Basically don't trust them at this point to not jack up prices with everyone captive. Sometime in the past year, Adobe showed an increase in the monthly subscription rate in a few markets. There was immediate outcry, Adobe sputtered some nonsense trying to explain it, and rolled the prices back. My gut is they were testing the waters to see what the reaction to increasing the subscription price would be, and backed off, but I also feel the proverbial handwriting is on the wall on where this is headed. At one level, I see a lot of value to the Lr Ps combo at the $9.99 price per month. That's not too far off buying full new releases of competitors products every year, and the Ps addition is very powerful. But after a career in IT and having them pull the plug on the desktop side claiming they couldn't support it is something I'm just not buying - the Classic version is still a fat client. It's just going out to a license server to validate it's existence. They could have kept both products rolling. I would have even bought an upgrade at some point.....

[morenjavi]

I welcome other programs to step up

Affinity Photo is a really good piece of editing software. It's so good that I usually follow PS tutorials with it. It has limited PSD support. I have Photo, Designer and Publisher, all the pack .

I use C1 with Photo similar as you use LR + PS, and it integrates quite good in this way:

* When I want to finish a pic, choose 'Edit with' from C1, select Photo and use TIFF as the export format (plus color space, 8/16 bit, etc.).
* I make my edits in Photo.
* Save the TIFF and choose 'export with layers', this way all the layers, setting, etc, I made with Photo are preserved.
* On C1 I see the edited and flattened TIFF, and I can add more editing if I want, for example some film style or so.
* If later I want to continue editing the original TIFF, I choose 'Open with' from C1, the TIFF is opened in Photo and everything I created previously with Photo is there.

I bought the Lutify LUT package that are compatible with C1 but also with any editor that supports LUTs (as Affinity Photo), so I can choose to apply a style in Photo or in C1. Lutify doesn't support C1 layers, but I can use layers in Photo to apply Lutify LUTs selectively, if needed.

Great combination, IMHO

[-JW-]

My question would be why not just stick with Lightroom? If you have been using this program for years, you like it and you know how to work with it very well, why switch?
10 dollars a month is not that much and the whole cloud thing is actually kinda cool, even if you just use Lightroom Classic CC, what I use. (access to photos on your smartphone to show people wherever you are for example)

Other programs cost money too and there is no guarantee that those companies won't switch to a cloud based version with monthly subscription in a couple years.