Photo Editing Software Suggestions

[brightnight]

What are most folks using to edit their RAW photos? If I wasn't so frustrated by the subsciption model and the annual expense ($264/year forever) I'd just use Photoshop, but Adobe has in my opinion put the customer second and slaps you with early termination fees and you have to sign up for a certain number of months, etc. I have a ~8 year old version of photoshop (pre-subscuption) I could probably dig up which might be my best option but wondering if there is something better out there and I don't mind buying it. Expect to publish some images but never been one to dramatically change and image.

[TimG]

I know lots of people are complaining about Adobe…… but I’m paying them £10 a month for the LR and PS package and am really happy with it. I’ve had that subscription for about 6-7 years. Updates are frequent and often game-changing. Happily I’ve felt no need at all to cancel. Maybe I’ve just been lucky. 

[brightnight]

$10/month isn't that bad, I wonder if I was looking at the wrong plan pricing

[TimG]

I wondered that.

 

I've got the Photography Plan. £9.98/month, is, what, about $12.50? Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems a steal to me for both PS and LR and cloud storage (which I don't use)

 

I don't like the subscription model for software either but, as far as this one is concerned, I think it's an excellent deal.

[fruehaufsteher2]

Lightroom on iPad is much cheaper and has nearly the same functionality as the desktop version. For a quarter the price. 
 

And there’s no real alternative to LR

[Giancarlo M.]

On Amazon Prime Day, there is usually always a promotion for the PS and LR package. I just bought it. The price is a one-off payment valid for 12 months, at expiry it resumes the normal monthly price. I have been buying it on this occasion for 3 years now and there is a bit of a discount (€7.50/month)

[Chris Ross]

there are other buy once options around.  I use use Capture One Pro and like the way it works, you can do a lot of work prior to it doing the RAW conversion for you.  I like I can adjust levels there- to me its the most intuitive tool to do black/white points and colour balance.  Seems to me it could replace Lightroom quite readily, though the learning curve can be steep.

 

You can also try Affinity photo, it's a one off price and cheap enough to just try it out, they had a sale a while back and I picked it up for $50. I tried it out, a bit different to Photoshop but quite capable.

 

I never liked the proprietary catalogue system of Lightroom and was never tempted to try it out and never a fan of the subscription model, I still use CS6 for final finishing work, but getting it to activate on Win 11 is a challenge I haven't overcome on my new laptop. 

[humu9679]

@brightnight Adobe's subscription thing is a benefit if you're using cloud storage. I subscribe to that (USD 120/year), with Lightroom. Editing is basic, but has enough of what I need for photos. With regards to Photoshop -- which I don't have right now -- I'm not a fan of creating crazy whiz bang photos from poorly executed initial images anyhow. You can also buy Photoshop Elements, if you don't want to do a subscription, and you can process RAW, but you will have to pay for updates, if that's still a thing.

[John Liddiard]

All my systems are Linux. Photoshop is not an option for me. For raw processing I use RawTherapee. https://www.rawtherapee.com/ - also available in PC and Mac versions

 

I used to like it more that I do nowadays. The functionality is very good, but as with many open source projects, every bright idea gets added but never rationalised, the result being the interface gains in complexity with every new version.

 

If PS/LR were available, I would be tempted.