We Need An Adobe Lightroom True Competitor Locked

AyeYo wrote:

Truman Prevatt wrote:

AyeYo wrote:

Truman Prevatt wrote:

AyeYo wrote:

bastibe wrote:

AyeYo wrote:

bastibe wrote:

In no particular order, Capture One, ON1, Luminar, ACDSee, Darktable, Exposure, Silkypix, Zoner Photo, Rawtherapee, Photo Ninja, DxO Photo Labs, and probably a few I'm forgetting or haven't even heard of.

Unfortunately not a single one of those substitutes for Lightroom because while some of them have some of Lightroom's workflow features, none of them have all of Lightroom's workflow features. Issues aside, there's not a single program out there than replicates Lightroom's efficiency for large quantity editing - and when you're doing it for pay, time is everything.

I am sorry to be blunt, but this comment is utter nonsense. Many of these programs surpass Lightroom in various ways, including efficiency.

I think your very last statement is the crux here. You may well know Lightroom very well, and have learned to use it very efficiently. That's a perfectly reasonable justification for you to stay with it.

However, the OP was specifically disgruntled with Lightroom and looking for alternatives. And if they're willing to invest the time to learn another program as well as you know Lightroom, then many of them can be as efficient, and as effective as Lightroom.

Personally, I'd even go so far as to say that it really doesn't matter much which program you choose; so long as you learn it well. The difference is always made by the user, not the tool. But it does take a long time and some effort to find efficient workflows. The biggest hurdle is, in my experience, unlearning whatever I used before. At least for the few programs I went through this, discovering a good workflow and truly getting to know a program's strengths and weaknesses takes me several months at least.

Which of those programs has solid cataloging, internal HDR and Pano, easy internal round tripping to other software, raw conversion combined with editing (not separate steps), the same library of lens corrections, excellent shadow and highlight recovery, proper camera color profiles, AI masking features that actually work, all of Lightroom's export options including easy watermarking, etc?

Capture One for one. DXO PhotoLab is getting rapidly improving.

Neither of those do HDR merging natively at last check.

Better again, Capture One sure does HDR merging and stitching. DXO is catching up rapidly.

Good to know. I will indeed give it another try.

For stitching.

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410022364433-Panorama-Stitching-overview

My wife had used it and she is really impressed with it.

As far as HDR merge.

https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/4410014730257-HDR-merging-overview

The good news with Capture One HDR merge it works with monochrome cameras.  The stitching needs color.  I've use HDR merge on my Leica Q2M images and it works really well blending the shadows and highlights.