We Need An Adobe Lightroom True Competitor Locked

Alan Hewitt Photo wrote:

Coldpaw wrote:

There are more than enough alternatives to Lightroom (Classic) out there already, you just have to be open minded and give them a shot. One of the most common complains I've been reading from die-hard LR users is always: "It doesn't look like Lightroom and the UI is different. I don't like it." in essence people want Lightroom but not from Adobe, it should look the same, feel the same, does the same, it just has to be from a different company. There are enough developers out there trying out their own ideas when it comes to image processing. Personally I have been using DXO PhotoLab for years and never felt like I would be missing out. I also trialed Capture One for a number of times and thought it was a great kit of software, if it wouldn't be for the price and the fact you again need to manage catalogues and sessions, I might have bought it.

In my experience, a lot of people confuse 'difficult to use' with a lack of familiarity. I doubt there are any examples of software as complex as Lightroom, Capture One, etc. etc that are immediately intuitive and straightforward, especially when your mindset is deeply rooted in another user interface or process.

"Intuitive", as in "you need to hold a key on your keyboard while wiggling a slider to see the mask while you edit it"? Or how the only way to draw a mask is to start with a radial or linear mask, and then modify it by drawing? (these things may have changed in the meantime, it's been a while since I used Lightroom).

When I tried to get into Lightroom initially, these things were wild. Nigh undiscoverable, no UI indication for them at all, completely hidden, and completely alien to any UI convention I'd seen before. Actually, Capture One was comparatively tame.

But I agree with you, strongly. None of these tools are intuitive. Instead, they require learning. And that's actually a good thing because in the end we want powerful tools, not easy ones.