Photoshop Elements vs Lightroom vs anything free???

Hey All,

 

I am coming back to this hobby after a gap of over 5 years.

 

I'd like to get things organized - should I just go for Lightroom? Long ago I used Rawtherapee but I am sure there are other newer apps out there.

I myself use DxO Optics Pro, but that is a commercial application. Capture One Express for Sony is free (I have this installed in case something happens to DxO). But if you don't use a Sony camera, here are a few applications that might be worth considering:

 

The best free alternative to Adobe Lightroom 2018 | TechRadar

 

Give them a try and see which one you like best.

In terms of organising, PS Elements isn't bad, but Lightroom is a step up. For editing, Lightroom is much better geared towards the normal, standard edits, and makes a lot lighter work of editing lots of images. PS Elements as an editor has actually some more options, but it's much more for editing image per image - more editing power, less workflow.

 

In my view, you're best served with Lightroom or an alternative to it. The free alternatives in the space unfortunately aren't on the same level as the paid applications. For keeping things organised, CaptureOne can also work very well. The non-Sony version (as the post above seems to imply it only exists for Sony - this is certainly not the case) is not cheap, but it is very capable.

If you prefer an editor like Photoshop is (so more editing options, but less workflow and organising features), I'd recommend Affinity Photo over PS Elements - it's cheaper and a lot more competent. You could combine it, though, with a pure catalog tool like PhotoSupreme.

 

Last but not least, the Adobe photography subscription (Lightroom and Photoshop) isn't bad value, but it is a monthly subscription that some people do not like.

If you want a free PS 'clone' then GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is probably the best out there.

 

There are a few bugs and peculiarities, but as long as you're aware of them they're not a real issue.

 

The one that annoys me the most is the default setting for resize, which is resize layers - none (!!!). Who the xxxx would ever need such a setting? But as long as you're aware and change it to 'all' it's liveable-with.

 

The HSL module is a bit broken too, but the basics like saturation and hue-shift work OK. Altogether, it's about as close to PS as you'll get for free.

"Lightroom versus ???" is a complicated topic.

Lightroom has strengths; for example you can shoot various cameras, use X-rite passport color checker to profile them and you could even put a timepiece next to it so you could adjust the camera clocks (one will always be a bit off) in Lightroom, to get your images automatically into the right order.

Lightroom became subscription based. - If money feels tight and your camera bag empty not perfect.

 

Free stuff I am using: Google Picasa. It got discontinued before it learned to deal with Canon's dualpixel RAW files or Fuji's Xtrans sensors. It is still(!) a great program to sight your cluttered HDDs, do some simple sometimes even automated editing and also to search for every photo you ever took of a certain person. To use it on my Canon images I shoot JPEGs to the 2nd card).

 

I tend to install both RAWtherapee and GIMP on my machines but that doesn't mean I end using them a lot (or at all). - What I am using from the Linux world is Darktable which seems a wannabe Lightroom alternative, to look what you have and edit RAW files.

I also install what came with my cameras. - Raw file tweaking in the various brand limited Silkypix variants (Pentax, Fuji) feels like an option it offers batch processing.

Canon's DPP seems to do something. Free Adobe camera RAW, to convert to DNG seems handy.

 

Another bit of freeware I like that didn't get mentioned yet is Faststone image viewer. Irfanview did not work with some of my files at some point in time. Faststone handles them all and I really like something to see my images full screen to decide on which I should end working in a different software.

 

I also downloaded DxO optics pro whenever an old version became free. What I dislike about it: It might do great things for mainstream gear; i.e. stuff that DxO tested to integrate. Unfortunately I am most of the time shooting less supported oddballs; i.e. they maybe tested my cameras but not the lenses I am using on them.

 

I don't own Lightroom myself and hope to live long enough to save up for a really nice lens that way. - I can access a machine with it at work and rage on my external disks or thumb drive. I haven't felt a real urge to do, so yet, but yes i dabbled a bit with LR.

I'd like to get things organized

IDK how perfect LR is for that in the big scale. - I stumble across rants & laments that it can't handle frantically shooting professionals everything & the kitchen sink catalog sufficiently fast. So it is probably best suited for dealing with one wedding or vacation at a time?

At work (commanded by the sysop there) I am ordered to put images into folders and to rename them for Lightroom independent chaos. For that purpose programs like Bulkrename utility can be handy. It lets you add a suffix or prefix to every file name inside a folder quite conveniently.

 

Everybody has different needs. - Things depend on cameras and hardware in use too. Planned full strength of my hardware would be: One work & gaming desktop, another backup desktop, to be able to handle my files whenever I'll fry the 1st one, once again and about two unspectacular laptops, cheap enough to stay in an unattended saddle bag. I'd have to pay more than one subscription to get Lightroom on all of these.

I use Paintshop Pro. It has its issues, but is inexpensive and can do just about anything. It handles raw and it does HDR, but falls down badly on color management if you want to use other than sRGB for printing.

Don't the camera manufacturers provide free post processing programs? Which camera do you use?

I’ve used Paint Shop Pro for years. I’ve also used GIMP and Elemnts. As far as I’m concerned they are all basically the same. Choose one and stick with it and don’t sweat about what you might be missing.

I bought some of the last individually licensed versions of both Lightroom and Photoshop, and hope to keep using them for a long time to come. I give up certain upgrades, but I'm not writing a check every month, either. I like Lightroom's organizational and manipulation features, so I use it more than PS. However, PS does certain things for a final output product that Lightroom just does not seem to do well.

in recent years many good photoshop software came out. Paintshop Pro, Picasa, Affinity Photo, Sketch, GIMP, Pixelmator Pro, Pixlr, Corel PHOTO-PAINT, Paint.net, SumoPaint these are good software you might like. try them and choose 1 for your comfortable work.