Photo editing programs: Lightroom, Luminar, Affinity Photo, Darktable, FastStone, ACSDSee and more

[Saul Goodman]

Luminar is starting to fucking annoy me. Randomly the presets (or 'looks') won't preview. Is that carries on, I'm going to have to ask Saul Goodman for one of his dodgy copies of Lightoom if he hasn't already been banned!

View attachment 206320

I'm uploading the latest Adobe Lightroom Classic (9.2.1).
I've just installed it myself, and it doesn't contain any coronas or similar nasties.
My upload speed is a bit shit, and it's over a gig, so it won't be finished for another few hours but I'll let you know when it's uploaded, and I'll send you a link.

 

[editor]

I just 'upgraded' to ACDSee Photo Pro 2021 and it was shit. The program weighed in about ten times the size of ACDSee Pro 7 and was slower in just about every single task - if it wasn't randomly freezing.

It seems that they must have peaked with ACDSee Pro 7!

 

[weltweit]

I am sort of considering Affinity Photo. I am happy with Photoshop Elements 9 at the moment but it won't do panoramas, focus stacking or night sky stacking which I understand Affinity will do.

Just sort of thinking about it at the moment.
I do know I don't want lightroom on the monthly payment plan.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I keep trying these whenever they release a new version that I can get a free trial on, but I have to say I've been super unimpressed so far. If you can't offer more than the basic Apple Photos why bother?

Luminar makes a big thing about its "AI photo enhancement functions" but honestly no thanks, I don't want to click a button to make everything look like bog standard Instagram fodder.

I'd rather use any of them than Lightroom because Lightroom is even worse, but when Photos will just sync everything between devices and give me the post-process and metadata options that I want, there has to be some reason to switch.

 

[editor]

I keep trying these whenever they release a new version that I can get a free trial on, but I have to say I've been super unimpressed so far. If you can't offer more than the basic Apple Photos why bother?

Luminar makes a big thing about its "AI photo enhancement functions" but honestly no thanks, I don't want to click a button to make everything look like bog standard Instagram fodder.

ACDSee Pro 7 is great but lacks a handful of features that I'd ideally like. It's still as fast as fuck though so it looks like I'll be sticking with it for a while longer.

If anyone is on a budget, the free FastStone Image Viewer is excellent.

 

[weltweit]

..
If anyone is on a budget, the free FastStone Image Viewer is excellent.

I use FastStone viewer as a viewer and raw file converter.
It isn't superb as a raw file converter but I can live with what it does for the time being.

 

[editor]

I use FastStone viewer as a viewer and raw file converter.
It isn't superb as a raw file converter but I can live with what it does for the time being.

For free it's amazing, really.

 

[weltweit]

For free it's amazing, really.

Yes, that is true.

My elements 9 came with the PC so it was also free really.

 

[magneze]

Heads up. 50% off Affinity stuff atm.

 

[weltweit]

Heads up. 50% off Affinity stuff atm.

Hmm, they had a deal going last time I was thinking about it. It seems they often have deals. I won't be hurried I am afraid even by 50% .. wait 50% off, that is a lot!