wings42 Loc: San Diego, CA

Please suggest a reasonably priced alternative that I can own. I need something fast and fairly simple to use that supports batch processing. My main issues with Lightroom is how difficult it is to sharpen photos and reduce noise at the same time, and how slow Lightroom is when batch processing.

I shoot anything beautiful and/or interesting from insects and birds to landscapes with my Nikon D7200 using a Nikon 18-300 lens, about 150 photos a day. Thanks for any replies.

David
San Diego, CA

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

It might not be Lightroom David. What are the specs on the computer that you are using?

Don

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Eggzatley

The one thing I've absolutely stopped with lightroom is doing an Import/COnvert to DNG. With 48 Mb D850 files, it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r. I just Import/Copy now.

Bill_de Loc: US

Most have free trials.

https://photo.wondershare.com/choose-photo-editor/best-free-paid-lightroom-alternatives.html

https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/lightroom-alternatives/

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rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

"Sharpening" and "Noise Reduction" are basically opposite processes in any case. Reducing noise tends to unsharpen an image. Sharpening an image tends to emphasize noise.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

LR isn't perfect, but if you're complaining about speed performance for the subscriber version in July 2019, you probably have an issue with your hardware rather than the software.

Regarding sharpening and NR, what are you doing? Moving every slider for every individual image? Look at presets based on the image ISO level for each specific camera. A standard value will typically apply to all / most images.

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

I am not sure how it is with batch processing because I don't do batch processing, but Corel Aftershot Pro 3 works for me with large RAW files and does support batch processing and you can try it for free. Corel advertises Aftershot Pro 3 as up to 4 times faster than LR for batch processing. ?could be misleading like lots of ads?

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

You may not find peace and happiness with any software package. Maybe your computer is at fault, or perhaps your workflow. I use LR with D810 files on an 8 yr old PC with 32 gb ram and a 4 gb video card, SSD boot drive and a RAID 1+0 array (internal) and have no issues opening and processing images, and batch is super fast. Sharpening and noise reduction is also fast and I often do this in a batch process as well. Maybe you need to give LR a little more time and really delve into it's capabilities before you give up on it.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Yes Gene, it amazes me that people will spend MuchO$ on lenses and cameras but think they will get by with a weak computer. Too often they buy a package built "good name" computer, not realizing how easily they can do it themselves. Building a "last year's" gaming computer will be sufficient for photo graphics for many years. If a person can plug in a lamp in the wall they can build a computer... connectors are foolproof with color and shape allowing only one place to go.

I have notice that the price of DDR-4 memory has dropped significantly. DDR-5 is coming soon. My computer has DDR-3, if I had DDR-4 it would take two eye blinks instead of three. In not a gamer, the improvement DDR-3 to DDR-4 is not significant to my work. As you stated Graphics card with 4 gig by Nvidia is great. Their program language blends well with some of the more advanced Ai programs.

And Adobe is old hat, for most work there are great programs out there at a one-time price or some even free. Plugins like Topaz do all the hard work for us... Stanley Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey computer "Hal" is at our fingertips.

Jrhoffman75 Loc: Conway, New Hampshire

Luminar is also an option to consider.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Re: Batch processing. If you are talking about using the sync feature to apply the same settings to a large group of photos ... the speed with which it is done is probably more a function of your computer than of LR. I regularly use the sync feature on anywhere from 10 to 30 photos and its only a matter of from a few seconds to several seconds (always under a minute) for LR.

saparoo Loc: Atlanta, GA

I have an old Toshiba computer that had gotten very slow. MicroCenter had 1T SSD hard drive on sale for $90. Bought that, copied my old hard drive onto the SSD, installed it into my computer and now I have a very fast computer! I'm not a computer/technical wiz but it really wasn't hard to do and was one heck cheaper than buying a new computer!!!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

It seems that Wings42 has flown the coop . . .

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

"Fast" is a relative term. Do you mean instantaneous, or less than ten seconds? I'm not as concerned with speed as I am with effectiveness.

As for simplicity, that comes from using the program and learning it. I can do the few things I want to do with LR, but there are probably a hundred other operations I can't do.

Affinity
https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/software-review-affinity-photo-1-5-2
http://www.shutterbug.com/content/affinity-photo-software-review-has-photoshop-met-its-match#d1c5lY5EQ03QoLjh.97
http://www.diyphotography.net/affinity-photo-can-give-adobe-run-money/
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/affinity-photo-1.5,review-4257.html

Others
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-lightroom-alternatives
http://digital-photography-school.com/a-beginners-guide-to-choosing-the-right-post-production-software/
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/photo-editing
https://www.reviews.com/photo-editing-software/
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-photo-editing-software,review-1972.html
http://www.redmondpie.com/best-adobe-photoshop-alternatives-for-windows-and-mac-list Affinity
http://www.shutterbug.com/content/affinity-photo-software-review-has-photoshop-met-its-match#d1c5lY5EQ03QoLjh.97
http://www.diyphotography.net/affinity-photo-can-give-adobe-run-money/
https://photographypro.com/photo-editing/

Free -
https://www.darktable.org/
https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/59324818
https://www.lightstalking.com/how-to-edit-rawtherapee/
https://www.lightstalking.com/free-photography-software/
http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-photo-editor
http://fieldguide.gizmodo.com/the-best-photoshop-alternatives-that-are-totally-free-5974500
http://lightzoneproject.org/

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

I agree with the observation about the cost of gear vs the cost of the application and/or the computer.

To my way of thinking, CaptureOne at around $600(?) is cheaper than most good lenses. Luminar is certainly lower priced and easier to learn (at first) but IMHO, nowhere near as capable nor well supported.

As for speed, in this case the choke points are likely to be the graphics card, then the RAM, then, far down the list, the processor and finally the HDD/SSD. The disk is a factor, I think, only when accessing the catalog, loading the image and when exporting it but it's very unlikely to be a factor during editing.

If the computer is Windows (usually is when not specified) then a quick look at the size and location of the swapfile. If RAM is big enough then swapfile should not be an issue but...
https://www.windowscentral.com/what-swapfilesys-and-do-i-need-it-my-windows-10-pc

Just a note, though, that IF the swapfile is getting used THEN the slower HDD will make a noticeable difference. Using the disk as the solution to that is not a bad thing but it's not the most effective approach.

In my experience, adding RAM is a fast, cheap and very effective way to speed up a PC. But in this case, assuming that LR will use it, the graphics card can be a big factor, too.