Paul Diamond Loc: Atlanta, GA, USA

I shoot with a Nikon. RAW processing of images are now supported by enough apps to bring me to this question.

If you have done Post Processing with at least 2 RAW file software apps, what do you prefer and why?

I hope to benefit from your experience with at least 2 different RAW processing apps, your preference/preferences and why.

Thanks

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I have used a half a dozen or more different apps for raw processing. In my experience, the best demosaicing is done by Lightroom, Capture One, and DXO PhotoLab, not necessarily in that order. Other software may be good, but none of it is in the same league as these three. I'm not going to discuss the various issues that some of the competition have since it's a very broad topic.

My current preferred software is DXO Photolab 4 Elite. It is reasonably fast. It fairly straightforward to use since it lacks the bloated interface of some of its competition, most notably ON1. It does the best raw conversions, in my opinion, and has all the tools and features that I need to accomplish my goals. Like any pro level software package, there is a learning curve to get the best out of it. PhotoLab's the interface is less complicated than some of its competition.

If you have questions about some specific software, I may be able to help since I've used many of the current software packages available.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Adobe LR is the default standard others are measured against. You can use Nikon's free software to achieve similar results with more effort and less functionality. You can purchase other software rather than starting an ongoing subscription with Adobe, seeking to fall somewhere between Lightroom (plus PhotoShop) and free Nikon.

The Adobe subscription is industrial-strength, professional-grade software. They're not made for the casual user who expects to sitdown and click around and pick it up. Most of the other pay-for software is the same level of complexity. A distinguishing characteristic of Adobe and the other upper-tier titles is the amount of training support and the size of their user communities. Adobe is both the oldest and the largest community. There's a lot to be said for that wealth of accumulated knowledge readily and freely available as you start your learning and usage.

You need to consider apples to apples in software that edits the native RAW file, not a converted TIFF or similar conversion. If you haven't bought anything, consider the trial period offer for any candidate software. Use one-at-a-time for the entire trial period, including the available training, possibly always against the same set of 20 to 100 images. Make an informed decision that hopefully gets it right the first time. Consider the online documentation and free video training (u-tube) in the context of your trial-period comparisons.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Keep in mind that while Lightroom is a terrific program, it is by subscription only. You can get Lightroom and Photoshop together for a very reasonable monthly charge. That ensures that you are always running the most current version of that software.

However, if you want to continue to use those Adobe products for the foreseeable future you are essentially committing to a lifetime monthly subscription fee. If you cancel your subscription, you can no longer use Lightroom or Photoshop to edit your images. For many people, even though the monthly subscription is quite reasonable, the need for a lifetime commitment to it isn't acceptable.

Some of Adobe's competition offer a subscription option as well as a one-time license purchase. I believe that Adobe is the only publisher whose imaging software is just available by subscription.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

I'm familiar with most of the major raw processing apps. I keep about a dozen current on my systems so that I can assist my students.

When my students ask me which software they should use I have a quick and simple answer: Lightroom.

If you're asking that same question then that's the answer. It's the overall best choice for the working photographer. Lightroom's DAM functions are superior making it the default choice among working professionals. If you need help there are more resources available for LR. It is an excellent editor and with the new upgrade it's getting substantially better. For work that LR can't accomplish you get Photoshop included in the purchase (subscription). Considering those two together as a bundle for $10.00 a month -- great deal. (To run LR with a large collection of photos requires some computer muscle).

That said you may have, as most of us do, a spin on your priorities. For example you may be into shooting architecture. In that case you want to take a good look at DXO-PL4 along with DXO's ViewPoint. When I can't get lens distortion and perspective rendering under control in any of the other apps I load up the raw file in PL4 and get it right using Viewpoint -- hands down the best tool for that task. PL4 is otherwise a fine editor but lacks the DAM functions you'll get from LR and will occasionally require that you supplement it with a raster editor like PS (another app).

Some folks for various reasons don't like Adobe's subscription way of pricing LR/PS and want to spend less overall. ON1 is probably the best option then for a quality raw editor that includes respectable DAM functions.

If you don't like Adobe's subscription plan but are otherwise happy to spend more there's Capture One. Capture One may be the best editor overall with fair DAM functions but not the equal to LR.

Talking about personal spins on priorities, I rank real high the priority of a raw workflow that is 100% non-destructive and non-linearly re-editable. Raw processors are parametric editors -- they can't push pixels around like a raster editor eg. Photoshop. If the parametric editor can't get the job done then you move on to the raster editor to finish. My priority is to resist that option because it monkey wrenches my 100% non-destructive and non linearly re-editable raw workflow. That priority has pushed me to Capture One as the editor most capable of completing the job without recourse to a second raster editor.

What to say away from? Whatever schizophrenic Skylum is hawking yesterday, today or tomorrow.

AGO

For years I used Nikon's Capture NX2 and was very happy with the results. Unfortunately, it has been discontinued and is no longer updated. I've found that PhotoLab is not only a good replacement, it's a better replacement. It has a good collection of presets and I've tweaked many of them to fit my own types of photography. Using a present is a good starting point, but you'll still want to do more.

PhotoLab is also reasonably priced. Before buying it, get the trial version to make sure that it's compatible with your camera.

akamerica

My 3 cents worth.

While Lightroom is no doubt an outstanding app it's requirement to also adopt their file management feature makes it DOA for me and my KISS needs. To my cluttered mind that adds an additional layer of complexity to a Windows standard file system now containing 6+ GB of my 50 years of photos. Import them all - I think not. Import some and not others and manage that - I think not.

And yes it is "non-destructive" but that requires a "side car of data" attached to a non-RAW file designation that has to be moved with Lightroom's file management, AND we have to factor in their unique DNG default. These pages bear testimony to the the troubles thus entailed with "lost my" and "help moving" and "stopped working" and "can't find it" pleas for help. Again KISS. Then if you divorce Adobe and can no longer edit a previous non-destructive edit it's a till death do us part. What about the steps to post an edited picture on line dicovering that the edits did not appear on the posted picture. Eh?

I don't need to catalog each photo i.e. "Jane kissing frog" "Lassie rolling over". My simple grouping: 2021-05-06 Sanibel Island, etc., works. And to grade my work - 1 - 5 stars - has to be a form of self-flaguation. "Would you like to come over and see my 5-stars sometime?"

Anyway sorry for the scarsicsm.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You're welcome to use whatever software you want. But, you're not welcome to believe and spread false information.

1. The DNG format is a self-choice and not a requirement to use LR. If you made that choice and don't like the DNG, only you are to blame and you're more than welcome to change your import settings in LR and stop using DNGs.

2. There is no side-car requirement either. It adds an additional layer of safety to the edit instruction data that are stored always inside the LR catalog. The side-car files simply externalize that data into image specific side-car files. Again, entirely your choice with zero required use.

3. If you stop the subscription, you do lose your edit ability. But, all your catalog information remains searchable and existing images, and their current state of edits, continue to be available for export into any target format and resolution. Your decision to stop your subscription again is a personal choice, entirely under your control, just as your decision to prepare (or ignore) any appropriate actions prior to stopping your individual subscription.

4. Finally, if you want to accomplish less while spending more time and effort using a generic file system rather than a imaging professional digital assessment manager, again that's your own personal choice. An industry composed of professionals and advanced amateurs and enthusiasts has determined Lightroom is the preferred toolset. Nothing could be simpler than a basic date-stamped folder structure. But, if you want to make it more complex than this simplified approach, again that's your own personal decision on how you want to waste your own time, but LR doesn't care and ingests your files from any folders you want to use. The software doesn't force you to do anything you don't want to do.

So, it seems you don't really have even two penny's worth of actual technical knowledge of Lightroom to scratch together.

Bayou

Try the free trial of ACDSee Ultimate. I left Lightroom/Photoshop for it years ago and couldn't be happier. The lifetime license is $150 but it often goes on sale for much less.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I use LR6 for my Nikon raw files. For Sony and Fuji, I use Paintshop Pro or Affinity.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I have used several different apps for scanned film and digital capture over the years and I have settled on two.

I have been using all sorts of computers for more than five decades and I am comfortable with database models like DBMS and Access. These are great for cataloging discrete facts (fixed field size) but they are not the best choice for BLOB data (binary large objects) that vary in size like images and raw data. But the native file system (DOS, NTFS, etc.) can deal with BLOB data easily.

Although a lot of users like to have their images under the control of a data access module (DAM) we often see issues with catalogs getting out of sync with the most important information, the raw and image data itself.

For that reason I prefer programs that allow me direct access to the images themselves. I keep them in a logical directory structure under a hierarchy defined by folder and sub-folder names. That makes them easy to find. For scanned film I supplement this with an Access data that makes it easy locate old images that have no EXIF information.

For my scanned B&W film images I use a free program:



PWP v7 is a bit primitive but full of features. Development on the original program stopped with version 7.0.20. I don't use it with color or raw digital conversions because it's not the best tool. A newer version 8 is still not mature.

I have used Lightroom but found its DAM less reliable than my simple directory structure which is easy to back up.

I prefer Capture One Pro (C1) because it has a Sessions approach as an alternative to the Catalog DAM. That leaves me in control of the data management including backups and it's easy to transfer sessions between computers when necessary.

C1 can do just about everything that I could do in Lightroom and some of the stuff where I might have needed to resort to another program such as Photoshop. C1 is more expensive than Lightroom/PS but I can buy the program with a perpetual license and, if I upgrade only every other year, that costs less. Just about everything in C1 is parametric like Lightroom but Photoshop is not.

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

I've had my own filing system for years, so I have no use for LR. However, Photoshop with Adobe Camera Raw is more than enough and really not that difficult to learn at an acceptable level. If there were an option to purchase PS/ACR alone I would do that, but LR being there but unused is not a problem.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

I assume you know that Capture NX2 was replaced by NX Studio.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Just to clarify ... Lightroom never did / never does 'store' the actual image file. It only stores a 'pointer' to where the image resides on disk. LR stored the 'instructions' of how to edit the image as well as some internally generated 'previews' of those edits, with the preview files on disk, not inside the RDBMS. So whether you're suspicious of RDBMS technology in 2021 or not, that question of blobs doesn't apply to how Lightroom stores data.

photoman43

I shoot Nikon and use the free Nikon Raw Processor, now called Studio. My main RAW processor is DXOPhotolab4 --Elite edition. With Elite you get Deep Prime Noise reduction software. I love using Control Points for local adjustments and I can do that in a limited way in Studio and in expanded ways in DXOPL4.

I Have also used Lightroom and Adobe Camera Raw . I do not like(or need) the catalogue features of LR so when I need to use Adobe, I use ACR to do my RAW file processing.

I have not tried out Capture One Pro but that is one I would suggest you try out as you figure out which ne is best for you and your kind of photography AND your workflow.