frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

Before you choose any program, use each one you are thinking about for the full trial period and rate it. Then after doing this analyze your comments and then make your decision. If you are considering a free one, try it for 30 days also. Do each one, by itself, for the full period. Use the same set of photos for each trial and you might even save each edit in a directory named for each program, so you can compare edits.

dsnoke Loc: North Georgia, USA

I have used darktable on both Linux and Windows (7 and 10), and I find it much better on Linux than Windows. But I use it mainly as the raw editor plugin for GIMP. I have also toyed with Lightzone (lightzoneproject.org), a free editor based on Ansel Adam's zone system. Both are useful, but each has its own learning curve, strengths and weaknesses. My most used editor is Affinity Photo, which does stuff darktable does not, like panoramas, stacking and HDR. Affinity is raising its price a bit, but it is still much less expensive than the Adobe products.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That's the main reason I've stuck with Adobe apps for decades... I like to leverage what I already know, rather than try to learn new ways to do the same old things. Learning a new app through the eyes of experience with a previous app can limit one to the workflow habits of the old app. It's easy to get confused, or worse, ignore the features of the new application.

$9.99/month for two Lightrooms, Photoshop, Bridge, and the other goodies you get is very reasonable. Developers gotta eat. A key reason Adobe went to the subscription model is the amount of software piracy that they were facing. They were probably losing every third or fourth sale due to software sharing and bootleg copies. Then, too, bootleggers often sold copies contaminated with malware and viruses.

The subscription model really has been far better for me than the old, "Buy an upgrade every 18-24 months" model. Bug fixes are now downloadable the day they are made available, and you are notified INSTANTLY when they are. New features are distributed quite frequently. BOTH upgrades and updates are always downloadable at no extra charge, whenever they get released. The price has been stable for years and years. It's less than subscriptions to some daily newspapers. It's less than a decent fast food meal every month. Its value far exceeds its price, if you really think about it.

One thing amateurs need to remember: While anyone can use Adobe apps, their primary audience is the professional creative community. They developed Lightroom in the mid-2000s for those of us who needed a lab-grade, database-based, non-destructive workflow for our images. Lab software only worked on proprietary raw files. Lightroom worked on most brands' raw files. Hello! Sign me up now, Scotty.

Lightroom was beta tested by thousands and thousands of professional photographers. I was one of them. Since I had been using professional lab apps from Kodak (KPIS, DP2) for a decade, I was very glad Adobe developed it. It gave Apple some competition for Aperture. I liked Aperture better until version 3, but then the crowd-sourcing of ideas that Adobe pumped into Lightroom overtook Aperture.

Darktable is a very decent program, like much open-source software. What open source software lacks is the community of professional developers and professional users to keep it fresh, plus the support and training and educational resources you get with paid apps. Yes, you do get what you pay for.

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

$9.99 x 12 = $119.88

Well worth it for me.

YMMV.

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

$9.99 x 12 = $119.88

Well worth it for me.

YMMV.

Jagnut07 Loc: South Carolina

$9.99 x 12 = $119.88

Well worth it for me.

YMMV.

HRBIEL Loc: Rapid City, SD

I know many on this list are Nikon shooters but I have seen no mention in this thread of Nikon’s free software program NX Studio. Would be curious to know how it compares to Darktable and others.

kcooke Loc: Alabama

Dark table does do HDR and panoramas but I don’t think it does focus stacking.

quote=dsnoke]I have used darktable on both Linux and Windows (7 and 10), and I find it much better on Linux than Windows. But I use it mainly as the raw editor plugin for GIMP. I have also toyed with Lightzone (lightzoneproject.org), a free editor based on Ansel Adam's zone system. Both are useful, but each has its own learning curve, strengths and weaknesses. My most used editor is Affinity Photo, which does stuff darktable does not, like panoramas, stacking and HDR. Affinity is raising its price a bit, but it is still much less expensive than the Adobe products.[/quote]

terryMc Loc: Arizona's White Mountains

Before you had to subscribe to Photoshop, it typically cost over $700. There would usually be a major upgrade about every 16-18 months, and you waited that long for improvements and bug fixes. Once you bought the initial license upgrades were cheaper, but still more than the $120 per month that the Photographer's Package currently costs. With the current model you don't wait for upgrades, even minor updates and bug fixes are available for download as soon as they're ready

Even Elements, which you can typically buy for about $90, and lacks the best of the full version, would cost more if you bought every upgrade. But hey, you don't have to get a subscription...

People love to say "I don't rent my software, I want to own it." You buy a license, you don't own anything. If you owned it, you would have access to source code, you would be able to install it on as many machines as you wished, and you could give it to all your friends. With a license, you were still allowed only two machines and could only use one at a time. Of course that was abused all the time, and there was probably no other software in the world that was pirated like Photoshop. I believe that it was that reality, and not "greed," that forced Adobe to the subscription model.

When you bought Photoshop, you got Bridge with it. Later, Adobe Camera Raw came out as a downloadable plugin that you could get free. Now, with the subscription, you get Photoshop, Camera Raw and Lightroom, along with free web storage, access to assets like free fonts and stock photos, and several other lesser programs, all with free updates as they become available, not a year later.

You also get the industry standard image editing programs, not something that is "almost as good," or does "almost the same things," or gets "pretty much the same results," as I have seen claimed so many times for programs like the GIMP, or Affinity Photo, and the rest.

If all that isn't worth $10 a month, I don't know what is....

Ednsb Loc: Santa Barbara

If you want to ditch Adobe then I agree that Affinity has a good replacement for Photoshop, not Lightroom as it is not a Data Management app. It is on sale right now until at like 33% off. If you need a DAM and a RAW processor I would look at PSE or better yet On1.

I wasn't impressed with DarkRoom except for the price.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You are the tools you use.

rwm283main Loc: Terryville, CT

I agree with you on all the above. I can remember and had purchased the Adobe Creative Suites starting with CS2 (still using CS5 on my 14 year old iMac). Yes, it was pricey. Eventually I picked up Lightroom and Photoshop as the Photographer’s package so that I could process RAW images. I still have my subscription to and use regularly LR & PS. They are great photo editing tools. I came across this article about Darktable and it peaked my interests. I don’t expect it to be as robust and as smooth running as the former tools but since the price is right and it sounds appealing why not give it a try. It might just blow me away, good or bad.

Bill_de Loc: US

And you are a tool!



---

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

That is one reason I am not out there trying all those great programs that are appearing these days. I'm 82 and want to spend my time doing things, not learning something new unless it has a clear advantage. It's not that I don't want to learn, but that I want to direct my learning to useful pursuits. LR/PS works for me and I've long been a proponent of "if it works, don't fix it". I have enough trouble with the updates that change the UI, even slightly. My meat memory (and muscle memory) has passed it's prime learning period and when things change it takes me a while to mitigate it. And change is the one constant in software.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I agree it's well worth it, but don't forget that it depends on where you live. The $9.99/month is subject to sales tax. So for me it's $10.65 x 12 = $127.80. Still worth it by far.