Goodby Lightroom? (Page 5): Nothing is easy anymore. Especially logging in, changing or canceling ANYTHING! Sure is easy to sign up for something though. They love that re-occurring...

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

CHG_CANON wrote:

Good, glad to help. I was looking this week for the photographer's plan and Adobe does not make it easy. For several moments, they had me convinced they'd dropped that price option.

Nothing is easy anymore. Especially logging in, changing or canceling ANYTHING! Sure is easy to sign up for something though. They love that re-occurring and predictable income. I spend more time trying to log into websites than actually using them.

Peteso Loc: Blacks Hills

I dumped LR about five years ago in favor of ON1 and never looked back. It was one of the best photography decisions I ever made.

shackcf

jm76237 wrote:

I am thinking of dumping my subscription to LR. 2 questions:
1 Best alternative?
2 What do I do with all my NEF files?

As one other has said Nikons NX Studio works very well and it is free. I used it for years along with GIMP as an editor after exporting the NEF to JPG.

I abandoned Adobe in 2019 after they broke PS with 2 different releases. I use DXO PL and ON1 at times. I use Affinity photo for editing. No subscriptions required and I update DXO when I think it is worth it.So I have the latest as it has a full Metadata editor and updated noise reduction system.

Now if you use the LRC catalog you may have issues finding your images. I believe that Adobe Bridge can help with that and it is free, I think. I have my own file & naming system so catalogs are useless for me. I use Nikon's transfer app to change the image file name to match the project.

Now I keep RAW files as I have found out that should I want to rework the image, jpg just does not have all the data I might need.
With the ever changing options in editing
apps I find myself reaching back to images 10 years back but due to limited disk space back then I deleted the RAWs. I do have from 2017 forward now. I just buy more storage now. Check the option for yourself.

Most of the competition to Adobe photo tools have 15 to.30 day trials. Good luck.

jamesl Loc: Pennsylvania

jm76237 wrote:

I am thinking of dumping my subscription to LR. 2 questions:
1 Best alternative?
2 What do I do with all my NEF files?

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darktable is a free program very similar to Lightroom. Check out ON1 Photo RAW too. You can download a trial copy to see if it would work for you too.

SteveZas Loc: Lemont, Illinois

You can always convert to TIFF files. They should go anywhere.
I have On1, Skylar PS/LR.
I almost exclusively use PS and frankly, not that many features. But when I may reach an impasse in some process, I always can find it in PS. $9.95 a month is extremely cheap especially when considering all the updates. On1 was to be considered a standalone but is constantly upgrading as new processes develop or processes just get faster, therefore, incurring a similar cost to PS/LR. This is not to mention LR’s superior cataloguing.
The price for a PS/LR is about the price of a one time decent dinner for two at decent restaurant ( without drinks ) for a year.
Rather than dump it, consider looking to constantly improve one’s skill set and utilize the tools that are in the program. After all, this is our passion ( AKA addiction )!!

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

SteveZas wrote:

You can always convert to TIFF files. They should go anywhere.

Not onto your exhausted storage due to a bad decision of TIFF. Ooops. The original RAW is enough.

SteveZas Loc: Lemont, Illinois

CHG_CANON wrote:

Not onto your exhausted storage due to a bad decision of TIFF. Ooops. The original RAW is enough.

I agree that the original raw is enough. I do a tremendous amount of HDR and layering. While I can always go back and recreate, I reserve those Tiff’s for what I think are my endpoint. Of course, though, I look at it a week later and want to do it over again😀😀😀

josquin1 Loc: Massachusetts

jm76237 wrote:

I am thinking of dumping my subscription to LR. 2 questions:
1 Best alternative?
2 What do I do with all my NEF files?

I have found ON1 works very well for me. Very easy to use with excellent results.

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

SteveZas wrote:

I agree that the original raw is enough. I do a tremendous amount of HDR and layering. While I can always go back and recreate, I reserve those Tiff’s for what I think are my endpoint. Of course, though, I look at it a week later and want to do it over again😀😀😀

My endpoint is the raw file and the edit sequence, which is kept in the LR catalog (and an XML file). There is only one time I use tif: for images I want to do numeric analysis on. For general use jpg is just fine (as long as it's saved at a reasonable quality level).

JBGLADSTONE Loc: Oregon

josquin1 wrote:

I have found ON1 works very well for me. Very easy to use with excellent results.

I agree. ON1 is very easy to use. AI can completely increase the speed of Post Processing. Oh for sure, you can make changes to the AI settings. RAW 2023 really is a step up in features and performance.
Give ON1 RAW 2023 a free 14 day trial and see for yourself. Plus gto YouTube for video features.

A great feature is you can use ON1 as a plugin to Photoshop.

Badgertale Loc: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Bill_de wrote:

Nikon NX Studio - Free from Nikon will handle them.

Or just delete them and use .jpg files.

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SACRILEGE!

LOL

chevman Loc: Matthews, North Carolina

Check out this video from OnOne Photo Raw. It may answer all your questions. I quit Adobe LR on the final perpetual license. You can get OnOne with a perpetual or subscription your choice. Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/5BYizexgRLU

chevman Loc: Matthews, North Carolina

jm76237 wrote:

I am thinking of dumping my subscription to LR. 2 questions:
1 Best alternative?
2 What do I do with all my NEF files?

Check out this video from OnOne Photo Raw. It may answer all your questions. I quit Adobe LR on the final perpetual license. You can get OnOne with a perpetual or subscription your choice. Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/5BYizexgRLU

jm76237

chevman wrote:

Check out this video from OnOne Photo Raw. It may answer all your questions. I quit Adobe LR on the final perpetual license. You can get OnOne with a perpetual or subscription your choice. Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/5BYizexgRLU

Thank you - very helpful

jaredjacobson

jm76237 wrote:

I am thinking of dumping my subscription to LR. 2 questions:
1 Best alternative?
2 What do I do with all my NEF files?

I have used Darktable for years and it is both very powerful and free. Simple edits are a breeze. Much more complex edits are possible. I like its implementation of healing better than Lightroom’s. Masking is more flexible in Darktable, but Lightroom has a few mask options that are easier to use. I find navigating the interface much easier in Darktable, but that may be mostly because I’ve been using it longer.

Darktable is cross platform, so it works on Windows and Linux. With Lightroom I have to remote a different computer to edit, which is annoying.

I find Lightroom’s colors a little nicer immediately upon opening a raw file.