What can I do with LR on an iPad?

[charis9]

I assume that my question can be out of the topic. Maybe someone has tried Lightroom alternatives? I heard about Darktable and as far as i remember it is for free. Any feedback or suggestion?

Thank you in advance

The only alternative to LR I have tried is Capture One Pro 10. I bought the Capture One Pro 10 for Sony license for $50. It has good editing tools, but I'm not impressed with its clunky UI. It is okay for $50, but if I had needed more than just Sony camera support then I would have had to pay $300, and that would have been several times what it is worth to me. It is barely worth the $50 to me. It does allow remote operation of some cameras, but not full control of any of mine. I prefer LR as they both have good editing tools but LR is easier to use and has a much better UI, IMO.

I guess we need to know what you would want in a LR alternative. LR is capable of managing large catalogs of photos, and it is also capable of editing photos and metadata, creating time lapse video, etc. If you are only intersted in the catalog feature then there are certainly some alternatives available, but the more features you add to the wish list the fewer options that will be available.

I know and understand that people like freeware, but I also know that freeware often becomes abandoned-ware. Freeware also tends to not get updated very often. In photo editing the apps need to have compatibility with camera models if you want to edit RAW images directly, and freeware might not be up to date with the newer cameras on the market. You can of course convert the RAW to DNG or TIFF or some other format before importing it, but that is another step requiring another app. Just some things to consider.

[HarryT]

Lightroom's worth every penny, to my mind. If you're editing the occasional picture you can do it with a photo editor, but if you're systematically processing large numbers of photographs with a requirement to be able to easily catalogue them, Lightroom is unbeatable. I find the number of occasions on which I need to use a separate editing tool is very low; the overwhelming majority of my editing tasks (and all my cataloguing ones) I can do in Lightroom.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Lightroom's worth every penny, to my mind. If you're editing the occasional picture you can do it with a photo editor, but if you're systematically processing large numbers of photographs with a requirement to be able to easily catalogue them, Lightroom is unbeatable. I find the number of occasions on which I need to use a separate editing tool is very low; the overwhelming majority of my editing tasks (and all my cataloguing ones) I can do in Lightroom.

I totally agree, LR is well worth the $149 USD price tag. Upgrading from a qualifying older version is only $79 USD. Even though I have the CC membership, if Adobe ever offers a LR 7 upgrade I will purchase it just in case I ever decide to cancel the CC.

Since Adobe likes to make you search for the Buy page, they prefer you get the cloud version, I am including that link below:

Purchase a Lightroom 6 Perpetual License

.......

[kyteflyer]

I bought my Lightroom Licence at a local B&M store. I almost never use it anymore, but at the time I was fairly pleased. Pretty sure all my additional software (macphun, Nik, Topaz etc) work with it. But, they also work with Photos and I like photostream... its convenient. I do *not* use iCloud Drive, I cant afford the storage fees and 5GB basic isnt enough to store photographs.

ON the other hand... I end up with a lot of junk in the photostream...

I would probably be more inclined to use LR if it also worked with the iPad LR independent of CC, but I think a CC membership is required to sync between the two. An alternative to that is Photosmith, which will sync Lightroom stuff to iPad and doesnt need CC. Its pretty nice. [Edit: never mind about Photosmith, not updated for 3 years. Damn, it really was very good]

[charis9]

Hey, guys! Do you know any alternatives of the Lightroom? I read about LightZone. Maybe there are any other suggestions?
Thank you!

I just googled and looked up LightZone. It looks like abandon-ware. Even their website hasn't been updated since 2014. Meh!!!

For Macs, there really isn't a decent LR alternative that doesn't cost as much or more than it does. LR is well worth the price.

The old saying "you get what you pay for" rings true. A lot of people these days want freeware, but I've yet to find much of that that is worth even installing. I prefer to buy good software that is well maintained and supported. A lot of the freeware is either abandoned or developed/maintained by a committee, and as such is usually a mess to run.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by charis9

Hey, guys! Do you know any alternatives of the Lightroom? I read about LightZone. Maybe there are any other suggestions?
Thank you!

I tried Lightzone, didn't really get along with it. Darktable is buggy as heck, though, having said that I must confess I haven't actually tried it for a long time.

To be honest, I really think that Photos, with a few extensions, is likely the current best (and least expensive) option. I now prefer it to Aperture, which I also own, and because of its tight integration with the OS, I have even pretty much left Lightroom alone as well.

For me, Photos for cataloging and basic edits, and many extensions for more advanced editing. I linked to Macphun on the previous page, and seriously, those are excellent products. I use them much more often than I do any others. There's one extension for photos that puts everything in reach (including Photoshop et al) and that is "External Editors for Photos". https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/exte...74021862?mt=12

[charis9]

Thank you for your replies I am sure that LR is a good option but still want to consider all options before taking the final decision! I found more alternatives and detailed descriptions about them...but most of them are completely new to me :/ Anyone tried these programs?

I've heard a bit about RawTherapee, but I've never tried it or any of the apps on that list.

I think the important thing to consider is what you want from a LR alternative. Which of these best describes your photography level?

• Amateur photographer who only wants to have a simple do it for you type of photo editor. If this is you, then you likely only shoot in JPEG format. There are plenty of low level apps available for this level of editing, and they mostly have multiple choice options for editing.
• Enthusiast photographer who wants a bit more control over the photo editing process. If on this level, you may or may not shoot in RAW format, but either way you want to be able to do more editing than simply selecting from a list of options. You might be able to use a histogram to help get your photos better processed, for example. There are some choices at this level, but again, using the freeware you run a great risk of winding up with abandon-ware or difficult to use open source.
• A higher level enthusiast or professional photographer who wants maximum control over the photo editing process. At this level you are likely shooting RAW format, know what a histogram is and how to adjust things like Curves, Levels, Exposure, White Balance, Hue, Vibrance, Saturation, et cetera. Your best option on this level is to stick with LR or another widely accepted and professionally developed app.

[HarryT]

The fundamental difference between LR and a pixel editing program is that, strange though it sounds, LR doesn't in fact edit your picture. What is does is allow you to apply a sequence of editing operations, but it stores the list of operations, rather than their results. You can go backwards and forwards through the list of edits, and apply the editing operations you've done on one picture to a whole series of others. This makes it great for "batch processing" a whole run of images at a time. The only time the picture actually gets "edited" is when you export it from LR as a JPEG, but even then it's creating a copy; the original is untouched.

Originally Posted by HarryT

The fundamental difference between LR and a pixel editing program is that, strange though it sounds, LR doesn't in fact edit your picture. What is does is allow you to apply a sequence of editing operations, but it stores the list of operations, rather than their results. You can go backwards and forwards through the list of edits, and apply the editing operations you've done on one picture to a whole series of others. This makes it great for "batch processing" a whole run of images at a time. The only time the picture actually gets "edited" is when you export it from LR as a JPEG, but even then it's creating a copy; the original is untouched.

Yes, that is called "non-destructive photo editing". Enthusiasts and professions are likely going to want this option. Others might want it too, of course. Apps that use non-destructive photo editing create a text file containing the edit information. So for example, if I edited a RAW file named MyRAWPhoto.arw, the app would create an associated text file named something similar to MyRAWPhoto.xmp which contains the information for all of the non-destructive edits. LR places this info in a database file, whereas PS creates an XMP file. Either way, the result is the same. when I open MyRAWPhoto.arw in LR or PS or whatever other app that can do non-destructive edits, it will look for the associated file like MyRAWPhoto.xmp and use it to recreate the edits. In non-destructive editing, the actual RAW file is never edited, only the associated file is updated with the edit information.

[kyteflyer]

I've just downloaded Rawtherapee *and* Darktable, since I haven't used either of them for at least 4 years. It should be interesting. There are a few people in the photography forums I go to, who do recommend Rawtherapee as the best LR alternative, I had completely forgotten about it.

[edit] And I've deleted darktable again. Its probably fine if you have a background in linux but for me, even though I have used Linux a lot, its still not even the least bit intuitive. RawTherapee is much much better.

[charis9]

Thank you for your tips and suggestions!

[dwig]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The fundamental difference between LR and a pixel editing program is that, strange though it sounds, LR doesn't in fact edit your picture. What is does is allow you to apply a sequence of editing operations, but it stores the list of operations, rather than their results. Y...

... which is an "editing" method that first gained popularity in the video editing world when you edited a low res electronic copy, saved the EDL (Edit Decision List) and then use that EDL to "scrip" the then rather slow process of editing the full resolution file, often on a separate computer.

Lr, like modern video editing software, is also a proxy editor in that you edit a preview, often lower resolution though Lr can generate full resolution previews, and the edits are applied to a full resolution copy if and when you "export" the image.