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Adobe Lightroom Reviews Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom remains the gold standard in pro photo workflow software. It's a complete package, with top-notch organization tools, state of-the-art. Lightroom CC is available as part of a special Creative Cloud subscription for photographers that includes Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC for $9.99 USD per month, or as part of the complete Creative Cloud subscription which includes all available Adobe apps for $49.99 USD per month. Cloud syncing across devices. This is easily one of Lightroom’s greatest strengths. Adobe Lightroom Review. Edit, organize, and sync your photos to the cloud. The Lightroom app takes up 1.3GB on my hard drive, half a gigabyte less than Lightroom Classic. While there's a standalone Lightroom CC plan, the current Photography Plan includes both the CC and Classic CC applications. Dec 22, 2017 Until October 2017, Lightroom was a regular desktop app that came in two versions. Lightroom CC was part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud subscription program, where you pay a.

I didn't bother using Adobe Photo Apps on the iPhone and iPad when I turned to iPhone photography in 2012. I briefly tried Adobe Photoshop Touch for iOS before Adobe discontinued it a few years ago and then turned to several other apps to edit my photos on iPhone.

But once Apple announced support for saving RAW photos from third-party camera apps, I had a closer look at Adobe Lightroom Mobile to develop RAW files.

And soon, I began to use it to edit JPG files, too.

In the past years, Adobe demonstrated lots of love for Lightroom Mobile and added new features several times a year. Today, as of 2020, Adobe Lightroom Mobile Premium ist my main photo editing app on iPhone and iPad.

So, let's have a look why I turned to Lightroom Mobile and compare the features of Lightroom Mobile free to Lightroom Mobile Premium:

• Adobe Lightroom User Interface

10 reasons to use Adobe Lightroom Mobile

Since I started using Adobe Lightroom Mobile, it made my life as an iPhone photographer so much more easy in so many ways. Here are the top reasons why I have chosen Adobe Lightroom Mobile as my favorite iPhone photo editing app:

1. Lightroom Mobile supports non-destructive editing.

   So you can always undo each single or all edits on any device, at any time, even after you closed and re-opened Lightroom.

2. It supports selective adjustments.

   This feature allows you to apply adjustments to only a part of your photo. I need and use this a lot, and it's really convenient to use with Apple Pencil on iPad.

3. It properly handles metadata.

   This is something where many apps failed in the past, and some still do. Plus, you can add keywords and copyright info as metadata to your photos.

4. With Lightroom Mobile, you can create and apply presets.

   If you have installed your favorite presets in Lightroom Desktop, they will be automatically synced to the mobile version and you can even create your own right on your iPhone or iPad

5. You can create web albums.

   Share them with friends, clients, or cooperation partners right from within Lightroom Mobile. You can even protect a web album with a password.

6. You get a web version of Lightroom CC.

   This way you're able to access and use your Lightroom photos from any computer anywhere in the world. The feature list of the web version is pretty impressive.

7. It syncs photos and edits.

   So you can start to edit a photo on the iPhone and continue where you stopped on the iPad. And the other way round.

8. Sync Lightroom Albums with a free portfolio website.

   Up to 5 free portfolio websites are included in the Lightroom CC plan if you subscribe. My previous portfolio website costed around 50 USD per year alone.

9. It has an intuitive User Interface.
10. Apple TV and Fire TV Lightroom App that you can use to present your edited masterpieces on the big screen. Needless to say, that you'll find your photos these apps in exactly the same folders and albums that you've created in Lightoom Mobile.

And, because it’s not directly photography related, I mention it separately. With a subscription you also get access to all Adobe Fonts. You can use them on your website and even install them on your iPad and iPhone using the Create Cloud App if you run iOS 13.

Is Adobe Lightroom Mobile Free?

Sort of. You can use some features of Lightroom Mobile for free. Other features like editing RAW files or making selective adjustments are premium features and require a paid subscription after a trial period. See a detailed list of free and premium features in the following chapter.

Feature List and comparison of Adobe Lightroom Mobile Free and Premium

Okay, so here is the comparison list of the features available in Lightroom Free and Lightroom Mobile Premium.

Feature	Lightroom Free?	Lightroom Premium?
Exposure	Yes	Yes
Contrast	Yes	Yes
Highlights	Yes	Yes
Shadows	Yes	Yes
Blackpoint	Yes	Yes
Color Temperatur	Yes	Yes
Color Tone	Yes	Yes
Color Dynamic	Yes	Yes
Saturation	Yes	Yes
Texture	Yes	Yes
Clarity	Yes	Yes
Remove Haze	Yes	Yes
Vignette	Yes	Yes
Denise	Yes	Yes
Sharpen	Yes	Yes
Add Grain	Yes	Yes
Cropping	Yes	Yes
Black and White	Yes	Yes
Batch Editing	-	Yes
Edit RAW Files	-	Yes
Selective Adjustments	-	Yes
Presets	-	Yes
Repair Tool	-	Yes
Perspective Correction	-	Yes
Syncing	-	Yes
Web Galleries	-	Yes
Sensei Search	-	Yes
People View	-	Yes
Adobe Spark	-	Yes
Portfolio Website	-	Yes
Adobe Fonts	-	Yes

As you can see, you can use many features of Adobe Lightroom Mobile freely without a subscription, and that's an excellent way to get started with or try Lightroom Mobile.

Let's have a closer look at the main Lightroom Premium features you get with a subscription:

• Edit RAW Files

  You can open and develop RAW files from your DSLR or from a third-party iPhone Camera App like ProCamera.

• Selective Adjustments

  Use this feature to apply adjustments to only a part of a photo. Works great for dodging and burning.

• Presets

  Sync your existing desktop presets to Lightroom Mobile and even create your own on iPhone or iPad that will sync back to the desktop version.

• Repair Tool

  Fix imperfections using either the healing brush or clone stamp tool.

• Perspective Correction.

  Apply geometric and perspective corrections. I use that a lot, especially when shooting architecture.

• Synchronisation

  Your photos will automatically sync between Lightroom on iPhone/iPad, Lightroom Web Edition, and Lightroom on the Desktop. Note that the subscription plan includes the desktop version of Lightroom CC.

• Web Galleries.

  Create Web Galleries from Lightroom Mobile. See a sample Adobe Web gallery I've created.

• Sensei Search

  An AI based search that automatically detects what's in a photo and allows you to search for it. A huge time saver because you don't have to tag everything manually

• Batch Editing

  With this feature, you can easily apply the same adjustments to multiple images.

• People view

I think this pretty much illustrates, why I chose to subscribe to Adobe Lightroom Premium.

As of 2020 and in addition to the free version, Adobe offers a 7 day trial for the premium features. So, you may want tocheck the current offerings for Lightroom Mobile Premium on Adobe.com

How much does Adobe Lightroom cost?

Adobe offers a few different Plans for Photographers. The cheapest one is Lightroom only (Desktop & Mobile), with 1 TB of cloud storage for $9.99. As an alternative, for the same price, you can get Lightroom & Photoshop, both for desktop and iOS, with 20 GB of Creative Cloud storage for the same amount. When you subscribe, you get some cool extras as outlined in the comparison table above.

To help you decide, look the following calculation I did (for myself; your mileage may vary):

• Originally, Adobe Lightroom costed $179 if you bought the full license.
• New releases, so-called Updates, came out about every 18 months and were priced at $49.

So over three years (buying the full license plus two upgrades), the total cost of Lightroom would have been $277.

But with a Creative Cloud subscription, you'll also get a portfolio website, online storage to sync photos between devices and a tool for quickly creating beautiful web and social media graphics, called 'Adobe Spark' plus a nearly endless supply of Fonts.

I did market research before I subscribed and found the following prices for similar tools:

• A simple photo portfolio website costs something around $50 per year.
• 1 TB of cloud storage is around $5 per month or about $50 per year (if paid yearly).
• A tool for creating graphics for the Web and Social Media is around $10 per month.

So over three years with the old pricing model, the cost for a Lightroom, including two upgrades, a portfolio website, a design Software for Social Media images, and 1 TB of cloud storage, would sum up to $967.

Now, the Lightroom Premium plan is $9.99, which includes up to 5 portfolio websites, Adobe Spark Software, and 1 TB of cloud storage to sync photos.

So, for three years, that's a total of $360 ($10 x 36 months) compared to $967, as mentioned above.

For me, that sounded like a deal, and that was one of the reasons I subscribed (and canceled my other portfolio website hosting plus the graphics editor for social media I used).

Adobe Lightroom User Interface

When you open Lightroom Mobile for the first time, you'll see the home screen. In the top left corner are three buttons:

• Home Screen. Displays the most recent photos and a list of tutorials you can watch.
• Library view. This is where all your photos are
• People. To find and group people in your photos.

We're looking for the library view. It's the place where all your imported photos are stored. It contains all folders and albums you have created. At the top of the list are four albums that Lightroom already created for you. Most important is the All Photos album, where you'll find all your imported photos.

Lightroom Mobile offers two ways to import photos: Either use the built-in Lightroom Camera to take a photo or import a photo from the camera roll. To import multiple images in one batch, swipe over each to select it.

Both options are in the blue toolbar in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Adobe Lightroom App Review Iphone

Once you've imported a photo, it will be added All Photos album. To begin editing a photo, tap on it.

Note the mode selector in the upper left corner after you've tapped a photo to edit it. Here, you select what you want to do:

• Edit puts you into editing / developing mode. Now you can adjust and edit your photo.
• Rate & Review allows you to assign a star rating as well as setting the accepted or rejected flag.
• Activity will display all comments from a shared web-album for this photo.
• Under Keywords you can manually assign multiple keywords to a photo.
• In Info you're able to enter a title and description as well as copyright info; plus, you'll see some important metadata about your photo.

Editing Mode in Adobe Lightroom Mobile

Editing Mode is what we're looking for. Now we can adjust and tune our photos. Once you've switched to editing mode, note the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. Here are all the different editing sliders grouped by topic. Adobe calls those adjustment groups. To open one of the groups, and adjust the corresponding settings, tap one of the groups.

Then a drawer will pop up, which contains all the adjustment sliders. Swipe up inside the drawer to see all the sliders available for that group.

Adobe Lightroom Ipad Review

The available adjustment groups in Adobe Lightroom Mobile are:

• Selective Adjustments
• Crop
• Profiles
• Light
• Color
• Effect
• Detail
• Geometry
• Optics
• Presets

Adobe Lightroom Mobile Tips and Tricks

And finally, here are some useful tips and tricks for working with Lightroom Mobile that I discovered. I guess I should RTFM more often.

• When using any slider, tap on the left (label) of the slider to decrease the slider by -5. Tap the value on the right of the slider to increase the value by +5
• Double-tap on any slider to reset it to its default value.
• Adobe Lightroom can mark clipping areas! In the lights editing group tap and hold either the exposure, shadows, highlights, blacks or whites slider and use a second finger to tap the image itself. Lightroom will display white clipping in red and black clipping in blue. While keeping the slider and photo tapped, adjust the slider for better results.
• To avoid over-sharpening your images, Lightroom Mobile can display a sharpening mask. In the detail editing group, tap and hold the sharpening, radius, detail, or masking slider and use a second finger to tap the image itself. There's your sharpening mask.

Is Lightroom Mobile Premium worth it?

As I've mentioned at the beginning of this article, Adobe Lightroom Mobile has become my main app for editing photos on the go. In addition to all the premium features in Lightroom Mobile, you get additional extras that alone are worth the money.

Adobe Lightroom App Review

These are up to 5 free portfolio websites and Adobe Spark for creating compelling graphics for your website and social media.

Moreover, in the past years, Adobe added new features to Lightroom Mobile once or twice a year without increasing the price.

So, if you just need a few filters, Adobe Lightroom Mobile maybe a bit inflated for you.

But if you want to edit your photos professionally in an easy and convenient way, I'd recommend and go for Lightroom Mobile Premium.

I did and never regretted it so far.

Quick Summary

Adobe Lightroom is an excellent RAW image editor backed up by solid library management and organizational tools. As part of the Adobe Creative Cloud software series, it has a wide range of integrations with other related image software, including the industry standard image editor, Photoshop. It also can output your retouched images in a range of formats from a Blurb photo book to an HTML-based slideshow.

For such a high-profile program from a well-known developer, there are a few bugs that are really beyond excuse – but even these issues are relatively minor. My modern graphics card (an AMD RX 480) isn’t supported by Lightroom for GPU acceleration features under Windows 10, despite having all the latest drivers, and there are some issues with the automatic application of lens correction profiles. Of course, as part of the Creative Cloud, Lightroom gets updated regularly, so there’s plenty of opportunity for fixing bugs in future updates – and new features are being added constantly.

What I Like

• Complete RAW Workflow
• Streamlines Common Editing Processes
• Excellent Library Management
• Mobile Companion App

What I Don't Like

• Complex Editing Features Need Work
• Outdated GPU Acceleration Support
• Lens Profile Correction Issues

Adobe Lightroom CC

Quick Navigation

// Why You Should Trust Me?
// What Is Adobe Lightroom?
// A Closer Look at Lightroom CC
// The Reasons Behind My Reviews & Ratings
// Lightroom CC Alternatives
// Conclusion

Why You Should Trust Me

Hi, my name is Thomas Boldt, and I wear many hats related to the graphic arts: graphic designer, photographer and image editor. This gives me a unique and comprehensive perspective on image editing software, which I’ve been working with since I first got my hands on Adobe Photoshop 5. I’ve followed the development of Adobe’s image editors since then, through the first version of Lightroom all the way to the current Creative Cloud edition.

I’ve also experimented and reviewed a number of other image editors from competing developers, which helps provide a sense of context about what can be achieved with image editing software. On top of that, I spent time learning about user interface and user experience design during my training as a graphic designer, which helps me spot the differences between the good software and the bad.

Adobe provided me with no compensation for the writing of this review, and they have had no editorial control or review of the content. That being said, it should also be noted that I am a subscriber to the full Creative Cloud suite, and have used Lightroom extensively as my primary RAW image editor.

What Is Adobe Lightroom?

Adobe Lightroom is a complete RAW photo editor which covers all aspects of a photographic workflow, from capture to editing to output. It is aimed at professional photographers who want to edit large numbers of files at once without sacrificing quality or attention to individual photos. Despite being aimed at the professional market, it’s easy enough to learn that amateur and semi-professional photographers will also receive a lot of benefit from it.

Lightroom CC vs Lightroom 6

Lightroom CC is part of the Creative Cloud software suite (hence the ‘CC’), while Lightroom 6 is the standalone version that was released before Adobe embraced the CC designation for all its software. Lightroom CC is only available through a monthly subscription, while Lightroom 6 can be purchased for a one-time fee on its own. The benefit of opting for the CC version is that because it’s a subscription, Adobe is constantly updating the software and providing new versions. If you choose to buy Lightroom 6, you won’t receive any product updates or new features as they are released.

Is Adobe Lightroom Free?

Adobe Lightroom is not free, although there is a 7-day free trial version available. Lightroom CC is available as part of a special Creative Cloud subscription for photographers that includes Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC for $9.99 USD per month, or as part of the complete Creative Cloud subscription which includes all available Adobe apps for $49.99 USD per month.

Lightroom 6, the previous version of the software, can be purchased as a standalone product for a one-time fee of $149 USD, but this will not include any future updates or new features that Adobe incorporates into Lightroom CC.

How Can I Learn to Use Lightroom?

Because Lightroom CC is a popular Adobe product, there are huge numbers of tutorials available across the web in almost any format you could want, including books available on Amazon. Here are some of the most comprehensive ones:

• The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby
• Adobe Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC for Photographers Classroom in a Book by Lesa Snider

A Closer Look at Lightroom CC

Note: Lightroom is a huge program, and Adobe is constantly adding new features. We don’t have time or space to go over everything that Lightroom can do, so I’ll stick to the most commonly used aspects. Also, the screenshots below are taken from the Windows version. Lightroom for Mac may look slightly different.

​Lightroom is one of the first image editors (maybe even the first app of any type) that I can remember using a dark grey interface. It’s a great setup for any kind of image work, and it really helps your images pop by eliminating the contrast glare from a white or light grey interface. It was so popular that Adobe began using it in all of its Creative Cloud apps, and many other developers began to follow the same style.

Lightroom is divided up into ‘Modules’, which can be accessed at the top right: Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web. Library and Develop are the two most heavily-used modules, so we’ll be focusing there. As you can see, my library is currently empty because I recently updated my folder sorting scheme – but this gives me a chance to show you how the import process works, and many of the Library module’s organizational functions.

Library & File Organization

Importing files is a snap, and there are several ways to get it done. Simplest is the Import button in the bottom left, but you can also simply add a new folder on the left or go to File -> Import Photos and Video. With over 14,000 photos to import some programs might choke, but Lightroom handled it quite quickly, processing the lot in just a few minutes. Because this is a mass import, I don’t want to apply any presets, but it is possible to automatically apply predetermined edit settings during the import process.

This can be a great help if you know you want to turn a specific set of imports into black and white, auto-correct their contrast, or apply any other preset which you’ve created (which we’ll discuss later on). You can also apply metadata during import, allowing you to tag certain photoshoots, vacations, or anything else you like. I generally don’t like applying sweeping changes to huge sets of images, but it can be a real time-saver in some workflows.

​Once the library is populated with your imports, the layout of the Library screen looks a bit more understandable. The panels at the left and right give you information and quick options while the main window shows your grid, which is also shown in the filmstrip along the bottom. The reason for this duplication is that once you switch to the Develop module to start your editing, the filmstrip showing your photos will stay visible along the bottom. While you’re in the Library mode, Lightroom assumes you’re doing more organizational work and so tries to show you as many images as possible on screen at the same time.

​Many aspects of the interface can be customized to match your working style, whether you want to see a grid, as above, or show a single image zoomed in, a comparison of two versions of similar images, or even sorting by people visible in the image. I almost never photograph people, so that option won’t be of much use to me, but it would be a great help for everything from wedding photos to portrait photography.

​The most useful aspect of the Library module is the ability to tag your images with keywords, which helps to make the sorting process much easier when working with a large catalog of images. Adding the keyword ‘ice storm’ to the above images will help me sort through what’s available in the 2016 folder, and since Toronto’s been seeing a few of these types of storms during recent winters, I’ll also be able to easily compare all my photos tagged ‘ice storm’ no matter what year-based folder they’re located in.

Of course, getting in the habit of actually using these kinds of tags is another matter, but sometimes we have to impose discipline on ourselves. Note: I have never imposed such discipline on myself, even though I can see how useful it would be.

My favorite method of tagging works in both the Library and Develop modules, because I wind up doing most of my organization using Flags, Colors and Ratings. These are all different ways of segmenting your catalog, allowing you to quickly go through your latest import, tag the best files, and then filter your filmstrip to only show Picks or 5-star rated images or images color-tagged ‘Blue’.

Image Editing with the Develop Module

Once you’ve chosen the images you want to work on, it’s time to dig into the Develop module. The range of settings will be very familiar to anyone who’s currently using a different RAW workflow management program, so I won’t go too deeply into detail about the more standard editing abilities. There are all the standard non-destructive RAW adjustments: white balance, contrast, highlights, shadows, a tone curve, color adjustments, and so on.

​One handy feature that is harder to access in other RAW editors I’ve tested is a quick method of displaying histogram clipping. In this photo, some of the ice highlights are blown out, but it’s not always easy to tell exactly how much of the image is affected with the naked eye. A look at the histogram shows me that some highlights are being clipped, represented by the small arrow at the right side of the histogram. Clicking the arrow shows me all the affected pixels in bright red overlay that updates as I adjust the highlights slider, which can be a real help for balancing exposures, especially in high-key images.

I tweaked the highlights to +100 to showcase the effect, but one look at the histogram would show this is not a proper correction!

​It’s not all perfect, though. One aspect of Lightroom that baffles me is its inability to automatically correct the distortion caused by the lens I used. It has a huge database of automatic lens distortion correction profiles, and it even knows which lens I used from the metadata. But when it comes time to apply the adjustments automatically, it can’t seem to determine what make of camera I use – even though the lens is a Nikon-only lens. However, simply choosing ‘Nikon’ from the ‘Make’ list suddenly enables it to fill in the gaps and apply all the right settings. This is a sharp contrast with DxO OpticsPro, which handles all this automatically with no trouble at all.

​Batch Editing

Lightroom is a great workflow management tool, especially for photographers who take multiple similar shots of each subject in order to select the final image during post-processing. In the photo above, I’ve adjusted the sample photo to the desired white balance and exposure, but I’m no longer sure if I like the angle. Fortunately, Lightroom makes it extremely easy to copy the Develop settings from one image to another, saving you the hassle of replicating the same settings on a series of images.

A simple right-click on the image and choosing ‘Settings’ gives you the option of copying any or all of the adjustments made on one image and pasting them onto as many others as you want.

​Holding CTRL to select multiple photos in the filmstrip, I can then paste my Develop settings onto as many photos as I wish, saving me a huge amount of time. This same method is also used to create Develop presets, which can then be applied to images you as you import them. Workflow management and time-saving processes like these are what makes Lightroom really stand out from the rest of the RAW image editors available on the market.

GPS & the Map Module

Many modern DSLR cameras include GPS location systems for pinpointing exactly where a photo was taken, and even those that don’t have one built-in usually have the ability to connect an external GPS unit. This data gets encoded into the EXIF data for each image, and Lightroom can then plot those images for you on a world map. Unfortunately, I don’t have either of these options, but it’s still possible to hard-code your location data if you want to use that as a method of sorting through your images. You can achieve the same thing using keyword tags, however, so I don’t really bother to use the Map module. That being said, if you have a GPS unit for your camera, it would probably be quite interesting to see how your photographic journeys have spread throughout the world!

​Outputting Your Images: Book, Slideshow, Print, and Web Modules

Once your images are editing to your liking, it’s time to get them out into the world. Lightroom has several options for this, but the most interesting is the Book module. Part of me thinks this is a somewhat ‘quick-and-dirty’ method for creating a photobook, but that’s probably just the picky graphic designer in me – and I can’t argue with how streamlined the process is. You can set up covers and configure a range of different layouts, then automatically populate the pages with your selected images. After that, you can output it to a JPEG series, a PDF file, or send it directly to book publisher Blurb from right within Lightroom.

​The other output modules are fairly self-explanatory and easy to use. Slideshow lets you organize a series of images with overlays and transitions, then output it as a PDF slideshow or a video. The Print module is really just a glorified ‘Print Preview’ dialog box, but the Web output is a bit more useful. Many photographers aren’t overly comfortable working with HTML/CSS coding, so Lightroom can create an image gallery for you based on your image selections and configure it with a series of template presets and customized options.

​You probably wouldn’t want to use this for your primary portfolio site, but it would be an excellent way of generating quick preview galleries for clients who are going to be reviewing and approving a selection of images.

Lightroom Mobile

Thanks to there being a smartphone in almost every pocket, mobile companion apps are growing extremely popular lately and Lightroom is no exception. Lightroom Mobile is available for free on Android and iOS, although you need an accompanying Creative Cloud subscription in order to get the most benefit out of it. You can shoot RAW images using your mobile phone camera, and then sign into your Creative Cloud account to sync your images automatically from Lightroom Mobile to the desktop version. You can then work on the images the same way you would any other RAW file, which adds an interesting twist onto the value of a smartphone camera – especially the newest, high-quality cameras found in the latest smartphone models.

The Reasons Behind My Reviews & Ratings

Effectiveness: 5/5

Lightroom’s primary tasks are to help you organize and edit your RAW photos, and it does the job beautifully. There is a robust featureset behind each main goal, and the thoughtful extra touches that Adobe tends to include in their software make managing a total RAW workflow extremely easy. Working with large image catalogs is smooth and fast.

Price: 5/5

While I wasn’t overly happy with the idea of the Creative Cloud subscription model at first, it’s grown on me. It’s possible to get access to Lightroom and Photoshop together for a mere $9.99 USD per month, and 4 new versions have been released since Lightroom joined the CC family in 2015, without increasing the cost. That’s much more effective than purchasing a standalone piece of software and then having to pay to upgrade it every time a new version is released.

Ease of Use: 4.5/5

Lightroom CC is very easy to use, although some of the more advanced features could use a bit of a re-think in terms of their user interface. Complex editing procedures can get a bit complicated as each localized edit is only represented by a small dot on the image indicating its placement, with no label or other identifiers, causing problems during heavy editing. Of course, if you’re going to be doing that much editing, it’s often better to transfer the file to Photoshop, which is included in any Creative Cloud subscription that contains Lightroom.

Support: 5/5

Because Adobe is a huge developer with a devoted and widespread following, the support available for Lightroom is arguably the best you can get for a RAW editor. In all my years of working with Lightroom, I’ve never had to contact Adobe directly for support, because so many other people use the software that I’ve always been able to find answers to my questions and issues around the web. The support community is huge, and thanks to the CC subscription model, Adobe is constantly putting out new versions with bug fixes and increased support.

Lightroom CC Alternatives

DxO OpticsPro (Windows/MacOS)

OpticsPro is an excellent RAW editor, allowing you to instantly correct for a number of optical lens and camera distortions thanks to DxO’s extensive collection of lab testing results. It also boasts an industry-standard noise reduction algorithm, which is essential for anyone who regularly shoots with high ISOs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really have much of an organizational side to it at all, but it’s an excellent editor, and worth testing out the free trial before paying for the Elite edition or the Essential edition.

Capture One Pro (Windows/MacOS)

Capture One Pro is an incredibly powerful RAW editor, and many photographers swear that it has a better rendering engine for certain lighting conditions. However, it’s primarily aimed at photographers shooting with extremely expensive high-resolution medium-format digital cameras, and its interface is definitely not aimed at the casual or semi-pro user. It also has a free trial available, so you can experiment before purchasing the full version for $299 USD or a monthly subscription for $20.

Also Read: 7 Lightroom Alternatives for RAW Photographers

Conclusion

For most digital photographers, Lightroom is the perfect balance of power and accessibility. It’s got great organizational capabilities and powerful editing features, and it’s backed up by Photoshop for more serious editing requirements. The price is absolutely affordable for both casual and professional users, and Adobe has been regularly adding new features as they are developed. There are a couple of minor issues with device compatibility, and a couple of user interface elements that could be improved, but nothing that should prevent any user from turning their photographs into finished works of art.