I’ve never used ACR or Lightroom, so not sure if it’s a full replacement in my case, but RT is my main tool to downselect/edit/export RAW files. The same thing I used to use Darktable for, which is aimed at being a replacement for Lightroom, afaik.
Still trying to find a decent tool to edit metadata, sort and archive photos (and find them when looking for something specific …). I really wish that RT was able to do this too, but I’d rather they focus on doing one thing well than doing many things so-so.
I find it a shame to want to compare the “default” work of several dematricers.
Some software apply a lot of corrections as a base while others apply none or very few, leaving the choice to the photographer to apply his own corrections.
Moreover, some like Darktable seem not to use the best algorithm (Amaze) by default, but only on the choice of the operator.
Finally, it seems to me that we cannot apply the same work to all the images of all the boxes, for example the noise treatment!
Finally, I am not sure that there is an ideal universal result, if not its own taste.
Thanks for reading me.
Here’s my personal take on the matter (and no I haven’t yet read the conversation on here )
I use RawTherapee as a raw processor for my photography. If I couldn’t use RawTherapee I’d probably use CaptureOne since it has a larger pool of features than Lightroom and I tend to enjoy the look of the final images more. So no, RawTherapee isn’t a replacement for Lightroom. That being said RawTherapee isn’t really a replacement for CaptureOne for me either, since I don’t use RawTherapee for the sake of the “better price”. Of course I’d rather not invest in an expensive piece of software when I can have the features I want for free …and I’d definitely prefer this over pirating it (I am no saint, but I prefer the legal alternative when available for sure), but RawTherapee does give me results that are good enough that it does not leave me wanting. So once again, it is not a “replacement”. If RawTherapee would cease to exist I’d miss it and CaptureOne would then be the replacement for RawTherapee not the other way around.
People tend to see Open Source software as the replacement for the better proprietary ones, and I hope this slowly changes, because people need to understand that is not the case.
I think the root behind the problem of the replacement question is the concept of “Industry Standard” software. A lot of people use Adobe because it is the “Industry Standard” or they use Capture One because it is the “Industry Standard” in commercial tethered environments. Enthusiasts assume they are at a disadvantage if they don’t use the “Industry Standard”. They realize it is too expensive and look for a “Replacement”. The thing is if you throw out the words “Industry Standard” there is no “Replacement” instead you are just picking a tool that meets your personal requirements.
People shouldn’t buy this argument for photography. The standard graphic exchange format for photography is TIFF or JPEG, you’re rarely sending a raw file and side car or a PSD.
It’s common to work as an assistant as part of your development as a photographer. Not only will you learn, but if you get a chance to work for a famous photographer, you will be tainted (in a good way) by their name. This can in a very real way improve your opportunities. Particularly at the high end of art (as in real art that hangs in real art galleries) and fashion photography.
As in other lines of work being familiar with the “industry standard” is often critical to getting a job and getting a job is a stepping stone to doing your own work.
So the “industry standard” argument unfortunately hold for photography as well. At least if your aim it set high. If your aim is set even higher and you are confident enough to drive your own path you can do as you please.
None of the above should be seen as me condoning the state of affairs or suggesting that anyone use LR.
It seems to me, but I may be wrong, that there are more people with little skill using the adobe suites than there are professionals able to use them to their intended capacity.
This reminds me of the distant years when there were many more scientific calculators sold than people able to use them outside of the four operations.
This is a fact of society and there are also many people who buy 200 HP cars to drive at 130 km/h (or even 10 km/h) in traffic jams on the weekends.
On the web “art photography” is sometimes used to describe a style. Im not sure what it is but seems to be non documentary fantasy type arranged stuff with a lot if pp or dreamy black and white with scratches.
Thats a different thing than real art displayed in real art galleries. Which can well have documentary aspects. To do the web version of art photography you need no connections to other artists or traditions.
Im against the separation of art and life and pretty much detest the gallery world. Doesnt change the stuff about industry standards, jobs as assistants etc.
Correct - top of the class with 5 gold stars!
But those folk are all Lightroom ‘fan boys’ for the most part; they cannot use Photoshop for love nor money. Neither do they see a need to, which is sad yet shows their total ignorance of the photographic process.
As someone who makes a living from using/teaching Ps I have always found the Lr/ACR demosaic process to be the ‘Adobe workflow’ Achilles Heel - and it’s that above all else which brought me to RT in the first place.
I use RT as an ‘alternative’ when the job is demanding in terms of either output - big print being an example, or when a shot has big swings in contrast which are too large for Lr/ACR to cope with.
But irrespective of the raw processor I use, the image will still have to go to Ps for final improvements and retouching (have you ever tried removing dust spots in Lr - it’s absurd!) but then it’ll be handed back to Lr for print, DAM etc.
So even though I sound as if I use RT as an alternative, Lr still figures in the equation somewhere.
HI,
I don’t know LR or PsP, but I’ve tried a lot of other software to remove stains or even remove an element from a photo and for the moment I haven’t found better than FastStone for this job.
This is of course a very personal opinion and the results, of course, are sufficient for my expectations.
As to focus merging - take a look at enfuse. Batch-convert your RAWs, then use enfuse to focus-merge the resulting TIFFs. While most people think of enfuse for exposure fusion, it also actually performs well for focus stack merging if you change the weighting metrics (basically turn off saturation/exposure weighting and only use contrast weighting)
As to pano stitching - I’ve heard good things about Affinity, it sounds like they have an optical flow/depth-aware algorithm that can compensate for parallax errors, something that is still lacking in Hugin. In general hugin does very poorly with the increasingly common workflows of multilens “rig” cameras - it can be used but you have to jump through hoops, and has no decent method for compensating for the inherent parallax errors from such devices.
Once you look at Affinity Photo’s pano stitching, also look at its focus merging function. I had after lots of fiddling really bad results with enfuse, and the first try with Affinity was perfect and took just a few Minutes.
This said, not OS/FOSS, but free, Picolay.de also gave me very good result at first try without any RTFM
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