What does this forum think of lightroom?

Software
31

I agree that darktable is my tool of choice. LR’s strength is that you use a few slides relatively mindlessly to achieve the desired outcome. In comparison Darktable provides sophisticated modules with lots of options and some people are unwilling to invest the time in learning how to master these complex and powerful tools. I feel Rawtherapee has a more intuitive GUI than darktable , but the lack of masks to localised adjustments makes it less appealing to me.

I am not sure there is an easy answer to this. Some people like Bruce Williams have produced instructional videos. I would also be interested in trying to develop some online teaching material to guide users in image processing with darktable so it was not as daunting. I teach darktable to students in Adult Education in Australia.

32

You can operate quickly in darktable but you need to invest more time at the outset, configuring presets that work for your camera, especially filmic, but this allows more freedom of choice.
Adobe have done a lot of that work for you, as long as you are content to do things their way.

33

A few examples:

  • In Lightroom, wiggling a slider immediately shows a result. In Darktable, it says “calculating”, and only a second or so later the image updates.
  • Lightroom has a “Shadows” and “Highlights” slider that just works. The Tone EQ is more powerful, but it is more complex than two sliders.
  • Darktable has controls for dynamic range, white balance, color adjustements etc. scattered all over the place into multiple modules. Lightroom has them in one tidy list, requiring fewer clicks.

All of these things give you more power in Darktable, but are quicker in Lightroom, and require less thought. Except for the first, where Lightroom is just better (there are good reasons for Darktable’s speed, but it is slower).

BTW, I am not a fan of Lightroom’s interface. But if your main constraint is time, then it is quicker than Darktable, at least without customization.

1 Like
34

You’ll get the quick access panel in version 3.6, which will allow you to put as many sliders as you like onto a single panel.

5 Likes
35

Ok, I can’t judge other models here, but for my two Nikon cameras I don’t have to do anything like that. I can edit immediately without any preparation for the camera.

It may be due to my computer, but I don’t have these waiting times, or only when I use a lot of modules and then only when I have to use modules like denoise, because they need a lot of computing time. That’s why I always do them at the end of the processing.

For fast editing everything runs in real time.

Yes, but for most of the time you only have to click once in the “masking” tab on color picker of “mask exposure compensation” and you can very comfortably lighten and darken the areas with mouse wheel.

Or you choose one of the presets for compression of shadows and highlights and also for contrast from the list and if necessary, quickly adjust the areas afterwards with the mouse wheel.

36

I have told my experience before here on the forum, but here I go again.

I have been using this kind of application (I believe they’re called DAM? Digital Assets Management) since Apple’s Aperture: anybody remembers it? It was great; I can’t comment on the quality of the processing algorithms but I particulary liked the seamless transition between the organization/library management tools and processing tools. LR introduced the module structure (Library and Develop) which is also present in darktable (lightable & darkroom) and that adds friction to the user experience in my view. Anyway, years have passed, it seems to be the standard way to do things and I’ve adapted to this.

After Apple killed Aperture, I moved to LR, and that was painful: how to manage the transition, decide on the final version of the photos to be moved as jpg, learn the new tools etc. Back then I told myself: this is so much work, let me decide what is the best future-proof solution; well Adobe looks like a robust company, I’ll trust them with my money. That must have been around 2015 I think.

Many many RAWs have been added to my LR library until Adobe decided to change its business model, and slowly killed the standalone (“classic”) LR. Guess how happy I was at the idea of finding another solution to manage my incomparably larger library, carefully tagged and organized over the years.

But in 2018 I was also fed up with Apple’s ecosystem so I took that opportunity to test Linux and darktable (I was following dt’s progress since version 1.x but never used because it wasn’t very nice – at least on Mac OS). I bought a second-hand thinkpad where I installed Linux and darktable and started to see how to process images and move my library preserving tags etc.

Here we are in 2021 and I am very happy with all the progress that dt has made and how it allows me to manage and edit my photos. Most importantly, I am confident that I will never have to move to another system, and no corporation will decide on the fate of my photos. Talking about client support – there was NONE coming from Adobe or Apple!

Apologies if this is long and perhaps not to the point. I wanted to make it clear however that I have only directly compared dt and LR for a short period in 2018, when I was an advanced user of LR and a beginner with dt.

I agree with some of the earlier comments about LR workflow to be overall “faster” than dt. Not because you can’t be fast with dt – I certainly am now – but dt gives you different possibilities to do certain things and most of its modules offer so many options and variables that is surely overwhelming for beginner-to-intermediate users. And that will make you slower, until you gain a certain experience.

Also back when I was comparing dt and LR on the macbook pro I had at the time, I vividly remember the shock at seeing how fast and reactive was LR compared to dt (immediate visual feedback when modifying exposure, curves etc). But it was dt 2.x and no gpu, so this could be different now. Right now, on my new pumped-up laptop, darktable is very fast; but I haven’t tried LR on the same machine so I’m unable to make a comparison.

About printing, it’s true that LR was more refined plus lots of support from paper manufacturers with dedicated profiles, but I have found a good balance and good results using TurboPrint to drive my Canon Pro-100 (I use Canon and Red River Paper).

I don’t care about presets and the too many educational videos on LR; the ones we have for dt are very often much more precise and technical, and I prefer quality over quantity.

About the future of dt vs LR, how AI techniques will play a major role in LR etc, seeing first hand how over-hyped this term is in my industry (geosciences) I don’t care one bit if LR will have major AI-driven tools (automatic replacement of dull skies? I’d rather go out and have another go at shooting in different conditions).

In conclusion, I have never regretted the decision to move to dt. I will never go back to a commercial software not because of money (which less informed people think is the main reason why you would use open source applications) but because dt gives me everything I need to manage and process my photos, and I have incredible technical support (=this forum!, plus the invaluable opportunity to talk directly to the developers). And what I said above, peace of mind for the future of my photos.

9 Likes
37

Well said, @aadm!

38

I believe this GUI cluttering is something that puts many newcomers off. if they get that far. The question “scene-referred” or “display-referred” is already rather abstract. You can’t just install and start darktable. And darktable is free, so a new user will not hesitate long with the uninstall.

Some GUI unification would be a good thing, for newcomers. The rest is already used to that anti-intuitive system.

I never tried LR, I believe it’s really good from I saw from videos. But darktables ultimate strongpoint is the cost, at least to me.

I also think in terms of functions darktable does fine (specially since we got the “module search” box, so you can actually find functions!).

I also use Affinity Photo for stuff that darktable does very poorly (HDR) or not at all (panorama, focus stack, object removal by merging) - and of course “Gimp” like stuff. However, for normal edit I prefer darktable - I mean, parametric masks just work - compare to macro driven luminosity masks, which I never managed to work out.

One think I wonder, does it really matter how many people use darktable?

2 Likes
39

My answer is simple: I’ve never used Lr.

When I first got into raw processing, I knew Lr existed, but I thought “if Adobe produces such a bloated, bug-ridden PDF reader, how likely is their raw processor app to be any good?” I know that logic is not necessarily solid, but once Adobe went to their subscription model I felt like my decision allowed me to dodge a bullet. I found darktable and RawTherapee, and have been mostly happy with both.

Totally.

2 Likes
40

I used LR and PS (“perpetual” licenses) up until I bought my current Fuji system about 18 months ago. Definitely not wanting to go down the SAAS subscription route, I started to check out the FOSS alternatives. I’ve been keeping an eye on these for a long time having used GIMP for small graphics tasks since pre-1.0 days and playing with earlier versions of Darktable. Until recently I found them all wanting by comparison to the Adobe offering, but they’ve come on in leaps and bounds over the past few years.

I tried to get my head around Darktable for about 6 months or so, and while I was able to get ok results with it, it took a lot of time per image, and could never get it anywhere near what the in camera Fuji processing produced. I’ve since settled on ART which I find first rate

So as to the original question, LRs pros over the free alternatives are (note I was using a fairly antiquated v5.5 so I’m not mentioning features that appeared in 6 or CC):

  • an excellent integrated DAM - I use Digikam which while very good falls short on a few fronts; only shows original thumbnail so any external edits can’t be seen, tagging is a bit more fiddly (though not excessively so), and LR has more comprehensive filtering on metadata (lens, camera model etc)
  • Can get decent results fairly quickly, though I’d point out that I reckon ART is just as fast in terms of workflow when you know where things are
  • Highlight reconstruction and shadow control works well

Cons are pretty much what others have said:

  • Subscription model
  • Adobe’s ever greater pushing of the cloud to increase the grip they have on you
  • Being at their mercy in terms of them just dropping support for products
  • FOSS tools are in many ways more powerful in terms of their capabilities - masking and Filmic in DT etc. These are of course dependent on enthusiastic individuals being willing to step up and maintain things, but by and large there seems to be a committed community if the evidence in these forums is anything to go by
  • Windows/Mac only - I can now avoid the requirement of having a dual boot Windows PC, or worse, VM and do everything on Linux (though I’m having a nightmare with colour management)

So while I was happy with LR for well over a decade, with the exception of the DAM I don’t miss it a bit in terms of results

41

Honestly I think that lightroom is still unbeatable compared to open source raw editors for problematic raws, noise reduction should be included in the list.

Paradoxically opensource raw editors are better most of the time for normal raw

42

Somewhat on the contrary, I recently had a case where Capture One tended to shift a very bright blue jacket into cyan in a way that was hard to get rid of. Lightroom faired better, but instead desaturated the blue. Filmic RGB in Darktable had at least one normalization option that actually kept the jacket blue (and five that turned it radiant white). The SOOC jpeg was correctly blue as well.

I find difficult files such as this one somewhat regularly, especially with brightly colored highlights that shift towards secondaries (cyan, magenta). I often find these hard to deal with in C1/LR, but usually fairly straight forward in Darktable.

A recurring theme there is that C1/LR miss fine-grained masking control for their HDR controls (blacks, shadows, highlights, whites), which is rather trivial in DT in a number of ways. Same for the (to me) too-coarse Clarity in C1, and too-fine Structure, where the Contrast EQ is just so much easier and more versatile to control. (E.g. increase contrast on flower stems but not petals)

But on the other hand, I find easy files with little masking quicker to process in C1/LR. And simple drawn raster masks. I miss simple drawn masks on Darktable. (Draw with low flow, like you draw with color)

1 Like
43

Having never used LR I really don’t have an opinion on the program, although I know lots of people who use it and come away with great results.

Professionals may feel they can be more productive with LR, but I do this as a serious hobby, so quality is what matters to me. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a serious review that said that LR will produce better results than darktable or Rawtherapee and I believe there’s reason to believe the FOSS programs can do as well or better.

What does bother me is the condescending attitude by some LR fan boys, particularly certain internet celebrities who I wouldn’t trust to recommend a decent monopod. I’m not exaggerating.

That and the subscription model. I hate subscription models.

2 Likes
44

Can you explain the path to this setting ? Please. Perhaps with a picture !

45

Hi,

If you have examples to share, they would be welcome as benchmarks I’m sure (or at least I would be happy to have some :slight_smile:

Thanks!

1 Like
46

Who have likely never even looked at a FOSS program.

That’s the main reason why I switched from LR. I would rather spend time learning new software than give $20 a month for the privilege.

1 Like
47

Editing with Lightroom is utterly frustrating when you know what you are doing and you know what you want. I haven’t used it a lot, but it’s basically like using a cellphone flight simulator when you are used to the commercial airliner dashboard. Even my wife, who barely knows what she is doing (but surely knows what she wants), prefers darktable over Lightroom for the precise color control she can get in it. Lightroom is nice for people afraid of their computer, who want a use path drawn for them. Plus the color science is dated and puts ease of use before accuracy.

1 Like
48

Tone_Equalizer1

Quick video demonstration:

6 Likes
49

I guess you have to pay to rent it and also pay to unrent it as well.

6 Likes
50

Only the rich, powerful and self-righteous are morally correct. :roll_of_toilet_paper:

1 Like