There’s been some talk about the new pricing of Adobe’s Lightroom application. Photoshop subscription packages are going up again. Many people in the photography community are sick of these monthly subscriptions. Everyone can’t pay for annual subscriptions like me. So, I have got a solution to this problem. I haven’t received any free or single payment yet, but the best Lightroom alternatives are. You can download any of these and edit your photos and videos.

Best Lightroom Alternatives

Here are some of the best alternatives;

Everybody likes free stuff. In the photo editing world, Darktable Photo Editor is one of the best free editors. It is available for Mac and Windows. It’s open source, and it will be free forever. However, sometimes, it doesn’t recognise photo files and images imported from the latest cameras. Moreover, it doesn’t support some presets.

Before getting it as your alternative for a photo editor, you need to confirm its compatibility with your devices. Some users may not find it user-friendly as it doesn’t support photos taken with Lumix cameras. It has a search bar to search your sources to see if they are editable. I would recommend this tool for;

Raw Therapy is another open-sourced and free tool for editing videos and photos like a pro. The best part about this editor is that it can accept Lumix raw files for editing. This plus point helped me place this editor at number two. I personally checked the compatibility of my camera and found it perfect.

Compared to Darktable, Raw therapy has better exposure, contrast, shadows, and colours to add to your photos. Moreover, you can add presets to your photos to make them look amazing.  You can store your images in your catalogues on the cloud. I recommend Raw Therapee as a free alternative to LR. I would recommend Raw Therapee for;

Here is another free editing alternative to Lightroom APP called Om Workspace. You can download it from the official website. Before downloading, you need to confirm the serial number of your camera, and then you can download it for free.

It’s easy to navigate and find raw files, presets, photos in the catalogue, and raw processing videos. The OM System is quite nice and user-friendly. The interface looks very much like the Lightroom app. It has all the basic and essential options like white balance, temperature, highlights, and shadows for better editing. 

Moreover, OM Workspace AI software for noise reduction. Go into the noise tab and press noise reduction to see the magic of video editing features. One of the best features of the editing is fast speed and smooth working. 

It is recommended as Photo and Video editing software.

The following are two Lightroom Alternatives where you pay once up front and own the software forever. 

The Capture One Pro Editor was an exclusive free piece of software for Fujifilm and Sony users. Its name was captured by 1 Express. However, the developer has now changed it to a subscription-model photo editing tool. It is offered with a one-off payment option. You can get this for $299. I don’t know if this is expensive for you or not, but it is quite a good editing tool with a subscription.

Moreover, it offers a 30-day free trial to introductory and beginner photographers. It accepts all cameras and images. Its interface looks very similar to Lightroom’s official app. It’s pretty instantaneous, and there’s not much lag. The editing results and output are smooth. There are also some more advanced features that help you shoot memories like in studio work.

I am recommending this paid tool as it is the best for following reasons;

Luminar Neo remained sluggish on some people’s computers in the past, but to my knowledge, the updated version is the best paid Lightroom alternatives. It works perfectly for video and photo editing on PC and Mac.

You need to pay £99 for its subscription as a one-time purchase. Its user interface looks very similar to Lightroom. It is easy to understand that if you want to do noise reduction for your video, you click on noise reduction, and if you’re going to turn your photos black and white, you need to click on black and white. There’s an eyeball button that can make it easy for you to control your editing work. I would recommend it for the following reasons;

Frequently Asked Questions