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Is there a cheaper way of getting lightroom rather than just stumping the $149 online?
Cheers
I have the complete CC suite at the moment but have had both Photoshop and Lightroom combined for around £6-7 per month. I think they also do a half-price offer for new customers...
Do you have any kids at school or Uni? Are you at Uni?
Monthly payment?
Who do you pay that to?
No uni access
I think the PS/LR package is about to go up to just over £10. I wouldn't be without it. Serge Ramelli usually offers a discount on the package if you sign up to his free website/YouTube channel.
Monthly payment?Who do you pay that to?
PS is now a subscription (like office 365) so you never own the software, but do always get the latest upgrades when they come out.
I use ACDSee, does a similar job to lightroom, for less £££, and there's almost always an offer on.
You can buy lightroom 6 standalone one off payment (without subscription) for £103/105 from amazon:-
Or LR 4 for £30 - I still use LR4 standalone but will eventually bite the bullet and pony up the subs for the monthly package.
Or LR 4 for £30
be careful of using an old version, especially that old, with recent cameras. Camera RAW files released since the last iteration of LR4 may not be supported.
cp - fair point! My newest camera is a D800 and files are supported. I know there's a workaround for newer models (of Nikon cameras) but it's an extra step which would be a bit of a pain...
you could try Adobe Bridge which as far as I know if free and has full adobe raw support. Adobe CC subscription has just gone up to £10.10 per month
Adobe Bridge which as far as I know if free
Bridge is for file/'asset' management, it's not a raw editor. Lightroom is predominantly a raw file editor with file management built in.
Bridge comes with Adobe raw and has all the same raw editing tools as Lightroom and Photoshop. admittedly it is not as convenient as Lightroom just depends what you need and what you can afford.
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Have you considered Capture One?
Thanks for all the great replies - much apreciated
I shoot a fair bit of B&W, would this alter the options at all?
I shoot a fair bit of B&W, would this alter the options at all?
It shouldn't do except that assuming you mean you shoot in RAW and then convert to B&W in post, LR probably has a few more plugins for film effects than say Capture One or other equivalent products. Personally I don't care for those so capture one does me just fine.
There have been quite a few photo blogs recently publicising their switch to capture one because of problems they've been experiencing with LR, mainly around it being very slow and buggy. Capture One is excellent and can now also be bought on a subscription model basis.
Greg - is C1 any cheaper than LR? I have both because I can't decide which to drop 🙂
If you're buying it outright then Capture One is very expensive compared to LR, as I recall something like twice or three times the price (it costs €270 for three seats). On a subscription basis I don't know. It's €180 for a year, so what's that, maybe £10 a month?
Bridge comes with Adobe raw
are you sure? It's always in the past need an Adobe app which comes with Camera Raw such as PhotoShop installed, and Bridge uses the CR as a plug-in. Basically Bridge just uses the capabilities that get installed with PS (or any other licensed Adobe suite product).
I'd be really interested in Capture One, it seems a very powerful raw editor, but as a standalone product it's really quite expensive up front. For pro use it's pocket money, but for amateur use it seems a bit spendy... Unless of course 3 folk buy a single licence together.
I'd be really interested in Capture One, it seems a very powerful raw editor, but as a standalone product it's really quite expensive up front.
It would be churlish to suggest otherwise and I think probably in all honesty, you can end up with exactly the same result in either package. But, just as with cameras it's the work flow that differs. I found it easier and more rewarding to work with Capture One.
Just had this problem with my old lightroom 3.6 and new OMD camera.
I can convert using Adobe DNG convertor but it's a bit of a clunky step.
Can Adobe Bridge use plugins for effects like lightroom?
I had an email that Lightroom/PS subs were going up to £10 a month. I'm on promo until August, paying around £6.50 a month. I use Lightroom the most and PS rarely. Might buy Lightroom outright in August
I started with Aperture and really liked it, but then it fell behind and I switched to Lightroom, partly becasue it was whate everyone else was using so easy to get advice. But it does seem like C1 has a more Aperture-like workflow. I just can't make up my mind. Probably, in all honesty, it makes no difference at all if you get a decent picture to start with, and I should not waste energy on the idea that I have to decide!!
I should not waste energy on the idea that I have to decide!!
If it's your hobby and you enjoy the process then it's not wasted. Actuall a pro-tog friend of mine uses both. He processes his commercial stuff on Capture One because he's invested in a Phase One camera system (and lordy those things are expensive) but uses LR for his personal work (with a Leica M240) because he prefers the the colour output of LR from the Leica.
So, all the options here fairly pricy for a hobbyist, and I don't like the idea of having to 'subscribe' paying monthly
Anything purchasable or even free (quality compromise expected, but acceptable - I use Picasa at the mo)?
Snapseed? Not full featured but capable of a lot of editing work.
Free - Darktable. I use it on Linux where there's not much else available, but it works really well for me (raws from a Fujifilm X100t, but mainly tidying up negative scans)... if you google Lightroom vs Darktable you'll soon get an idea of its limitations and decide if it'll work for you. Caveat - reviewers have typically spent just a couple of days on it, so you can usually improve on the results they are getting once you're used to it.
Good call DrJ about Snapseed. 95% of my usable shots eventually go through my phone to send to family or stick on insta. They'll only ever be viewed on a 5" screen so no point in too much faffage - Snapseed makes it easy to get a nice image online quickly.
I switched to the subscribe model a couple of years ago, £6.98 a month I think it is and tbh I'm more than happy with it. It costs the same as 2 pints a month and I use it quite a bit. Notice it's up to £10.10 now which isn't as cheap but discount codes are available.
Serif Affinity Photo is now on Windows. [url= https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/?trial ]Link to 10 day free trial.[/url]. Price has just gone up, unfortunately, to £48, but still a bargain imo. Worth reading the reviews to see whether it offers up what you want.
Main downside is it lacks LR's cataloguing.
Great, thanks. Plenty to look into there then
Any GIMP users/fans?
GIMP is more of a Photoshop alternative than a RAW editor. It will do the job but not as conveniently as LR or Darktable.
I'm on Linux, so use Darktable when I need something to process RAW.
On my phone/tablet I use Polarr for quick n dirty processing (it will handle RAW too).
this thread is poor without pics
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Never used Premier elements but heard its good and only £65 standalone, might be an option
What's slightly frustrating is so many B&W editor's are 'plug-ins' so you need PS to start with
True, but you need PS anyway, otherwise how can you utilise Luminosity Masks?
You can download the Nik Collection for free. It includes Silver Efex Pro, which can do some interesting stuff for black and white photos. It is designed to work as a plugin for Photoshop, but you can use it on its own if you want (or along with Gimp etc). https://www.google.com/nikcollection/
Presently downloading Lightroom (like dial-up days)
So am going to give that a try
Presently downloading Lightroom (like dial-up days)So am going to give that a try
Deffo download Silver Efex Pro to use within Lightroom. It really is an excellent B&W plugin.
^ deffo going to to see if I can get the 'silver' on my B&W's
Example - something like this I would like to be able to get deeper contrast, more 'silver'
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Take a look at photo room from what I remember its free but you can pay a small fee to upgrade. I can't justify full Photoshop so it does the job with raw files etc
You don't need any plug-ins to acheive anything that a plug-in will do, you just need to know how to process it yourself. It's worth learning that. Relying on plug-ins to do everything for you is how you end up with images like this:
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and this
[img] https://3.img-dpreview.com/files/p/TS560x560~forums/57752017/c96a638819084f5cbab0dbb9bb6bb5aa [/img]
All a bit Serge Ramelli..
Relying on plug-ins to do everything for you is how you end up with images like this:
My eyes, dear god, my eyes 🙁
My eyes, dear god, my eyes
You think you've got problems I just did a Google image search for 'Serge Ramelli'.
I currently in a catatonic state...