RAW processor and library tools - Deciders
Affinity £24 Bought it for my son, and back up for me for a few tasks.
There is nothing that we use in Photoshop that this can’t do. User interface is a mess. Layers for doing things like skin healing is very usable, though I needed to watch a tutorial first. But I bought it partly because it shows camera focus points which I used to like in Aperture and as far as I found nothing else does this. It’s handy as my wife takes a lot of horticultural shots with a 100mm L macro lens and later we often struggle with what she meant to focus on. This will be an occasional user, not an everyday tool.
Capture One 21 £20 a month subscription. Did not buy.
I really like the usability, and some elements of cataloguing, layout tethering and quality of images. But…when I compared it with “difficult” images processed in Photolab DxO 4 Elite or Adobe Lightroom Classic no one could tell the difference except that DxO was better at noise reduction with deep Prime on relevant images. Overall it’s the best piece of software I tried. Best library, best training tips and instruction videos, best user interface. But only 2 “seats” which is a bit of an issue.
Why didn’t I buy? A lot of moans on the internet, mostly about high cost and too short upgrade cycle stopped me just before I pressed the buy button. I’m not a professional and I felt I might have buyer’s remorse due to the price. It’s annoying that they penalise Canon users with significantly higher prices than the other major brands.
On a monthly subscription it’s twice the price of the Adobe photography package. It’s far better integrated but is not twice as good and currently does not offer the sky replacement module that Photoshop has.
On1 2021 £79 (discount vouchers reduce this by about 15%)
I tried this and thought it was satisfactory so I bought it. Then I needed to process some difficult images taken from a Canon 5DIII with a 400mm lens in low light and at high ISO. These were of a robin feeding under a bay tree in the snow. The On1 image was really noisy and so I tried it against my trail copy of DxO 4. The difference was massive, with DxO producing a very usable result and On1 failing to get close. I also experienced several crashes to my Mac Pro with On1 after I had bought it. Technical support tried to be helpful but I ended up with a prompt refund.
In terms of processing capability the lesson for me was with a good quality picture out of the camera, all of the software packages did a satisfactory job. The differences really appeared with images where noise is unavoidable. DxO and Capture 1 stood out to me, each for slightly different reasons.
Luminar AI £59 after discount. Bought it, rejected it, got refund.
An odd one. Bought it at the outset, thought it was brilliant for an hour or so, like many people, then decided it was deeply compromised (which it is), so got a refund (like lots of others I subsequently discovered). They paid me back straight away, but I still had a 7-day free trial. However, during that time I processed a few shots nearly all taken by my wife with two cameras at an air show on a dull day. Cockpit shots are always difficult due to reflections off the instruments and canopy, and the sky was basically white and grey for the hundreds of aerial pictures. The sky replacement AI tool simply transformed some pictures that would otherwise have been average at best. I tried various methods, including processing in DxO and Capture One and then doing the sky in Luminar. Also doing the job in Lightroom Classic and then doing the sky in Photoshop. However, everyone seeing the pictures side by side on the big screens chose the ones directly processed in Luminar AI. However, this was a rather unusual picture of a Supermarine Spitfire propellor, just before I fired up the engine, and perhaps this just suited the software as it has a very nostalgic feel.
I couldn’t use it as a daily processor, as it’s gimmicky unless you mainly post to Instagram and social media, but there are some things Luminar does that nothing else can do as quickly. Sky can be changed in PS and this works very well, but is much slower.
However, the Luminar forum is awash with complaints: no layers, no ratings, no batch processing, no watermarks, missing EXIF and histograms. Some of the effects, like adding fog and mist, are simply rubbish in my experience. The “fun” things like adding balloons and planes are childish. The sunray app is quite usable. And there is a massive caveat with the Sky effects: I processed some images of our garden covered in large expanses of deep snow. A white sky and everything shrouded in snow made for dull image. I tried a Sky replacement in Luminor and this was dreadful, mainly because treated the snow as a reflective surface and replicated the new sky on the ground. LRC plus Photoshop handled the same job perfectly (but it took ages as the whole set up is apparently designed to be as difficult as possible).
On forums and even the official Skylum forum, complaints about Luminar AI abound. They have stupidly removed basic features like ratings in the library, layers and so on that were present in Luminar 4. AI seems widely regarded as a step backwards and they have unwisely not maintained library compatibility which has really upset their customer base. They also spam your screen a lot during the trial.
Lightroom Classic £10/month in Photography package with LR, LrC, Bridge and Photoshop. Did not buy.
I’ve used LR and PS for years, so I knew most of it fairly well. Not wild about their subscription model or their desire to tie one into their library set up. They added some functionality since I last used it properly getting on for a year ago. I know lots of people love the library but I’ve never enjoyed it. Capture One does it better but at twice the monthly cost. I thought the LR images processed were absolutely fine, but I just felt that trickier things (fewer pixels for example due to long reach, or more noise) in Capture One and DxO looked less flat. I felt it was similar to Affinity but a bit easier to use.
My feeling was that for our use LR did everything fine but was not the best for me in any category. I just wish Adobe would make the whole thing a LOT more user friendly. Their various bits of software simply do not integrate in the way that modern programmes do – the architecture and user interface feels old now. However, its all round “good enough” ability probably makes it the best compromise as a stand-alone solution. It has two seats (i.e. will run on two computers).
Photolabs DxO 4 Elite £179 but discounted to £69. Bought it.
This gave me the best workflow for what I mostly do. I use in in conjunction with Fast Raw Viewer. The noise reduction is miles better than anything else and the AI presents for initial processing work extremely well. I bought it because, on a Mac it integrates remarkably well with my desktop folder system and OSX Photos cloud. I like the fact I could click on a file or folder on one screen, and DxO would put it in its library ready to work on, instantly. No dragging or selecting or switching around between programmes. I liked the lens corrections, watermarking and easy processing and of all the products I tried I felt that the pre-set scenarios were the most useful and least fake. Batch processing suited my workflow, and with a large backlog to deal with, this was the decider for me. Plus it runs on 3 machines so my wife can have her own copy. The library is not as bad as people tend to say: it works OK for me as my images are already organised into folders, projects, days etc. No spamming during the trial.
I already had an old copy of DxO optics pro 8 (which still works) and this allowed me to upgrade at a substantial discount and I also used a 15% off voucher on line. DxO Viewpoint was bundled free and the old Mik plug ins stil work. At this price DxO4 it is a serious bargain for me.
Fast Raw Viewer £15 after £5 discount. Bought it
I discovered this by accident when trialling the other software. It takes CR2 files straight from the camera and renders them pretty much instantly without creating misleading jpegs. It helps review and grade images very fast, and usefully shows detail highlights etc so it is easy to see what is usable in images. At £15 it is a no brainer as part of the workflow, though I do wish it had an easier method of getting rid of discards.
I know there are more highly specified raw viewers out there, but this was dirt cheap and did the job sufficient for my needs. It is not used to process anything.
My library system now is my own folder structure that is independent of any photo software supplier and is triple backed up. Issues with old Aperture, iPhoto and Lightroom libraries dating back a good many years taught me that I need to avoid getting stuck when software providers change their systems or business models.