Need a RAW Editor Recommendation

Looking for a recommendation other than Lightroom and ON1.

I have Lightroom Classic but the subscription is about up for renewal and I'm trying to find something I can buy outright.

I also have ON1 Photo Raw 2018 and have been having a lot of issues with it's performance and am at the point with it that I am ready to look for alternatives. (I love ON1 and wish it worked right!!!!!!)

I don't want to spend several hundred on Capture One.

Basically I am looking for something similar to the interface of Lightroom and or ON1, any suggestions?????
 
Thanks you all, I'm researching a few of them. I really don't get into photoshop much but I do like to mask and do basic brushwork, ON1 has some pretty good masking and effects to brush in and out when it works correctly.

I'm not a "heavy editor" as such as I would need the power of photoshop, but basic masking, layers, and brushwork is a plus for an editor. Plus some type of importing would be nice.

Affinity looks promising....has anyone tried ACDSee?

If all else fails I may just renew my Lightroom soon but really would like to just purchase something instead. My hope is for ON1 to get things in order, that was working great for the most part but lately I can't get it to function right half the time.
 
Upvote 0

stevelee

FT-QL
CR Pro
Jul 6, 2017
2,383
1,064
Davidson, NC
Isn’t the Photoshop and Lightroom subscription something like $10 a month? If the full plan ever gets beyond my means, I’ll switch to that. I still use some of the other apps a lot and several occasionally, so that would be unhandy.

I am not wild about the subscription model, and refuse to do it for other software. But I was paying Adobe $600 a year or so for upgrades anyway, and get access to more apps, that I admittedly mostly don’t use but can in a pinch, this way.
 
Upvote 0

zim

CR Pro
Oct 18, 2011
2,129
318
Durf said:
Looking for a recommendation other than Lightroom and ON1.

I have Lightroom Classic but the subscription is about up for renewal and I'm trying to find something I can buy outright.

I also have ON1 Photo Raw 2018 and have been having a lot of issues with it's performance and am at the point with it that I am ready to look for alternatives. (I love ON1 and wish it worked right!!!!!!)

I don't want to spend several hundred on Capture One.

Basically I am looking for something similar to the interface of Lightroom and or ON1, any suggestions?????

Depends on what you're main interests /subjects are.
If you photograph people, particularly portraits sorry, but c1 is sublime. DxO is fantastic though and my usual go to raw editor. I love Affinity photo but I really disagree about it being a good raw editor, it sadly falls short on a number of levels, they have just got it wrong and it saddens me to say that. It is a great PS replacement though!
 
Upvote 0
zim said:
Durf said:
Looking for a recommendation other than Lightroom and ON1.

I have Lightroom Classic but the subscription is about up for renewal and I'm trying to find something I can buy outright.

I also have ON1 Photo Raw 2018 and have been having a lot of issues with it's performance and am at the point with it that I am ready to look for alternatives. (I love ON1 and wish it worked right!!!!!!)

I don't want to spend several hundred on Capture One.

Basically I am looking for something similar to the interface of Lightroom and or ON1, any suggestions?????

Depends on what you're main interests /subjects are.
If you photograph people, particularly portraits sorry, but c1 is sublime. DxO is fantastic though and my usual go to raw editor. I love Affinity photo but I really disagree about it being a good raw editor, it sadly falls short on a number of levels, they have just got it wrong and it saddens me to say that. It is a great PS replacement though!

I'm mostly doing landscapes and nature/stills of plant life, insects/macro, animals, waterfalls, old cars and antiques, etc., some home interior shots. I very seldom take photos of people. Lately I've been taking many flower and plant photos.

More people are mentioning dxo, I wish it had some type of file explorer/import option, but it does look nice, I'm studying it a bit right now.
 
Upvote 0

pj1974

80D, M5, 7D, & lots of glass and accessories!
Oct 18, 2011
691
211
Adelaide, Australia
I can vouch for DxO (Optics Pro or Photo Lab) being great raw editors... they handle noise very well.
Fantastic for batch processing, and works efficiently with my multi-core Ryzen 5/1600 AMD processor.

For individual images and special purposes (e.g. stitched panoramas, etc), I use Affinity Photo.
RAW processing is not its greatest strength, but it is powerful & does very well as a Photoshop replacement.

ACDSee is my digital asset management (DAM) software. I like the layout and viewing options.
The recent versions also have a half decent 'quick' editor mode, e.g. when needing to do a 60 second edit.

Cheers! 8)
 
Upvote 0
Mar 25, 2011
16,848
1,835
Durf said:
Affinity looks promising....has anyone tried ACDSee?
I've used ACDsee since the days of Unix commands for the internet. I currently have Ultimate 10.

Forget it for RAW. Its just too slow, and even worse, it takes them forever to update it for new camera models, so long that you might have to first buy next years version to get the update. For jpeg images, its great, as well as for converting to different formats. Printing is also a strong point. It does not support PDF.
 
Upvote 0

Keith_Reeder

I really don't mind offending trolls.
Feb 8, 2014
960
477
63
Blyth, NE England
Mt Spokane Photography said:
Forget it for RAW.

ACDSee Photo Editor 10 is great - it's a proper "one stop" workflow solution (apart from DAM) from Raw to finished image (including Adobe plugin support) - and quick, especially if you use keystroke combos to access the main functions.

I'm perfectly happy to use it instead of Photo Ninja unless the image has some particularly problematic highlights; or a lot of noise.

And look at the frickin' price!

https://www.acdsee.com/en/products/acdsee-photo-editor

I also have Photo Studio Professional 2018 if I'm doing bulk work - just as good, and with some useful additions like content-aware fill.

https://www.acdsee.com/en/products/photo-studio-professional
 
Upvote 0
Keith_Reeder said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
Forget it for RAW.

ACDSee Photo Editor 10 is great - it's a proper "one stop" workflow solution (apart from DAM) from Raw to finished image (including Adobe plugin support) - and quick, especially if you use keystroke combos to access the main functions.

I'm perfectly happy to use it instead of Photo Ninja unless the image has some particularly problematic highlights; or a lot of noise.

And look at the frickin' price!

https://www.acdsee.com/en/products/acdsee-photo-editor

I also have Photo Studio Professional 2018 if I'm doing bulk work - just as good, and with some useful additions like content-aware fill.

https://www.acdsee.com/en/products/photo-studio-professional

ACDSee Photo Studio Professional 2018 looks like a half way decent program for 55 bucks!
 
Upvote 0
Dec 19, 2014
123
61
Keith_Reeder said:
Then, when you've done that, do yourself a favour and settle on Photo Ninja: better detail rendition; better NR (yes, really); way better highlights management.

I agree on PN’s detail, and especially it’s NR. Highlight mgmt is very good. But some color rendition sucks. I shoot insects in RAW with 7D and 7D2. I get superb color fidelity if the files need no adjustment or only slight work in DPP. If I need better highlight control and/or NR, I often use PN with good results. However, especially with blue reflective surfaces (common on damselflies), PN renders them with a horrible dense, flat blue that cannot be made to resemble Canon’s color. I can overcome this somewhat by starting in DPP with slight NR, using PN for the little additional NR I can squeeze from the TIFF exported from DPP, and finishing up in Affinity. Bottom line: on those challenging files I settle either for lesser NR or lesser color fidelity.

Affinity is also unable to process a RAW file and render Canon’s subtle blues accurately, and its NR is not as good as PN’s.

If anybody out there is using C1 or DXO for insects and can preserve the types of blue I describe, I’d like to know.
 
Upvote 0

scottkinfw

Wildlife photography is my passion
CR Pro
Durf said:
Looking for a recommendation other than Lightroom and ON1.

I have Lightroom Classic but the subscription is about up for renewal and I'm trying to find something I can buy outright.

I also have ON1 Photo Raw 2018 and have been having a lot of issues with it's performance and am at the point with it that I am ready to look for alternatives. (I love ON1 and wish it worked right!!!!!!)

I don't want to spend several hundred on Capture One.

Basically I am looking for something similar to the interface of Lightroom and or ON1, any suggestions?????

Why don't you try to delete and reload On1?
I am using it and loving it.

sek
 
Upvote 0