Which One?! Looking at Adobe Lightroom alternatives

Photographers and photo editors now have more choices than ever. If you use Adobe Lightroom CC like I do, you now have alternatives to Lightroom. Last month (December 2018), I updated my ON1 Photo Raw (it is now 2019 version) which I love because it offers things that Lightroom and Luminar (from Skylum) do not have. It has all these effects, textures, borders and so on. It is kinda like Adobe Photoshop but it offers the organizing abilities of Lightroom, it is like Lightroom and Photoshop in one application. With Photo Raw, I feel I can be more creative than using Lightroom or Luminar.

Adobe Lightroom CC

But, there is Luminar 3 from Skylum which I just upgraded to. I have been using Luminar 2018 and I do like it, but again it does not have all the bells and whistles that ON1 Photo Raw has. The new Luminar 3 now includes Libraries, so like ON1 Photo Raw 2019 it wants to be my Lightroom replacement. As I said, I just upgraded rto Luminar 3 and it is too early for an opinion and like Photo Raw 2019, I need some time to play with it.

Photo Raw 2019 from ON1

I know that these software companies see a opportunity here to take away some of Adobe's customers, the Lightroom users. There are Adobe customers that are not happy with the whole subscriptions thing and would prefer to buy the software than to rent the software. But I wonder if there is too many choices for those who like to abandon Lightroom and be free of Adobe's world. Right now, I really do not know which one I would jump to if I decide to leave Lightroom, but for now I think I will stick to Lightroom and use Photo Raw and Luminar as plugins like I have always done. But, it has crossed my mind to walk away from Lightroom and Adobe, but I prefer not to make a quick decision on this.

So, what do you think about these new software? Do you plan to use one of them as a replacement to Lightroom?

Luminar 3 from Skylum

#opinion #photoediting #on1photoraw #skylumluminar