Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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bakubo
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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I have not checked Rawtherapee for a long time. Apparently it now has local adjustments.

A skin smoothing showcase using RawTherapee’s Local adjustments

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/a-skin-smoot ... ents/12420
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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Quick update I have been contacted by Skylum for a review on Luminar 3. Aka on the Youtube channel I run
So I agreed (brave company). Not tried it since the first encounter, which wasn't great with poor performance. But I'll give it another try and see if they have sorted out some of those problems. Will update here if I have any findings, video review will take time, and I'd need to use it more to give a real impression.
I am still using Darktable, it's fine for landcape/few shots shoots. It's too cumbersome on workflow for larger shoots ie many photos to sort out. I have RT on the PC I might update that to see how it looks
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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I have seen several recommendations for the series of darktable tutorials done by Bruce Williams. Here is the first one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s41rmYx ... 8-v-uHnhK_

It looks like he has several dozen on youtube.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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The tutorials are useful, but the issue remains with Darktable of workflow. Sure it gets a bit easier, but the no. of tweaks you have to make is counter intuitive for volume editing. It's just not set up for that kind of work. For smaller shoots it's fine, but issue remains LR is just way faster for doing tweaks. I don't think it's going to change anytime soon either, you can't really customise the layout as much as I'd like. I still keep it around and use it, just nothing yet comes near to LR for speed/workflow. I'm not sure the devs will do much different, I hope they do. So it's not you can't get good results (has improved a lot recently and it's pretty fast now), that's the one thing for me that stops it being a full blown replacement.

Painful to say but Adobe did get the layout/interface right, in a way nobody else seems to be able to at this time
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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Yes, I agree. That is why I still pay for the LR/PS subscription.

I bought ACDSee Pro 9 a few years ago and thought it was good. I also bought Aftershot Pro 1 a long time ago and thought it was fairly good too. Both were a lot easier to use and understand than darktable. I tried ASP 3 a couple of years ago and it had progressed. IMO, darktable has the internals down pretty well, but the user friendliness for photographers, workflow, and interface is where they need to do work. You need people with that sort of expertise though to volunteer to work for free though. I guess interface and workflow software people are not that common.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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DT has improved a lot in terms of processing, and results you can get. Easily up there now with others, NR is good it was poor, details also excellent. Speed is much better. Map works, can add borders/text it's got enough selective editing features to please most. I keep it around as I play with it and sometimes use it. If I have 100's of shots to work through, DT would take ages it's just a no go for tasks like that. It's fine if I do landscapes or small shoots, even then there is just "slider" overload. Many could be simplified, some got rid of entirely or integrated into others.

Looking at the devs, they don't seem to be willing to change the UI - so I don't hold out much hope, still you never know
Luminar is better since last tried it, but still a delay loading previews of images. They say there is an update next week so will wait for that. Again we're in a mixed bag, luminar has solid workflow - decent results, missing some important stuff though and basic DAM very basic at the moment. Nobody seems to quite get it, yet. I gave up on lightzone it seems to have a zombie developer who once a year does a very minor bugfix - just not going anywhere that program which is a bit of a shame really again had a lot of potential.

I'll keep trying stuff, it's not looking too likely I'll be deleting LR soon though. Don't really want to use 3/4 software programs when all I want is one!
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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bfitzgerald
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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Well the update is a bit of a disaster, if anything it's slower to load individual files than before! Start up is faster, but this is so far off usable on Windows, it's a bit sad. UI is quite good it just needs to load files in a second or two, not 7-10 seconds before you can even do anything. Evidently there are no previews being rendered. LR and Darktable are massively faster instantly loading files. Export is also horribly slow, I can export 6-7 files in DR and LR in the time it takes for one to finish.

I've not started a review, if I did it wouldn't be very positive. I wanted to give them a fair crack at it, that big delay makes it unworkable even if there are nice bits included (and there are some good things there). DAM is very basic, that's not the real problem . Oh well maybe they will do an update in a few weeks...I've plenty of bits in to work on, so this has shoved itself down the list of reviews. Maybe it's alright on Mac, don't know -on Windows it's just not cutting it
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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The current official version of darktable is still 2.6.2, but lots of people are using what will probably be called 2.7.0 when they release it officially. Someone posted this thread about the Windows version with link to the latest build: darktable-2.7.0+1477~g7740b7a8c-win64:

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/darktable-2- ... s/12579/22

Here is the link for the latest build mentioned down near the bottom of the thread:

https://mega.nz/#!Tyxw2A6S!27NzIGuKFsxD ... 53HfxMZkMA
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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Rawtherapee 5.7 is out now.

https://rawtherapee.com/
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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darktable 3.0.0rc0 released

https://www.darktable.org/2019/11/darkt ... -released/

Updated UI and many other changes. This is release candidate 0. I might download it just to take a look.

The download files for Linux and Windows are at the bottom:

https://github.com/darktable-org/darkta ... e-3.0.0rc0
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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darktable 3.0.0 released

https://github.com/darktable-org/darkta ... ease-3.0.0

Here is a lot of info about what has changed:

https://discuss.pixls.us/t/darktable-3-0/15384
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bakubo
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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bfitzgerald
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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I've given up on Darktable, despite some improvements and the new so called UI refresh (which didn't change any of the issues I had)
The software just makes a huge meal out of simple adjustments, and makes workflow far harder and longer than it should be. I don't think the devs have grasped how they have over complicated it, so bar a complete change of direction I won't be looking at it again

I do try other ones now and then so I might give that other one a look. Rawtherapee might work for some just as a raw developer, it is probably a bit easier to use. Just a shame they won't add basic tools like clone/watermark to it. The search continues!
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bakubo
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Re: Why it's time to move away from Lightroom

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Yes, I agree about darktable. Too bad. So much good about it, but the current developers are clueless about how to take the underlying great software and making a good user experience. Also, they clearly have no interest in doing it. Naturally, since they are doing it all for free they concentrate on the stuff they enjoy doing and have an interest in doing. Keeping all they have done for the people who do want and like the super complicated, convoluted options and power is fine. Make it an Expert mode for them. A Normal mode though with a reworking would be great. All it takes is for a serious developer to join the team, work for free, and do it. It is a non-trivial task for even an experienced software developer. Lots to learn about the software internals and need a good understanding of image processing and user design. Almost all commercial software has lots of similarities with regards to user operation. Differences, of course, but lots of similarities. darktable takes delight in ignoring decades of research and experience with regards to the operation of this sort of software. If they had a better way then people might embrace it, but it is Geek City. Sad.

Exposure X5 looks promising. I haven't downloaded the trial, but I might later.
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