15 Free Lightroom Alternatives in - Same idea, new approach

I have been a fan of Adobe Lightroom for years. It has excellent apps on mobile and for my pixelmator pro vs lightroom free. Lightroom helped me bring those photos to life.

You read that right. Photography is a competitive space. There are tons of good software out in the market, which helps us jazz up our photos. I remember starting my photography journey by touching up my RAW photos on Photoshop with the help of beautiful presets I bought from places like Creative Market.

The process was easy. Open up a RAW photo, experiment with presets until I was satisfied and finish off with some minor touches. Some of the best selling stock photos on my Creative Market shop came from this process:. The problem with this approach was that I became dependent on the collection of presets I had at that time. Presets are great and can save you a ton of time. Lightroom is like a very newbie-friendly subset of Photoshop, which makes pixelmator pro vs lightroom free photos a breeze.

I was already subscribed to the Creative Cloud Photography Packwhich got me access to both Lightroom and Photoshop. I started pixelmator pro vs lightroom free my photos with Lightroom. The friend who recommended Lightroom to me, suggested I give Pixelmator Pro a shot. Banking on the fact that his recommendations are usually solid, I downloaded the trial copy of Pixelmator Pro and took it for a test drive.

I was amazed at how well this tool was built. Lightroom is great for retouching and colour grading photos. However, when it comes to tweaking stuff, we need to import a half-edited photo into Photoshop to finish the job. I used to spend way less time editing photos in Lightroom than in Photoshop. Pixelmator Pro shines in this department by providing both super easy ML-driven retouching tools and also advanced photo manipulation capabilities like Photoshop. Unlike Lightroom, where you select an area using the radial tool or the linear gradient tool and pixelmator pro vs lightroom free apply adjustments to the area, Pixelmator Pro allows local adjustments in two ways:.

The guys behind Pixelmator Pro made a fantastic video on how to use all the retouching tools in the app. This feature gives me a great starting point for my editing workflow.

After the initial automated adjustments are made, I can continue from where Pixelmator Pro left off and add some finishing touches of my own.

Although it works on a majority of photos, for some of my photos I prefer starting from pixelmator pro vs lightroom free on my own. This is a life-saver when it comes to taking colour grading inspirations from other awesome photos. Pixelmator Pro can automatically apply colour adjustments based on a reference photo that I choose. For example, see this:.

However, not every photographer shares their presets. This feature allows me to harness colour grading from every photo present on the internet. Adobe Lightroom is an insanely popular photo editing software. With popularity, comes a boatload of tutorials and courses. Therefore, right now:. One of the impressive aspects of using Lightroom was that I could watch tons of how-to videos on YouTube and get better at my photography game. Although there are a couple of official tutorials from the Pixelmator team, the number is meagre.

Photo editing and photography, in general, is based on core concepts which can be applied to any tool regardless of how they are structured. I was able to apply most of my photo editing knowledge from Lightroom to Pixelmator Pro almost immediately.

This tiny little UX problem adds some manual effort for every photo I edit. Not a good thing to have. The album feature helped get a snapshot of all my processed photos in the app and anything that I had queued up for processing.

If your photography pixelmator pro vs lightroom free is anything like mine, then absolutely yes. One lifetime copy of Pixelmator Pro on macOS is worth just four months of Lightroom subscription payment.

More on this topic. Keep switching your system theme pixelmator pro vs lightroom free on the time of the day? Here's how to keep your wallpaper synced. Things 3 is a beautiful to-do list app. But, when it comes to flexibility, Todoist is miles ahead. Some of the best selling stock photos on my Creative Market shop came from this process: One of my best selling photos on Creative Market.

That is when one of my friends introduced Lightroom to me. The main selling point was that it was powerful, like Photoshop but with less work to do. Then, my photos started to look this these: One of my photos edited in Lightroom. Lightroom made it easy and fun to apply those retouches. But, the problem was: I was neither shooting nor editing photos very often This meant, I had to pay for Lightroom every month to have it parked on my laptop.

I paid for over a year where I maybe used Lightroom for about times. With Pixelmator Pro, I pixelmator pro vs lightroom free How I can have the best of both worlds in a single app Lightroom is great for retouching and colour grading photos.

Now, you might think: Why not edit the photo directly in Photoshop? For example, check out this awesome: Quick selection tool in Pixelmator Pro I love how cool the quick selection tool works in Pixelmator Pro. Also, this tool is super fun to use. Just look at that cool mouse hover effect. One of my most used tools in Lightroom was to apply local adjustments to a photo. Selecting area to retouch: Using a pixelmator pro vs lightroom free tool like the quick selection tool I talked about, I can select an area and apply adjustments to pixelmator pro vs lightroom free area.

This technique offers fine controls over the selected area, pretty much like Lightroom. Some of the ML-driven features I enjoy are: ML enhance This feature gives me a great starting point for my editing workflow. Apart from this, I also love the: ML Match Colours feature This is a life-saver when it comes to taking colour grading inspirations from other awesome photos.

For example, see this: Automated colour grading using ML match colours. Some might argue that presets do a better job than this. But, I treat this feature as a starting point pixelmator pro vs lightroom free then calibrate accordingly to add my touch. That said: I do miss a couple of things about Lightroom Adobe Lightroom is an insanely pixelmator pro vs lightroom free photo editing software. I shoot and edit photos in my free time as a hobby. Pixelmator pro vs lightroom free some features like the local adjustments, I got used to the new way in a couple of days.

I have pixelmator pro vs lightroom free add each adjustment control to my images like this manually: Adding a new colour adjustment in Pixelmator Pro.

Now, the question is: Whether moving to Pixelmator Pro is a good idea If your photography workflow is anything like mine, then absolutely yes. Mainly, for these two reasons: All-in-one app for all photo editing needs One time payment One lifetime copy of Pixelmator Pro on macOS is worth just four months of Lightroom subscription payment. Choose what works best for you. Join the Club. Here's a cautionary tale.