Darktable vs rawtherapee vs lightroom update#
Darktable vs rawtherapee vs lightroom software#

Lightroom became the primary photo editing tool for many photographers, and Photoshop became a more specialized tool that was only used on a few images in need of specific and complex edits that were outside Lightroom’s capabilities. Suddenly, many photographers were ignoring Photoshop and focusing exclusively on using Lightroom. Editing entire photoshoots became possible with just a few clicks, and the non-destructive workflow concept was in the spotlight everywhere. If you remove a freckle from the tip of your subject’s nose and it turns out later that they loved seeing it, you can simply delete that one local adjustment without having to re-edit the entire photo.īecause the edits you make to an image aren’t actually altering the pixels, it’s possible to copy and paste entire editing presets from one photo to another. It even became possible to do some localized retouching non-destructively. Instead of a linear, destructive editing process that altered the pixels in your image, each individual edit became a separate entity. If you were 95% of the way through your edit and then wanted to go back and change something crucial like the white balance, you simply adjusted the white balance slider, and none of the other edits you had made were affected. This was utterly transformative for the world of digital photo editing. Non-destructive edits don’t actually alter the pixels within an image – they act like filters that change how the image is displayed, and they can be adjusted later without having to start the editing process from the beginning. Lightroom came along and changed all that by emphasizing non-destructive editing techniques for RAW photos. You opened a single image to work on, processed it until you were satisfied with the result, and then saved and exported it for use in whatever project you were working on. The Lightroom Classic CC Workflowīefore Lightroom, most photo editing happened entirely within an editor like Photoshop. The newer cloud version hasn’t gained the same user base as the original version, and the Classic CC version is what most people mean when they refer to ‘Lightroom’ without specifying which one they mean.

Darktable vs rawtherapee vs lightroom update#

So far they’ve continued to update it regularly with optimizations and new features, but it’s still possible that they’ll wind up treating it as ‘end-of-life’ software.Īll of this is a long way to say that ‘Lightroom’ can refer to two very different programs, but for the purposes of this review, I’m going to stick to comparing GIMP to Lightroom Classic CC. I guess they were trying to capitalize on the existing Lightroom brand loyalty, but many users became worried that Lightroom Classic would soon be discontinued.Īdobe claims they intend to support it over the long term, but they have a history of failing to keep these sorts of promises. I’m not sure what Adobe’s reasons for this naming decision were, but it wound up just creating a great deal of confusion. It forced users to store all their images in the Creative Cloud storage system, but as a result, it also gained some unique abilities like automatic image keyword tagging, powered by the Adobe Sensei machine learning algorithm.

Darktable vs rawtherapee vs lightroom software#

Lightroom offered cataloging and non-destructive general adjustments, while Photoshop excelled at localized edits.Īdobe Photoshop Lightroom went through six versions, but instead of releasing version 7.0, it was rebranded as Lightroom Classic CC to line up with the launch of the Creative Cloud platform that redefined the entire Adobe software ecosystem into its current subscription model.Īt the same time, a cloud-focused version of the app was released with the name Lightroom CC. Lightroom was originally released under the name ‘Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’, due to the closely linked workflow created by using Photoshop and Lightroom together. Development began in 1999, just three years after the first version of GIMP was released, but it wasn’t finally seen by the public until 2006, and even that was only a beta version. Lightroom is one of the original photo editors designed from the ground up for handling non-destructive RAW photo workflows. There is another version of Lightroom known simply as Lightroom CC, but it’s newer and not nearly as popular as the original.įeeling a bit confused? You’re not alone – let me explain. Of course, I’m assuming that you want to know how GIMP compares to Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, which is the original incarnation of Lightroom.