Software Suggestions

hark

hark

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One thing I didn't know until recently is that Adobe Bridge is free. It uses the same tools as Lightroom and Camera RAW (no organization though like LIghtroom has). But with its editing power and the fact that it's free is surprising.
 
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Chris Busby

New member
hark said:
One thing I didn't know until recently is that Adobe Bridge is free. It uses the same tools as Lightroom and Camera RAW (no organization though like LIghtroom has). But with its editing power and the fact that it's free is surprising.
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When you say editing power you are referring to organisational editing I assume as there is no actual editing as In changing The actual photo?
 
hark

hark

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Chris Busby said:
When you say editing power you are referring to organisational editing I assume as there is no actual editing as In changing The actual photo?
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No, I meant that it's a powerful program, and to be able to use it for free is really incredible.
 
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Chris Busby

New member
blackstar said:
I think you are correct that there is no actual photo editing in AB unless it is used with other editing programs (LR or PS).
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Yes it’s a good organisational program for sorting your images as in
Adobe Bridge is often used to organize files by renaming a group of them at once, assigning colored labels or star ratings assigned to files from the respective Adobe software suite, edit embedded or associated XMP and IPTC Information Interchange Model metadata, or sort or categorize them based on their metadata.
 
Vixen

Vixen

Senior Member
Rehashing this thread coz since Adobe hiked up the cost of their photography plan but over 100%, I can no longer afford it. So... what to use? So far everything I've looked at seems so foreign that I struggle. Is there an idiots editor? or at least something that has a user guide written for idiots :)
 
BF Hammer

BF Hammer

Senior Member
@Vixen I continue to use RawTherapee and GIMP as my editing tools. GIMP just this year was finally updated to 3.xx version that has been promised for years. Think of RawTherapee as the replacement for Lightroom and GIMP as replacement for Photoshop. Not all the tools are available, but all the important features are. No AI assists, and that is more a feature than a flaw to me. I think free for life is worth the awkward relearning process.

I have largely switched to DigiKam for importing and organizing files. Also free, open-source. It does just a bit more than Nikon's NX Studio and is not limited to importing from Nikon devices. DigiKam does sort of allow you to integrate a little with RawTherapee so you might launch it by selecting a Raw file in DigiKam, but I find that does not work well yet. But maybe someday.

I did try buying Luminar AI some years ago. It lasted about 6 months until it did an update stopped working on my PC entirely. When I investigated that, tech support informed me my CPU is too old and no longer supported with that update. So remember you need a pretty recent computer to use all that AI enhancement. I'm still trucking on with that obsolete CPU computer.
 
Woodyg3

Woodyg3

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Vixen said:
Rehashing this thread coz since Adobe hiked up the cost of their photography plan but over 100%, I can no longer afford it. So... what to use? So far everything I've looked at seems so foreign that I struggle. Is there an idiots editor? or at least something that has a user guide written for idiots :)
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You can get a significant discount on the Adobe Photography plan if you pay by the year. You may already know this but I thought I'd mention.
 
Vixen

Vixen

Senior Member
BF Hammer said:
@Vixen I continue to use RawTherapee and GIMP as my editing tools. GIMP just this year was finally updated to 3.xx version that has been promised for years. Think of RawTherapee as the replacement for Lightroom and GIMP as replacement for Photoshop. Not all the tools are available, but all the important features are. No AI assists, and that is more a feature than a flaw to me. I think free for life is worth the awkward relearning process.
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I downloaded Gimp but find the user manual pretty useless (or maybe it is my brain that is useless these days :) ). I'm persevering with it tho because I can see that it is really quite good.
 
Dawg Pics

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
I am not sure what is going on with Affinity, so I can no longer recommend it or at least not at the moment. The company was acquired and it has halted sales for a new release, which scares me a bit. I don't want a subscription, and I really don't want to learn another platform.
I might end up just using the Apple software.
 
BF Hammer

BF Hammer

Senior Member
Dawg Pics said:
I am not sure what is going on with Affinity, so I can no longer recommend it or at least not at the moment. The company was acquired and it has halted sales for a new release, which scares me a bit. I don't want a subscription, and I really don't want to learn another platform.
I might end up just using the Apple software.
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Speculation from PetaPixel's Chris and Jordan is that they are switching to a subscription model. The new parent company already has that model in place for their other products.
 
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