The Top 10 Fantastic Lightroom Substitutes for 2024
Are you having trouble using Lightroom due to its high cost, despite its professional editing style and advanced non-destructive editing, batch editing, and skin smoothing tools? Don’t worry! Not all doors are closed. There is another option for your satisfaction and that is the Lightroom alternative. There are dozens of great photo editing software with editing capabilities, ease of use, and a Lightroom-like user interface.
I am well versed in photo editing skills and have tried a wide range of editing tools, so I can easily mention the names, features, pros, and cons of tools that share their capabilities with Lightroom. After almost a decade of experience, I have decided to highlight the best Lightroom alternatives by mentioning their features, pros and cons, and supported platforms.
So, stay with me to get in-depth information about the top 10 best Lightroom alternatives in a few minutes as I will not waste much of your time and will only cover the relevant points. You will thus be able to select the best free alternative to Adobe Lightroom in a matter of seconds after reading this post.
Adobe Photoshop
An excellent graphics and editing system is Adobe Photoshop. It works with a variety of operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, and iPad. Other tools that can be utilized are vector masks, healing brushes, blending modes, color balance, clone stamps, and cropping, among many others.
These tools are all crucial for manipulating images because they allow for smooth editing, object removal, and appearance adjustments. Every tool and filter performs its function without causing any damage, which is why expert web designers, photographers, graphic designers, and illustrators now find it to be their go-to tool.
Not only is it a popular option for experts, but enthusiasts who simply like to dabble in photography also adore it.
Its other features such as layer editing, RAW editing, and a history panel also do wonders to satisfy its users. It offers a 7-day free trial period. Then we have to pay €22.99 per month to get full access to Photoshop Express for mobile devices.
Pros and Cons of Adobe Photoshop
| PROSE |
| CONS |
Capture One
Designed for photo editing and editing, Capture One is one of the best Lightroom alternatives that is suitable for both professional photographers and studio photographers. But one feature that sets it apart from Lightroom is the layer editing, as Lightroom does not have this capability but its professional image library is similar to Lightroom. It can be used for tethered shooting and collaborative workflows in studios and teams respectively.
It supports RAW editing, keystone adjustments, transitions, image cataloging, layer editing and more. If you are looking for the best Adobe Lightroom alternative for Mac or Windows, then this is the best choice for your big-screen editing needs. It focuses on improving the quality of images and rendering colors accurately. If you are looking for workflows and tools similar to Lightroom Classic and CC, then Capture One Pro is perhaps the closest alternative.
The tools for studio photographers and tethered shooting have recently been introduced for iPhone and iPad. In addition, it has also upgraded its system functionality and perpetual license in early 2023, and the publisher has announced that it will not receive any updates for its new perpetual license. Not good news for It offers a spectrum of eight colors instead of the standard six and allows users to edit specific colors in their photos.
Pros and Cons of Capture One
| PROSE |
Suitable compatibility for using Fujifilm film simulation.
Non-destructive editing is similar to Lightroom.
Can recover shadows, especially for late-night photos.
Fast loading of thumbnails and other large files.
| CONS |
Understanding the development module is a bit complicated.
Complex learning curves.
Luminaire AI
Luminar AI, as the name suggests, is entirely AI-powered software, so all tools can be automatically adjusted, without much time, effort, and know-how Many different AI tools actually change color, brightness, transparency, hue, saturation, and so on. Furthermore, with AI-assisted tools, we can enhance image quality and remove scratches and blemishes from images with minimal effort.
It is among the best Lightroom alternatives that offer full access to cropping, masking, and layering. Moreover, it has a wide range of tools that allow us to create super contrast in our photos by adjusting textures and textures. Just like the presets in Lightroom, it also offers a wide range of presets with full customization capabilities, so users can easily adapt them to their editing needs.
Luminar AI is best suited for landscape and portrait photos. It is compatible with all devices, so you can download the Luminar Android app from Playstore for iOS from the App Store. Moreover, the web version is also available for Windows and Mac with different subscriptions. One of the most advanced features is that we can use extensions to add new features to perform some additional functions.
Pros and Cons of Luminar AI
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| CONS |
DxO PhotoLab 7
DxO PhotoLab 7, a leader in noise reduction, is known for its color collaboration tool thanks to its industry-standard color control charts. It tops the list of Lightroom alternatives because of its native palette, which includes an HSL color wheel for fine-tuning some edits, as well as the mask view, which helps with some edits. Moreover, it also performs amazingly in black-and-white editing to introduce fine art into our images. It uses an impressive file system for managing a large photo library and offers a considerable set of modules for combining lenses and cameras.
Like Adobe Lightroom, it also offers a variety of presets and allows users to preview images after applying specific presets. The noise reduction feature is so amazing that people integrate PhotoLab with the noise reduction algorithm to improve the quality of their photos and videos. Now you can easily understand why DxO has such powerful tools that professional photo editors prefer it over PhotoLab.
The most striking feature of DxO PhotoLab 7 is its user-friendly interface, as users can easily access the various tools and filters through the simple navigation system. Similar to the catalog system in Lightroom, users can group images from the same category into project sections and apply the same type of filters to all selected images.
Pros and Cons of DxO PhotoLab 7
| PROSE |
The king of noise reduction
Suitable for managing smooth transitions in clipped highlights.
Offers 6 categories with a wide range of presets.
Access to local adjustment tools
| CONS |
No ability to edit layers.
Limited features related to masking
ON1 Image RAW
ON1 is a powerful image enhancement and refresh software that offers advanced editing tools with AI-driven adjustments. One of its amazing features is the non-destructive updating process, which allows users to keep their original photos and lose no information. Users can edit without fear as they can easily view the original images. It supports a variety of file formats including JPEG, TIF, PSD, PSB, PNG, and DNG, and can also drive raw images taken from more than 800 different kinds of cameras.
Like most other selected photo editing software, it also offers photo organizing tools to make our photos in the photo library. It can also correct more than 1200 different lens defects and offers more than 100 presets in line with the latest trends in photo editing. Moreover, like DxO PhotoLab 7, it allows both local and global editing.
Moreover, HDR, supports multi-shot techniques, panorama, and focus stacking. Thanks to its AI tools, users can enlarge their images, but the ratio of size to pixels remains the same and prevents images from blurring. It is compatible with both mobile and PC devices, so you can install the ON 1 Photo RAW app on your Android and iPhone and use the web version on your Windows and Mac as well. It starts at $7.99/month and $89.99/year.
Pros and Cons of ON 1 Photo RAW
| PROSE |
Provide facial restoration toolsAbsence of facial recognition technology unique rendering performanceStandard RAW development
| CONS |
Less intuitive interface
Color deviations need to be corrected.
Darktable Photo Editor
Darktable Photo Editor, a virtual darkroom for photographers, is an open-source workflow software. It can manage our digital negatives in a database, allowing us to organize the images and find the desired image from a collection using specific parameters such as tags or labels. In addition, it allows us to improve the quality of raw images thanks to the best free raw converters and image enhancement tools.
We can use it as the best alternative to Adobe Lightroom because of its user-friendly interface and non-destructive editing power. The masking effects of this amazing software are also great because it offers a wide range of masks in different shapes including brushes, circles, ellipses, bezier paths, and gradients so that the user can manually apply them to a specific location in the image applied as
It offers tools and filters to adjust color, contrast, brightness, highlights, tint, and shadows. It also gives plug-ins options to make additional adjustments that are not possible with built-in presets. You can easily access more than 30 modules to apply different filters and effects to your photos.
In addition, like Lightroom, it offers presets that you can install and use to automatically adjust everything we do using manual tools and filters. If you want to know how to import presets into Lightroom, you can visit this page on our website. Darkable Photo Editor is free and compatible with Linux, Windows, and Mac.
Pros and Cons of Darktable Photo Editor
| PROSE |
Very intuitive interface
Extensive non-destructive image editing
Supports many formats.
Open-source
| CONS |
Snapseed
Developed by Nick Software, Snapseed was originally launched in 2011 for the iPad. Due to the growing needs, it was then introduced for the iPhone a few months later that year. It was later released for Android and Microsoft Windows based on user demand. Since we have discussed Snapseed vs Lightroom in detail, you can understand that Snapseed can be used as an alternative to Lightroom.
Let us highlight some of the great features that make us use it instead of the Lightroom mobile app. By using this great photo editor, you can give your photos a bright and smooth look with just a few clicks. It also offers selective tools that allow us to edit a specific part of your image while leaving the rest untouched.
In Lightroom, we can blur the background and focus more clearly on the subject, while Snapseed offers the same functionality with a vintage tool, which can blur the background to make the main subject clearer in the image It offers professional tools for color, brightness, contrast, saturation, highlights, and shadows. Moreover, you get full vintage support and editing features for white and black balance.
To apply certain filters and effects, you can opt for swipe gestures for manual adjustment or for automatic adjustment of color and contrast, so the decision to choose the best one is yours. To do wonders in the field of photography, Snapseed offers several special filters such as Glamour Glow, Lens Blur, Drama, Tilt Shift, Center Focus, Blur, and Frame.
Pros and Cons of Snapseed
| PROSE |
| CONS |
Lake of catalog system and batch editing
Lack of an image search function
Affinity Photo
Infinity Photo by Serif is an excellent choice for many photographers because of its wide array of filtering tools and devices. The main tab gives you access to a wide range of tools and filters, allowing you to make minor adjustments to exposure, brightness, vibrancy, highlights, contrast, shadows, and more. However, you cannot adjust saturation and hue through this basic panel.
On the Lend tab, you can edit vignettes, chromatic aberration reduction, diffraction and lens correction. Conversely, on the Details tab, we can make detailed adjustments and reduce noise. Through the Tone tab, you can perform basic corrections, split toning, curves and white and black editing.
It also offers masking, multi-layer editing and non-destructive editing and the option to compress any file size by embedding a document or linking it externally. In addition, it allows us to make some changes to the lighting of existing normal maps. In the case of RAW editing, only a few adjustments and editing options are possible. It is compatible with Mac and Windows for a one-time price of $69.99.
Pros and cons of Infinity Photo
| PROSE |
Very cheap price
Wide range of image selection and adjustment
You only need to subscribe once.
Fully compatible with M1 chip power
| CONS |
Rough Treatment
A unique feature that sets it apart from other Adobe Lightroom alternatives is its state-of-the-art and classic color reconstruction algorithms, including AMZE, DCB, AHD, EAHD, HPHD, IGV, LMMSE, VNG4, Mono, and Fast. In addition, it offers professional-level color processing filters from white balance to HSV, so it is an excellent choice for color correction.
With the help of the tone and round curves, we can easily correct highlights and shadows. It also offers a wide range of noise reduction tools, such as brightness and chrominance. Similar to the batch editing process in Lightroom, it also offers the same type of batch processing to edit a large portion of images in a few clicks. Moreover, the non-destructive export settings and RAW editing process are similar to Lightroom.
Moreover, you can sync RawTherapee with other software for additional customization, which is also possible in Lightroom. It is open source, so photographers can modify the source code to suit their editing needs. It can support monochrome cameras and film negatives for our photos. It is free and compatible with all devices, including Windows, Mac, iPhone, Linux, and Android.
Pros and cons of Rough Treatment
| PROSE |
open source softwareProfessional level tools for color correctionAvailability of preview windows
| CONS |
Does not offer tutorials for support.
A new design is needed.
Corel Aftershot Pro
Corel AfterShot, a specialized raw image processor and commercial software, was developed by Alludo. It offers seamless photo management, powerful batch processing, and ultra-fast workflows. Similar to the catalog system in Lightroom, it allows you to create a collection of images and organize them by name, date, or tag. It offers a wide range of display filters and effects for editing and selecting images, including grid, filmstrip, and full-screen views.
Like other Adobe Lightroom alternatives, it allows us to process RAW files and identify the tone and quality of our images. It offers basic tools for correcting color and tone, as well as editing watermarks and metadata. In addition, Corel AfterShot also offers a small selection of presets that are pre-installed and categorized by similar features.
In addition, it gives us access to Heal/Clone tools to create new layers and then sublayers with each click. Similar to the skin smoothing in Lightroom, it also allows us to smooth out noisy images without introducing digital artifacts. It is compatible with Windows and Mac for around $64.
Pros and cons of Corel Aftershot Pro
| PROSE |
The very simple process of layer implementation
Support for RAW files at the PTO level
Amazing
Fast and intuitive interface
| CONS |
FAQ,s
Final Thoughts
This blog is for you if you’re searching for the top 10 best Lightroom substitutes because we’ve covered the key attributes, benefits, and drawbacks of each program. In addition, you may quickly compare the prices of each software and compatible device to select the best one. But out of all of the above, Lightroom is the greatest because it works with any device, has two versions—Lightroom Classic and CC—and offers a variety of payment options.
