So I starting to get into photography more and I am looking at a Photo editing software. I don't really want to pay $128 a year for a software. Is there anything else out there that is as good with out paying a subscription or do I need to just suck it up?
I use Corel Photopaint as part of a graphics package I bought 20 years ago, and updates have remained free. It is very intuitive.
Lightzone.
Open source and pretty powerful.
If you're on a Mac, Pixelmator Pro is cheap and only requires a one-time charge. I hate monthly fees for software. It does 95% of what Photoshop/Lightroom can do albeit with no cataloguing function. I use Pixelmator to edit and Photos (default Apple app) to organize.
Short of pirating software (which I would never publicly encourage, ever, piracy, even piracy of Adobe and other cashgrab subscription-only based software products, is very wrong and should never be done ever), I don't think you'll find anything as easy to use as Lightroom. Of course, if you're just looking at an editing software, I think Lightzone is a good choice. I always prefer open source SW over specialized paid software for non-professional use (looking at you, Matlab).
Affinity Photo is a pretty good (paid for) photo editor that's worth looking at, too.
In reply to hunter47 :
That is kind of what I am worried about. I don't want something with an even larger learning curve and Lightroom has plenty of resources on learning.
Is there anything Lightroom does that Lightzone can't?
In reply to Brake_L8 (Forum Supporter) :
Not on Mac and no plans to be so it will have to work on PC.
When I had that same decision to make recently, I downloaded DarkTable (a free open source alternative to LightRoom), and I've been happy enough with it not to want to try any alternatives.
In reply to 93EXCivic :
That's the issue with monopolies, they establish a very large network and make it difficult to switch out of it. Unfortunately, pirating a cracked version of Lightroom is probably the only way you can eke your way out of paying a subscription (not that I would ever publicly encourage that, like I said, it's very wrong).
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