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Adobe just launched the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5. You can pre order it at BHphoto, Adobe US, Adobe DE, Adobe UK and so on…US pricing is $149 for new customers and $79 for the upgrade. A preview can be read at Dpreview.
P.S.: My personal opinion on the new Adobe Cloud Strategy? Sucks 🙁 But is there any equal alternative? Not that I know…
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Actually, there is pretty much only Photoshop and maybe Illustrator that don’t have decent alternatives. Let’s hope someone jumps at the occasion. Apple would be my wish.
You should try Aperture 3 .
Aperture is not an alternative to Ps. Aperture is Apple’s Lightroom, which in turn is Adobe’s Capture One.
Photoshop’s alternatives are Corel Paintshop Pro and Photoplus X6. The problem with ANY other alternative to Photoshop itself (for what it is) is ACR. The only other real alternative to great noise reduction management from ACR is DxO Optics Pro or Capture One, but those are more like Lightroom than Photoshop.
Actually, Darktable has gotten great noise reduction in November 2012. It contains noise profiles for 60 camera models at all ISO numbers, and uses them to reduce sensor-based instead of image-based. Works like a charm, just “switch off noise”. 🙂
Just had a look at Darktable. A noble idea for noise reduction but not a mature one yet. The blotchy spots of noise are still there, in force, in their examples. They can greatly reduce chroma and luma noise but is not a great all rounder like ACR or DxO.
Aperture is not Apple´s Lightroom, but Lightroom is Adobe´s Aperture as that was what Adobe “copied” !
Actually none of the features highlighted here are new compared to Aperture, except the gradient tool.
ACR…hmm….recent test shows Aperture as superior raw converter compared to LR/photoshop ACR…..which is interesting.
RB, we still have features in Aperture that is not included in LR yet, and for the photo management part, i find Aperture clearly superior to the boxed-workflow Lightroom
I have. This is why I would like Apple to be the ones making a competitor. But, as Hendrick pointed out, Aperture simply isn’t a viable alternative.
Why not a viable alternative ? To photoshop i agree, but to lightroom ?
Yes, I meant to Photoshop.
Lr5 is cool. love the advanced Healing Brush and some other features.
There is no decent alternatives of Photoshop at the moment IMHO.
Actually, the are many RAW converters out there, and while there will always be an excuse for a LR user for not switching, the results would look the same.
That said, it is pretty astonishing how little Gimp has developed since I started using it in 1998 …
There are alternatives to Lightroom (Capture One, Aperture, Silky Pix, Iridient Raw Developer, DXO Optics, etc…) but not so many replacements for Photoshop. Really for PC you have Paintshop Pro and Corel Paint which are very mature and quite good. For MAC you have Pixelmator.
But in all honesty Adobe Photoshop has become almost a peerless standard for what it does. It has the most support for everything and is very useful for many other professions besides photography. For the working pro, Creative Cloud isn’t that big of a deal. For amateurs I would suggest trying to do as much as possible with Lightroom or similar and continuing to use the version of Photoshop you have for as long as you can hold out.
Unfortunately, there are alternatives to LR only, if you reduce LR to a pure (but not very good) RAW converter. But LR is much much more: It’s a complete photo management solution — from import, via filing/archiving/geotagging and developing up to publishing on paper and web, everything fully automatable for dealing with hugh photo collections. And in this combination, LR is unparalleled — alas.
Aperture is also a DAM. Phase One have a separate software for that, but it does exist. Simply put, there are direct alternatives to Lightroom.
Just bought the lightroom 5 standalone. Smart Preview works like a charm with and external hdd.
It is funny to read all these fanboy/anti-fanboy posts.
Who cares what the other one is using unless he asks you if you know a better choice?
I am using LR for importing, tagging, converting and basic improving. Depending on the pictures I convert with DxO-E, and if I wish for comprehensive works on pictures I use PS with NIK filters.
Every program has its advantages/disadvantages. So sticking to just one product may not be suitable to most advanced photographers.
Basically the topic of this thread is the release of Lightroom 5, so here is my input on that – I upgraded, and for what they advertise and for what I tested quickly by myself so far I assume the upgrade absolutely being worth the ~80 bucks.