[Leica] PC alternatives to Lightroom???

[Peter Klein]

Douglas:  I use Capture One. A "light" version came with my M8. I soon 
purchased the Pro version and have stuck with it through many upgrades.  
Like Lightroom, C-One is considered a fully professional tool, and keeps 
up with support for virtually every significant camera made. Also, C-One 
can be purchased outright--unlike Adobe's rental model, which I oppose 
on principle. The recent versions have layers and layer masks, so you 
can do local exposure/contrast/color adjustments, cloning and (to a 
limited extent) "healing."  The C-One layers are not as advanced as 
Photoshop's, but C-One does 98% of what I've ever needed.

For the remaining 2%, I use Picture Window Pro, *after* I've done my RAW 
work. PWP has a generic RAW converter, which requires a lot more manual 
work to get the basic conversion right than Capture One or Lightroom. 
The latter two have built-in profiles for most cameras. PWP's RAW 
processor is basically a GUI interface to DCRAW, which is built into 
program. You have to figure out the settings on your own, or use someone 
else's recipe.

Personally, I would not use PWP for its RAW converter. I use it for what 
my RAW converter don't do or don't do as well.  PWP's RAW can work well, 
but I find it better suited to people who are more interested in the 
technical minutae of RAW conversion than in actually taking pictures. 
Such people can do as well with it as with Lightroom or C-One, but I'm 
not one of them. PWP's RAW converter enabled me to learn a lot about how 
RAW converters work, and to play with RAW files from new cameras. But 
inevitably, when Lightroom or C-One come out with a camera profile, 
often with help from the camera maker, it always is quite a bit better 
than what I can do with PWP.

Before C-One had layers and layer masks, I did my initial global work 
(affecting the whole image) in C-One. Then I saved the file as a 16-bit 
TIFF. Then I'd work on the TIFF in PWP, doing local adjustments with 
masks, cloning, and such. Today, I usually find C-One sufficient. And 
I've still got my copy of PWP for the occasional esoteric stuff that 
C-One doesn't do.

I will not get into a holy war about whether C-One or Lightroom is 
better. As with all complex tools, which one is better depends on what 
you need to do. For most of us, either will do quite nicely. I'd say 
that if you are serious about RAW work, you owe it to yourself to have 
one of the two. C-One is probably less expensive in the long run. If you 
have an esoteric need, your best bet is to do a Net search of that 
feature and look for reviews or user comments that mention the feature 
and the programs of interest in depth.

Also note that Fuji X-Trans files have some special processing 
requirements. The consensus I've read is that Capture One is somewhat 
better than Lightroom for Fuji files, especially for landscapes with 
lots of green in them.  Each handles the colors a little differently. 
You might want to research that further. There's also SilkyPix, which is 
what Fuji recommends. But that means using something that is very 
different from everything else out there, and might not be the best for 
any other camera make.

Jonathan Sachs, the author of PWP (and also the co-author of the 
original Lotus 123), just discontinued development on PWP. The final 
version is now available for free here:
<http://dl-c.com/>

Since PWP is a mature, full-featured image editor, I see no reason not 
to have it if you need a good general purpose image editor. IMHO it's 
*much* better than any of the other free or low-cost programs out there. 
I chose it over Photoshop and Photoshop Elements years ago. (Of course, 
if Elements is fine for you, look no further). PWP's major downsides are:

     (1) It does not do layers, so you have to save several versions of 
your image if you want to go back and change something.
     (2) Its user interface is a little different from most Windows 
programs, which annoys some people.

Hope this helps!

--Peter


 > I have been using Picture Window Pro 7.0 for some time, and it does
 > fine, but is being discontinued.  I own my software, but there will be
 > no more updates for new cameras.  At present, it does not support RAF
 > files from the X-T2, which I have been considering.  It works fine with
 > RAF files from the X-E1.  That is why I was exploring LR.
 >
 > Jim Nichols
 > Tullahoma, TN USA
 >
 > On 1/5/2017 4:59 PM, Douglas Barry wrote:
 > > Having never shot a RAW file since I discovered my Fuji X100S files
 > > were not compatible with my old LR nearly four years ago, I'm
 > > wondering are there any low cost PC alternatives to Lightroom that
 > > would enble me to import Fuji RAW and convert to Tiff as I need the
 > > resolution for printing?? JPGs don't cut it for larger sizes. I'd like
 > > to hear from anybody who is using alternative PC software to import
 > > RAW files and how it's working for them.
 > >
 > > I'm also buying a Sony A7ii so it would be useful if it could do the
 > > same trick with Sony RAW files. I do little manipulation so I'm happy
 > > to use my existing PSE software which can deal with Tiffs easily.
 > >
 > > Douglas
 > >