As popular as Adobe’s Lightroom is, the subscription model can quickly burn a hole in your pocket. I wanted a free alternative that didn’t compromise on features—and I found one. This software completely changed how I edit my photos.
6
The Cost Advantage
If you’re a beginner photographer and don’t want to spend hundreds on software right away, RawTherapee is the perfect starting point. While Lightroom is subscription-driven and will cost at least $11.99 a month, RawTherapee is open-source and free to download and use.
If you’re operating on a tight budget, RawTherapee’s free price tag is a huge advantage in itself. Lightroom and Photoshop can be overkill for most photographers, so you might as well save yourself the money. Not being tied down to a subscription for editing your photos means you have more cash on hand to spend on equipment like lenses and other camera gear that’ll help you more in the long term.
Additionally, since the program is open source, it comes with the benefits of open-source software. Contributors are constantly working to add new features or address existing issues.
5
You Can Get Greater Detail in Editing
Another major advantage RawTherapee brings to the table is the detail it’s able to extract from images. The program offers better sharpening capabilities compared to Lightroom, meaning you’ll be able to get more details out of your images without as many artifacts or haloing.
if you’re shooting in RAW, RawTherapee provides more granular control of RAW processing parameters. By comparison, Lightroom simplifies a lot of processes with sliders and presets that, while being user-friendly, do take away some control from you.
A lot of settings in Lightroom such as shadow and highlight settings are better manipulated with curves in RawTherapee. The entire program is divided into individual modules that control a certain parameter of the image. Figuring out what module changes what parameter can be a bit of a hassle, but it ultimately gives you more control over the final image.
You’ll also get slightly better noise reduction capabilities. This is especially helpful for beginner photographers as they’ll likely have cameras with worse ISO and dynamic range. So if you shot a particular photo in challenging conditions, and with the ISO turned up, chances are RawTherapee will do a better job of rescuing it.
You might need to use the Brush tool in Lightroom to edit certain parts of the image with extra precision. RawTherapee often has area controls for specific modules by default, meaning instead of having to paint your edits over an area, you can just apply the effect there.
There are also some specialized tools that you won’t find in Lightroom at all. For example, RawTherapee has quite detailed wavelet-based processing options that give you more control over image texture and detail. In Lightroom, you’ll have to use a third-party extension or other workarounds.
Do keep in mind that this brings a steeper learning curve to the program, meaning you’ll be watching quite a few tutorials when you’re first starting out. Thankfully, the user interface is simple enough for beginners to start, and if you’re coming from Lightroom, you’ll instantly feel at home as a lot of the controls are in the same layout, albeit with more complicated names. There’s also full documentation on RawTherapee’s website as well as the RawTherapee forum you can turn to for help if you get stuck.
4
Non-Destructive Workflow
Both Lightroom and RawTherapee offer non-destructive workflows. This means that you’ll be able to retain the original image data regardless of how many edits you’ve made. If you mess something up and want to reset the image, it’s very easy to go back.
You can see the entire edit history in a handy History section and go back and forth between all the changes you’ve made with a single click. The program automatically adds or removes any settings you might’ve made as you go along the section.
Additionally, RawTherapee also has a snapshot feature that lets you save edits to your image without having to export it. This means that instead of resetting your image completely if you mess up, you can just revert to an earlier snapshot.
3
Better Output Capabilities
How the final image looks to you after editing can be affected by your own perception of color, the monitor you’re working on, and of course, the conditions in which you shot the image. In my experience, however, RawTherapee’s output looked a lot cleaner and free of noise when compared with Lightroom. That said, Lightroom does make images appear sharper by default, but it’s something you can counter with the right modules in RawTherapee.
Alterantive Opinion:
Lightroom Is Still Better Than Every Other Photo Editing App: Here’s Why
You’re missing out if you’re still editing without Lightroom.
To me, RawTherapee produces more natural-looking results, while Lightroom produces sharper results that can make the colors in your photo stand out. What output you prefer is subjective, but if you’re after a real-life look to your photos, you might want to use RawTherapee.
2
Better Performance Across Systems
If you’re a Linux user, you’re out of luck when it comes to Adobe software. Even if you manage to get Lightroom running on a Linux machine with emulators or tweaks, you’re going to face performance issues.
RawTherapee is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux, free of cost on all three OSes of course (and in over 15 languages). Since the program is built with cross-platform support, it also tends to perform better across a varied range of hardware, meaning if you’re on a low or mid-spec machine, you’ll get better performance when using RawTherapee.
1
Integration With Other Programs
RawTherapee by itself doesn’t support any extensions or third-party add-ons. However, it can play well with other programs, Lightroom included. During my transition from Lightroom to RawTherapee, I often used Lightroom as an image browser before sending select files to the latter for editing.
This was done mostly because RawTherapee’s image browser, while perfectly functional, just is as easy to use as Lightroom’s. You’ll find most tools such as ratings, selections, and color-coding but I still prefer Lightroom’s interface when browsing through images because of its simplicity and visibility.
I own a 14-inch laptop and my bigger, 24-inch display isn’t always with me. When on smaller displays, Lightroom makes more effective use of the space. If you’re going through hundreds of photos after a shoot, that screen space will save you time and effort.
since I’ve switched to RawTherapee to escape from Adobe subscriptions, the way I develop my photos has changed completely. It did take quite a few tutorials and documentation-reading to get here, but now my edits are much more thoughtful and free, courtesy of the extra control I have over the final image.
