Lightroom Alternative - Luminar, Capture 1 or...

[Rokkor]

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Hi ,

with the Leica Q I am very happy with the colours etc. 
 

so far I worked with Lightroom. I do not like the subscription as it is a hobby. Luminar seems a decent alternative. With some presets, I do not like the editing as it reverts this fantastic natural colors.

What would you recommend for some clarity, exposure, shadows, lights editing with some cropping and good b&w rendering?

Luminar seems good just no possibility to manage the photographs as in a database and also no iPad / cloud integration.

 

Is there a programme that fits the Leica natural style? Not too many options and minimalist with a certain purity and not too obvious effects and popping colors?

 

thanks in advance.

 

[jaapv]

ON1. Probably the closest to a LR alternative.

[poli]

Have a look at Raw Power. 

[frame-it]

2 hours ago, Rokkor said:

Hi ,

with the Leica Q I am very happy with the colours etc. 
 

so far I worked with Lightroom. I do not like the subscription as it is a hobby. Luminar seems a decent alternative. With some presets, I do not like the editing as it reverts this fantastic natural colors.

What would you recommend for some clarity, exposure, shadows, lights editing with some cropping and good b&w rendering?

Luminar seems good just no possibility to manage the photographs as in a database and also no iPad / cloud integration.

 

Is there a programme that fits the Leica natural style? Not too many options and minimalist with a certain purity and not too obvious effects and popping colors?

 

thanks in advance.

 

Apple Photos App ?

[rob_w]

I would endorse ON1 and RawPower having used both.  Luminar takes a different approach, aimed more at producing spectacular images with automatic assistance.  C1 can produce excellent results but is expensive and IMHO rather complicated.   Note that ON1 does not seem to apply inbuilt lens corrections in Leica DNGs for the CL (neither does Luminar BTW).  I am still investigating.  I do not know if your Q relies upon inbuilt lens corrections also.  If it does, you may need to check that aspect of any alternative raw developer to LR.

Edited June 3, 2020 by rob_w

[Rokkor]

vor 6 Minuten schrieb rob_w:

I would endorse ON1 and RawPower having used both.  Luminar takes a different approach, aimed more at producing spectacular images with automatic assistance.  C1 can produce excellent results but is expensive and IMHO rather complicated.   Note that ON1 does not seem to apply inbuilt lens corrections in Leica DNGs for the CL (neither does Luminar BTW).  I am still investigating.  I do not know if your Q relies upon inbuilt lens corrections also.  If it does, you may need to check that aspect of any alternative raw developer to LR.

Thanks Rob. Will take a look at your two suggestions.

do you mean by lens correction that there is a preset in the programme that does that automatically? I think the camera jpegs also have a lens correction, right? If it is not built in, do I then need to manully adjust with the lens correction settings?

Is there any programme that could even correct distortion of the wide angle, e.g. for portraits that have been taken too close?

 

thanks again and kind regards!

[rob_w]

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Most lenses have separate profiles which can be applied, or not, to correct perceived deficiencies.   More modern Leica lenses have inbuilt software correction as part of their design.  The raw developer should recognise the codes in the raw file (in this case, DNG) and apply them.  There is no separate lens profile to be located or selected.  However, not all raw developers do respond to the manufacturer's correction codes in the raw file. 

I am still investigating this myself, so happy to be further enlightened by other forum members.  If you develop, say, an M240 DNG which used a 24mm Elmarit-M lens,  LR will select the profile for that lens and apply it if you wish.  You have a choice whether that profile is applied or not.  If you develop a CL DNG taken with the TL23 Summicron, then under lens correction LR will describe it as "inbuilt" and apply it automatically.

I noticed some files for the CL did not have inbuilt correction applied, either by ON1 or Luminar (I have not yet investigated with Raw Power).  I am due to send some examples to ON1 to confirm what is (or is not) happening, but have not got around to it yet.

To your other point, the apparent distortion of a w/a lens in a close portrait is actually just an effect of the lens.  You can if you wish adjust it manually in all the programs we have been discussing, but it is just a post-processing adjustment, not a correction made by a lens profile, as it would be considered normal for a w/a lens to do work that way.  Better to choose a longer lens or, in the case of the Q, stand further back and crop the resultant picture.

Hope this helps!

 

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by rob_w

[Rokkor]

Hi Rob, this is very helpful. Thanks a lot. This is maybe the reason why the jpeg look different from the DNG files in luminar.

if Luminar cannot deal with the Q lens correction this would be a major downside.

aybe someone with a Q knows about this...

[Rokkor]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb frame-it:

Apple Photos App ?

I think this would be too basic although it fulfils my description. I also had a bad experience in the past when the database lost some pictures. But maybe 10 years ago.

[Rokkor]

vor 13 Stunden schrieb frame-it:

Apple Photos App ?

I think this would be too basic although it fulfils my description. I also had a bad experience in the past when the database lost some pictures. But maybe 10 years ago.

[motard]

I`m very content with GIMP / Darktable.

[zeitz]

I applaud and look forward to the growth and success of GIMP / Darktable because I am an advocate of open source software.  Right now I find them a little too much oriented to the computer scientist than to the general public.  An example is referring to disks as volumes.  Maybe I need to update the latest versions and try again.

The day will come when I abandon Apple's limited hardware selection and get a Dell Precision Workstation running Linux / Open Office / GIMP / Darktable.

[Rokkor]

vor 15 Stunden schrieb frame-it:

Apple Photos App ?

I think this would be too basic although it fulfils my description. I also had a bad experience in the past when the database lost some pictures. But maybe 10 years ago.

[Rokkor]

I just googled and found that Luminar does not have a lens correction build in. Now I understand why I even found very prominent dark triangles where I thought I did something wrong with the lens hood. Luminar apparently does not read out the dng correctly which is part of the Q concept to have this lens correction applied.

[Jeff S]

Dan Wells has been writing a series of good articles at LuLa (paid site) regarding LR alternatives, predicting the discontinuation of LR Classic, possibly soon.   He pretty much dismisses Luminar and ON1 as preset-based rather than parametric converters, instead focusing on software like C1 and DXO, ultimately recommending the latter.  But while he mentions DXO’s lack of support for Fuji (XTrans) files, he neglects to mention that DXO is slow to provide Leica support in general (still no SL2 support, etc), and has no plan to support Monochrom files.  He did, however, write that ON1 seems to be providing more tools to address the limitations of being based on presets rather than parametric editing controls.  I sense that ON1 is closing the gap with LR better than Luminar.
 

Jeff

[Rokkor]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb Jeff S:

Dan Wells has been writing a series of good articles at LuLa (paid site) regarding LR alternatives, predicting the discontinuation of LR Classic, possibly soon.   He pretty much dismisses Luminar and ON1 as preset-based rather than parametric converters, instead focusing on software like C1 and DXO, ultimately recommending the latter.  But while he mentions DXO’s lack of support for Fuji (XTrans) files, he neglects to mention that DXO is slow to provide Leica support in general (still no SL2 support, etc), and has no plan to support Monochrom files.  He did, however, write that ON1 seems to be providing more tools to address the limitations of being based on presets rather than parametric editing controls.  I sense that ON1 is closing the gap with LR better than Luminar.
 

Jeff

Thanks Jeff.

will take a look at those. Luminar sometimes manages well with AI. And you still have manual control. That they do not support the DNG files of the Q correctly is a bit funny. Overall makes a good impression. But maybe needs some me time to fully develop...

[marchyman]

5 hours ago, Jeff S said:

He pretty much dismisses Luminar and ON1 as preset-based rather than parametric converters

I suspect if you are one of the many that love presets both Luminar and ON1 will do quite nicely.   I don't do presets.  Perhaps that is a failing; I don't know.  Because I don't use presets programs like Luminar  and ON1 don't appeal to me.

DXO looked interesting, but has no support for some of the cameras I use.  Scratch it off the list.  I'm currently using Capture One and, when I need to play with pixels, Affinity Photo.  Capture One is frustrating.   I use it and mostly like it, but find I am constantly working around minor (and sometimes not so minor) bugs.

[AndreasG]

vor 20 Stunden schrieb Rokkor:

I just googled and found that Luminar does not have a lens correction build in.

In both Luminar 3 and 4 lens correction can be handled manually - defringing, devignetting and correction of barrel/pin cussion distortion, furthermore, you can import existing DCP profiles.

There are indeed many presets in Luminar, if you don't like/need them, simply remove them from the screen, it is just a mouse click. I need to admit, at the beginning I strictly neglected the presets, meanwhile I apply some of them as the basis for further own processing, it saves me time. And of course you can create your own range of presets for future applications.

Edited June 4, 2020 by AndreasG

[Rokkor]

vor 12 Minuten schrieb AndreasG:

In both Luminar 3 and 4 lens correction can be handled manually - defringing, devignetting and correction of barrel/pin cussion distortion, furthermore, you can import existing DCP profiles.

There are indeed many presets in Luminar, if you don't like/need them, simply remove them from the screen, it is just a mouse click. I need to admit, at the beginning I strictly neglected the presets, meanwhile I apply some of them as the basis for further own processing, it saves me time. And of course you can create your own range of presets for future applications.

Thank you. What are DCP profiles? Where can I find them to add them? From Luminar support I learned that they do not support the Q lens natively and I can only correct each image manually.

Edited June 4, 2020 by Rokkor
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[jaapv]

19 hours ago, Jeff S said:

I sense that ON1 is closing the gap with LR better than Luminar.
 

Agree, in a sense that it may be in the process of overtaking.