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I’ve been using GIMP for about 3 years now, and am wondering if I should try out Adobe Lightroom. Does anyone have any thoughts about GIMP vs. Lightroom?
- This topic was modified 54 years, 10 months ago by .
As I’ve said in previous posts, the difference between GIMP and Lightroom is in their intended purpose. Lightroom is made especially for photographers, and it’s main purpose is making global adjustments to photos.
GIMP, on the other hand is geared more towards pixel-level editing, it mainly does small, local adjustments.
So, the question is, how many pictures are you editing, and how much adjusting do you need to make? If you shoot 100s of RAW photos in a month, and need to edit them, then there’s no question in my mind which sort of software you need. 🙂
Actually, all photographers need an addition to the GIMP!. GIMP is just not the ideal tool for editing pictures, period. (Unless you have unlimited time, and don’t mind getting carpal tunnel syndrome.)
Thankfully, if you’re not sure that you can spend the ~$130 for Lightroom, you do have another (free) alternative to try out first: RAWTherapee! It’s quite a powerful alternative too! It’s intended purpose is exactly the same as Lightroom’s: Made for photographers to quickly and efficiently (globally) process multiple photographs.
Obviously, they aren’t exactly the same, Lightroom has some features that RAWTherapee doesn’t, and vice versa. I’ll hopefully be able to update my post on “RAWTherapee vs. Lightroom” to show the major differences soon.
In the meantime, here’s some recommended reading…
Recommended reading:
- https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/lonely-owl/
- https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/photoshop/
- https://www.lenspiration.com/forums/topic/rawtherapee-vs-adobe-lightroom/
P.S. You can always download the latest version of Lightroom and give it a try, you can try it out for 30 days for free, so you can get an idea of how it works, and whether you should spend the $$ for it. Note that you can also purchase Lightroom as a monthly subscription along with Photoshop for $9.99/month.
@buddingphotographer, Thank you so much for all the info! It was all very helpful. I now understand the difference between GIMP and Lightroom. Also, thank you for the recommended reading – I really enjoyed it.
You’re very welcome! If you’ve got any more questions, don’t hesitate to speak up! Hopefully someone here will have an answer!
I’ll add to @buddingphotographers initial comment about the intended purpose of Lightroom: global adjustments and efficient photo organization. That’s something GIMP doesn’t intend to do.
Right, thanks for pointing that out @JamesStaddon! I had forgotten about that, since I don’t use that aspect of it much. 🙁
Man, I wish they had something about GIMP in this year’s Ultimate Photography Bundle! https://us154.isrefer.com/go/UPB18JamesS/a13432/topic * Maybe we should request it for 2019! 😉
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