New Mac - Lightroom or alternatives?

Lounge
1

After 10 years sterling service my trusty 2012 model Mac Book Pro is nearing retirement and will soon be replaced by a M2 model Mac Book Air. All great but I’m wondering what to do with Lightroom.

On my MBP, I use Lightroom 5 and have always liked its user interface and workflow. If I want to continue with Lightroom on the MBA, it looks like I need a subscription plan for Creative Cloud and to be honest, having looked at it, I really don’t need the latest features and don’t like subscription models for things like this.

Any recommendations for photo management software for Macs with the added complication that I use a Fuji XT-1 with the X Trans sensor. Perhaps the XT-1 due an update too but I do rather like it…

Any tips / advice appreciated.

2

Capture One is the best photo software on the market. Like all they want you to buy a subscription as well but at the moment you can still buy a full license and be independent. The also have a Fuji version costing less, including all the Fuji film-presets.
Their color rendering and editing options are way superior to LR. It’s worth every penny.

1 Like
3

Can you not transfer/load LR5 to you incoming Mac Book…? Do you not have the discs…?

Much lower down the Foodchain, I just put PSE V.9 onto my new-to-me Win 11 PC. No problems. Still works, well enough for me.

1 Like
4

Unfortunately it’s not compatible, Ian. LR 5 was designed for the older Intel processor based machines rather than the new Apple SoC architecture.

1 Like
5

Ah ok - good call - I’ll have a look :+1:

6

Maybe have a look at Phocus. It’s Hasselblad’s own but can be used with other makes. It’s a free download too. There is a tutorial on Youtube which last about an hour IIRC and is interesting.

1 Like
7

Wow, LR5 - that’s ancient! And sloooow (and never the best for X-trans files if I recall). Lots of people rave about the free commons DarkTable, though apparently the learning curve is a bit steeper than LR. There’s DXO as well, and quite a few basic Raw Convertors. Google ‘Lightroom alternatives’ and you should come up with quite a few articles from the likes of Petapixel, fstoppers etc.

1 Like
8

Oh, bad idea, honestly. I wouldn’t go anywhere near that unless you are shooting proprietary Hasselblad files. Much better alternatives out there.

1 Like
9

Agreed. That’s also the main reason not to use Hasselblad.

1 Like
10

Understood. That’s a shame.

So in this case… Windows wins. Not often that happens… lols.

1 Like
11

What about Affinity Photo 2, I use it on a Mac Book Air M2, I’ve had no problems, can’t comment regarding your Fuji and conpatability, you could give it a try.

Gary

1 Like
12

Affinity Phone is. good replacement for Photoshop, but if you want the Lightroom workflow features, I don’t think it’s not there.

I’ve got a similar problem with CS6 Photoshop on my old iMac, and want to move to Mac M2 Mini, but dont want to go paying £10 a month for my life just for the odd time I want it. I’ve also looked into virtualising my old Mac, but again because the new CPU architecture is different (ARM verses Intel) that’s not possible

1 Like
13

I’ve not tried but won’t it run under Rosetta 2?

LR 5 is a 64 bit app for Mac (not sure if Rosetta 2 handles 32/64 bit apps):

Screenshot 2023-01-30 at 16.27.05
Screenshot 2023-01-30 at 16.27.05698×143 21.5 KB

1 Like
14

How much RAM are you planning on?

My M1 Mac Mini really struggles with 8GB RAM doing little more than browsing with Safari, I just didn’t want to wait for build to order to get 16GB but now wish I had.

M2 Air SSD is I believe a bit slower than the M1 Air (many see it as a sweet spot, though $ pricing is the same as GBP), but it may not matter in practice. I’d be tempted to go for at least 16GB if not 24GB on an M2 Air, but Apple sure know how to charge a premium for RAM and SSD upgrades.

2 Likes
15

Maybe not as slick a workflow as Lightroom but ON1?

1 Like
16

It seems to be the 256GB model which has the slower SSD. I’ve gone for 512GB but stayed with 8GB RAM which will be more than enough for me.

1 Like
17

Folks - thanks for all the suggestions. Really helpful and you’ve given me some good options to go and explore further.

Thanks again :+1:

18

Another vote here for Affinity 2. A kind of PS lite at a very good one-off price. I use a Fuji xt3 but they are very on the ball for new camera compatibility. Like most of them you can try before you buy…

1 Like
19

My M1 Mini with 16GB of RAM was a joke, but then I’m a heavy lifter. Ended up with a 16" MacBook Pro with 64GB and that made my life much better.

3 Likes
20

I went from being a longterm Lightroom/Photoshop user (even was a Photoshop instructor at one point) but went over to Affinity and never looked back.

It more than replaces Photoshop but Lightroom is quite unique in some respects.

If your photos are well organised on the file system and your okay losing Lightroom’s non file touching finishing metadata then a good editor (Affinity Photo in my case) and the Mac file browser might be enough.

2 Likes