Everyone’s heard of Adobe Lightroom, but did you know you can do almost everything you need in digital photography with free software? The big companies don’t want you to know it, so I’ve created a list of free software for photography. I’ve seperated this list into two categories: open source, and free software that is not open source. I like open-source software the best, but the free stuff is pretty good too:
Contents
Open Source
First, if you like open-source and want to see a visual summary of what some of it looks like, I suggest you watch my video which summarizes the most important open-source software in photography:
Here is a slightly more detailed list that contains some software not in the video:
Darktable
Darktable is my main Raw editor. It’s the only one that I think is complete enough for me as a wildlife photographer.
It’s got more than enough tools for almost any tasks. The only downside is that it doesn’t have panoramic Raw merging, but that’s not a huge deal for most.
If you want to learn how to use Darktable, check out the Darktable Udemy course I helped make. It’s not expensive and you’ll get your money’s worth.
Pros:
- Powerful and complete toolset
- Free
Cons:
- Can be complex for some users
RawTherapee
Rawtherapee is another open-source and free Raw editor. It’s good but has limited local editing capabilities. Good for beginners who just want to do the basics.
This twelve-minute video will show you everything you need to know to get started in RawTherapee:
Here’s a specific tutorial just on masks:
Pros:
- A little less powerful than darktable but still good
- Fast on slower hardware
Cons:
- Low-resolution preview always on when not zoomed in to 100%
- Limited masking
Shine Stacker
Shine Stacker is a great open-source focus stacking program and it’s relatively new. It’s the only open-source, usable program that works reliably for focus stacking.
What about enfuse, which I mention next? Enfuse is great at AHDR, but it’s not good at focus stacking, even if you tweak the options. It is pretty much guaranteed to produce artifacts on most images that have out of focus areas and so I wouldn’t recommend it at all for focus stacking.
You can get it on the project’s GitHub releases page.
Pros:
- Works very well
- Cross-platform
Cons:
- Depth-map method still could use some work
- Not as intuitive to use as Zerene or Helicon Focus
Hugin
Hugin is an open-source panorama maker. I’m hesitant to completely recommend it because it’s overly complicated and isn’t stable on my computer. Check out the free section for Panorama Stitcher Mini, the program I actually use.
Hugin does come with a program worth using though. It’s called enfuse. It can do HDR as well, and works well with the average high dynamic range technique. Like Luminance below, I don’t use such techniques in my own photography (except to make tutorials).
Pros:
- Lots of features
Cons:
- Overly complicated
- Unstable on MacOS
Luminance HDR
Luminance HDR is a tone-mapping tool designed to produce HDR images from bracketed shots. Honestly, I don’t much like the HDR look so I never use it. Plus modern cameras have so much dynamic range that not many people will really need a program like this except maybe real estate photographers.
Pros:
- Lots of tonemapping algorithms
Cons:
- The vast majority of settings easily lead to hideous results
- Might not be a good use of time since modern cameras are so good
ImageJ
ImageJ is less of a creative application and more of a scientific one. It’s for doing measurements on photos, and could be useful if you want to do a lot of calculations on your images (like estimate the size of birds, etc.)
Pros:
- Great for scientific applications
Cons:
- Not very relevant for the average photographer
LightZone
LightZone is yet another open-source Raw editor. I’d consider it more of a fringe project and it doesn’t have a lot of features. It does have masking though and it’s been around for a while, but the development of it is quite slow. Its website doesn’t work at the time of this writing and its only web presence is a GitHub page.
Pros:
- Free and fairly simple to use
Cons:
- Slow development
- Not very powerful
Free, But Not Open Source
Nikon NX Studio
For Nikon users, another free Raw developer is NX Studio. I don’t like it as much now because Nikon requires you to sign in to use it, so I just use an old version. It’s a travesty that you have to log in. I mean, it’s not freakin’ fort knox! Anyway, it’s worth a shot for a really basic program (but it’s much less capable than darktable).
Pros:
- Comes from Nikon so it’s guaranteed to support Nikon NEF files of all types
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Very limited, no local edits
- The latest versions require you to sign-in to the program
Canon DPP
Canon users can use Canon DPP, a free Raw developer that works with Canon cameras. I’ve never used it but it’s basically like the Canon version of NX Studio.
Pros:
- Works with all Canon Raw files
Cons:
- Not as powerful as the big ones…
Panorama Stitcher Mini (MacOS Only)
There’s a full-version of Panaorama Stitcher Mini that’s not free, but the free version can stitch up to five shots, which is more than enough for me.
It doesn’t nag you to buy the full version either. It’s much better than Hugin in terms of its user interface and stability and it’s great for open-source users of Darktable because Darktable doesn’t have a panorama function.
Pros:
- Free and VERY easy to use
- Stitching algorithm works well
Cons:
- Free version works with at most five shots
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this list of free programs for photography, and you probably did because you’re cheap like me. Haha.