Of course most of us lack those skills, but that doesn't mean we can't take advantage of the wonderful work of those who do. Not only is open-source software free to download and use, but the underlying source code is also available to modify yourself, should you have the requisite skills. Not familiar with the open-source software movement? Simplifying greatly, the open-source community creates and maintains software as a labor of love and a gift to the community. What is open-source software and what does it mean for you?

But in addition to its raft of paid rivals, did you know that there are quite a few open-source alternatives available completely free of charge, some of which actually predate Lightroom's own existence?įor this article we took a look at five of the most widely-recommended, open-source Lightroom alternatives, and herein present our results: the three nearest rivals we could find, plus two apps we wanted to love but which left us heartbroken. There's no escaping the fact that if you're looking to process your raw photos, Adobe's Lightroom Classic is the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Lightroom mac