Hello all,
My Adobe Creative Cloud is set to expire next month and am I wondering if I would be sorely missing Lr were I to switch to Photos. I can see that a lot of extensions seem to privide a rather large number of interesting additions to Photos. What I am thinking of doing is purchasing Macphun’s Creative Kit suite and use all the apps with Photos.
However ONE THING I think is missing. Is there an extension somewhere that can give me the flexibility of Lr’s adjustment brush? I mean the whole thing here. Setting multiple adjustments to a single brush strokes, creating multiple brushes in one photos, etc…
Anyone here migrated from Lr to Photos? How did it work for you?
In case this is relevent, I mainly do sports, shows and portraits.
Thank you!
Brushes are rumored to be coming in Photos but who really knows.
If you get the app called External Editors for Photos on the Mac App Store for $0.99, you can use any editors you like via the extension. It's awesome!
Macphun gives brushes but no edge detection.
The best solution is free!!! If you are willing to learn the control point in Nik Collection for your local adjustments, you'll get better results in far less time than you did in Lightroom. The best part is it's free!!!! use Color Efex Pro and Viviza for color. Use Silver Efex Pro for b&w. A lot users here like Silver Efex Pro the best. i personally lke Color Efex Pro the most. Use it with External Editor for Photos app so you access these from within Photos.
Robert Ke
twitter: rke21
also at:
instagram: rke21
facebook: outdoorphotographynow
i also wanted to mention Polarr which has brushes (no edge detection though) selection, ecliptic selection and gradient selection just like Lightroom. $19.99. It was on sale for $0.99 for Earth Day.
Nonetheless, you'll get the best result with Nik Collection in conjuction with External Editors for Photos app.
You can also get the MacPhun apps at the Mac App Store. They are very similiar to Nik Collection except they use brushes instead of control points. i like these suite of apps very much also. Nik Collection feel more professional dues to their controls. Macphun is a little more simple. Macphun is easy. Nik Collection is slightly less easy.
Robert Ke
twitter: rke21
also at:
instagram: rke21
facebook: outdoorphotographynow
I dumped LR for Photos. On1 has an excellent plugin with full access to brush masking and all their features! But I don’t use anything but Apple Photos and Capture1 Pro now. I don’t miss Lightroom at all.
Milo
www.milosmetal.com
Thank you for all for your input. So far I have looked at lots of options. The External Editors for Photos app is very nice and useful. However I have not found the perfect external editor that makes me say “Oh wow. I definitely will drop Lr for this and Photos”.
I have heard of On1 through the TWIP podcast not long ago. I will have a look at their plugin through the free trial.
I was in the same situation. I signed up for CC a year ago and just let it expire. Ten dollars plus tax a month for the rest of my life is just not a good value proposition for me.
I have found using Photos plus Nik (via External Editors) plus Affinity Photo I have more than enough editing firepower to drop Lr. The Affinity plug ins are all I use 99.9% of the time when I go to Affinity. But it is nice to know I have a Ps alternative when I need it. If you have not tried Affinity I strongly encourage you to download the free trial and use the plug ins.
With the above I have found a solution that answers my needs. Hopefully you will find an alternative you are happy with.
Thanks ST. Will have a look. I still have time to make up my mind, my CC sub renews in 2 weeks.
I REALLY want to like OS X Photos. I’m just having a really hard time getting used to the GUI.
I tried transferring a few shoots in there and did a few edits. I noticed the library file size seems to grow VERY quickly. This is a bit of a concern to me.
And finally my main gripe with Photos is that whenever you use an external editor, you end up sending a JPG to the editor instead of using the RAW file. This is definetely a huge show-stopper for me.
Unless I’m wrong? Please tell me I’m wrong. Someone? Anybody? ;)
Are you wrong? well, it depends. if u'r getting a jpg and you want raw, go to Edit -> Use RAW as Original.
Robert Ke
twitter: rke21
also at:
instagram: rke21
facebook: outdoorphotographynow
Picktorial (www.picktorial.com) offers adjustment brushes with “auto-mask”.
It also offers a clone/healing tool, a skin smoothing tool, local sharpening and blur - all operating non-destructively.
Picktorial can work as a standalone Mac app, (with folders and Aperture libraries), or as an extension for macOS Photos.
Picktorial can recall sliders’ positioning and masks, allowing you to pick up where you left off even after restarting Photos.
The beta/trial is free: www.picktorial.com
I’m leading the Picktorial team and I would be happy to answer any questions and hear your feedback.
Yoav
Picktorial can natively browse Aperture libraries and provides powerful non-destructive editing tools.
www.picktorial.com
Interesting.
Question: If I use it as a OS X Photos plugin, what happens if I transfer a photo to Picktorial for editing? Am I editing the RAW file or does a JPG gets sent for editing?
As with any Photos app extension, If you only shoot RAW and have not done any edits to the file inside Photos or any other extension, the RAW file is sent to the first extension you pick… once edited in that extension, the resulting file will unfortunately be a JPG (that is an Apple limitation… not the extension’s fault).
All us Photos users can do is keep sending feedback to Apple about allowing TIFF file to be returned by extensions to the Photos app instead of JPG.. go to http://www.apple.com/feedback/photos.html
If you shoot RAW + JPEg, you need to make sure that you select in the menu bar: Image -> Use RAW as Original; which will send the RAW part to the extension.
SKR Imaging
https://skrimaging.wordpress.com
Just want to confirm that what SKR Imaging is also the case with Picktorial for Photos. Apple provides the original file to Photos extensions only if the file has not been edited in Photos or in another extension. Otherwise it’s a JPEG.
Given this limitation of Photos, my recommendation is to first adjust exposure, shadows, highlights and contrast, to keep the dynamic range of the image inside the 8-bit of the result JPEG.
Picktorial can natively browse Aperture libraries and provides powerful non-destructive editing tools.
www.picktorial.com
I send TIFF files back to Photos from CaptureOne Pro every day. Also from On1 Photo 10.
Milo
www.milosmetal.com
But not from a Photos Extension
SKR Imaging
https://skrimaging.wordpress.com
True. I create a tiff from the RAW file first and then Apple Photos keeps it as tiff.
Milo
www.milosmetal.com