17 Best Free Lightroom Alternatives for Professionals in 2024

If you’re a photographer, you’ve probably used Adobe Lightroom to manage and process your photo catalog. Lightroom is one of the most popular image-processing programs on the market. Tens of thousands of photographers use it to manage their workflow, organize photos from a shoot, and make base-level corrections each day.

However, many users complain that Lightroom is too expensive for its capabilities, too complicated for beginners to learn, and too limited in its photo manipulation options.

Thankfully, dozens of excellent free Lightroom alternatives exist that provide similar features or even expand upon Lightroom’s limitations.

With so many alternatives to Lightroom, you may have trouble determining which one is right for your needs. We’ve reviewed the 17 best free Lightroom alternatives on the market to help you make the most informed decision.

• Snapshot of Our Top 3 Free Lightroom Alternatives
• 17 Best Free Lightroom Alternatives for Professionals in 2024
• How to Choose the Best Free Lightroom Alternative
• Best Free Lightroom Alternatives Comparison Chart
• How to Edit and Organize Photos With PhotoDirector
• Download the Best Alternative to Lightroom for Free
• Free Lightroom Alternatives FAQ

Snapshot of Our Top 3 Free Lightroom Alternatives

17 Best Free Lightroom Alternatives for Professionals in 2024

1. PhotoDirector Essential - Best overall free lightroom alternative

Key Features:

1. Auto-Organization with Facial Recognition: PhotoDirector uses powerful FaceMe® technology to automatically tag faces so you can find photos quickly
2. Upscale/Enhance Images: Powerful algorithms automatically optimize colors and enlarge images without quality loss
3. Photo Retouching: This free Lightroom alternative comes with powerful face tools like a skin smoother, nose editor, eye shaper, blemish remover, and many more
4. Auto-Lens Correction: Automatically correct lens imperfections and distortions like fisheye, chromatic aberration, and keystoning

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TopTenReviews Rating: 5/5

Photo Organization Tools: 5/5

Price: Free
*Premium subscription available for $3.33/month

Who It’s For

We recommend PhotoDirector Essential as the best overall free Lightroom alternative. While Lightroom takes many users weeks or months to master, PhotoDirector Essential uses simple, straightforward tools and sorting features that new users can learn in no time. And that’s not to say PhotoDirector is only for beginners. This free Lightroom alternative is packed with all of the editing tools, features, and presets you would ever need to produce professional, publication-ready photos.

Why We Picked It

PhotoDirector will organize photos, assist your workflow, and provide a secure place to store your catalog. With this free Lightroom alternative, you can tag, rate, and add keywords to your entire photo dump in one simple step, allowing you to arrange an extensive catalog quickly. This program also utilizes automatic facial recognition to streamline the sorting process.

PhotoDirector is a superb free Lightroom alternative because it has advanced features like pro-level color adjustment tools and an extensive library of filters and effects. You can even split, combine, and color layers with glitch effects or use de-blur and denoise to sharpen images. Beginners can make Photoshop-like edits such as object removal with content-aware fill to erase pesky objects or people from otherwise perfect shots. PhotoDirector Essential also makes facial retouching incredibly easy. Slim features, add makeup, brighten eyes, and erase blemishes and wrinkles with the click of a button. There’s even a royalty-free stock library with over 4 million beautiful photos and graphics.

Bottom Line

Whether you typically perform simple color corrections to your photos or prefer to zoom in and perfect every pixel, PhotoDirector has you covered. Think of PhotoDirector Essential as the perfect blend of Lightroom and Photoshop without the high learning curve and price tag, making it the perfect free Lightroom alternative.

Download PhotoDirector Essential today by clicking the link below to organize and edit photos like a professional.

Check out these related topics for photo editing:

• 19 Free Photoshop Alternatives W/ Similar Features
• 5 Best Photo Collage Makers (Free & Paid)
• How to Unblur an Image in 1-Click [PC + Online]

2. Capture One - Best for color adjustments

Key Features:

1. Tethered Capture: Get an instant live preview of your photo shoots
2. AI Keystone Tool: Straighten vertical and horizontal lines with one click
3. Keyword Lists: Batch-Edit keywords and create multiple keyword libraries

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

G2 Rating: 4.5/5

Photo Organization Tools: 5/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $24/month, $179/year, or $299 for a Lifetime License

Who It’s For

Capture One is the best alternative to Lightroom for anyone who needs top-notch color adjustments. Based on our review, Capture One has incredible color accuracy and image quality, with true-to-life color processing for over 500 camera profiles. Capture One’s advanced color editor is on par with Lightroom. It offers eight color ranges instead of the standard six and lets you isolate and edit specific colors in your photo. There’s also a Skin Tone Editor to accurately depict skin tone without complex retouching.

Why We Picked It

One of the major perks of using this free Lightroom alternative is that you can easily import your photo catalog from Lightroom to Capture One. It also has organizational tools like keyword management and sorting by star rating or color tagging. In addition, you can sort your photos into Sessions folders for current jobs and Catalogs for older projects.

Bottom Line

If you’re looking for a feature-to-feature alternative to Lightroom, Capture One is about as close as you can get. The two programs are very similar - so similar in fact, that it might not be worth the change, especially if you are looking for something easier to use (it will save you some money however - an annual subscription saves you about $5 a month). However, If you’re looking for an alternative to Lightroom with a much lower price and learning curve, try PhotoDirector.

3. Excire Foto - Best AI tagging

Key Features:

1. Automatic Keywords: Assigns multiple keywords to images upon import that you can edit and rank as necessary
2. Duplicate Finder: Locate and delete duplicates in seconds
3. Simple Sharing: Connects to Dropbox and Google Drive

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

ePHOTOzine Rating: 4.5/5

Photo Organization Tools: 5/5

Price: 14-day free trial, then $99

Who It’s For

Excire Foto is a free Lightroom alternative with amazingly accurate AI-Powered tagging.

Upon import, Excire will automatically organize photos with metadata and multiple keywords for quick and easy searches. You are also free to go back and edit tags to tweak albums and searches to match your workflow. It’s a good alternative to Lightroom for busy professionals who need to find shots in a hurry.

Why We Picked It

One of the most impressive tools we found when testing this alternative to Lightroom was the Find Faces tool, which takes facial recognition to another level. Here, you can search for a specific age group (babies, the elderly, teenagers, etc), smiling or nonsmiling, male or female, number of faces in a shot, and more. There’s also a Search by Example feature, which allows you to click on an image and find all the similar shots.

Bottom Line

Excire Foto offers superior AI-Powered tagging and facial recognition to really improve image search time for busy creatives. However, if you are looking for an alternative to Lightroom that features tools to edit photos in addition to photo management, this is not the solution. Unlike our top 2 picks, Excire Foto does not have photo editing tools.

4. Mylio Photos - Best for privacy

Key Features:

1. Map View: Shows thumbnails of your photos on a world map according to where they were taken; if your photo doesn’t include a geotag location, you can drag and drop it onto the map
2. Social Media Tools: Collect and store old posts, or post newly edited images directly to your favorite site
3. DeDupe Tool: Find and edit duplicates quickly and merge metadata and edits before deleting images

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

Digital Camera World Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 5/5

Price: Free

*Premium subscription available for $9.99/month or $99/year

Who It’s For

Mylio Photos is a Digital Asset Management tool and free Lightroom alternative for any skill level. It’s best for photographers (or really anyone in today’s digital age) with thousands of images stored across different devices. Phones, old hard drives, camera cards, etc, can be plugged in, synced, and added to a single photo library.

Mylio Photos does not rely on the internet or Cloud to store photos, making it a safer and more private free Lightroom alternative. Instead, photos are sent to your devices via your private WiFi network. Want to share photos online but are worried about your privacy? The SafeShare option removes personal information from photos before they are posted.

Why We Picked It

Searching through all those images is easy with this free Lightroom alternative. Type in a keyword or use a suggested QuickFilter to sort by smart tags, folders, dates, events, people, ratings, camera - you name it. This free Lightroom alternative also boasts a good amount of photo adjustments and enhancements that are easy to use, including AutoEnhance, AutoColor (to fix old and faded images), white balance, noise removal, crop, and a handful of presets.

Bottom Line

Mylio Photos is an excellent tool for gathering a lifetime of photos into a single photo library. It’s also a great free Lightroom alternative for anyone with privacy concerns, or who likes to work offline. However, not relying on the internet does have its downfalls, and you’ll need an external hard drive device both for added storage and as a safety precaution.

5. Corel AfterShot Pro - Best for speed

Key Features:

1. Blemish Remover: This free Lightroom alternative offers circle, brush, polygon, and freehand tools for detailed touchups
2. Lens Corrections: Automatically correct common distortions and even make and share your own with the lens correction development kit
3. Image Preset Library: Browse, preview, and download your favorite filters

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

G2 Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 4.5/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $79.99

Who It’s For

Corel AfterShot Pro claims to be “the world’s fastest RAW photo-editing software.” While we aren’t sure that’s true, we do believe its other claim, that Aftershot is 4 times faster than Lightroom. This free Lightroom alternative has a fast workflow, allowing you to sort, view, organize, and edit photos in one program, with no importing required. You can also edit thousands of photos at once with ultra-powerful batch processing.

Why We Picked It

This free Lightroom alternative automatically sorts images by name, date, and tags, or you can add in your own sorting criteria like ISO or shutter speed. Create groups or add color coding, flags, and star ratings to identify your favorite photos. AfterShot also comes with some tools to edit photos, like lens corrections, a cloning tool, and color adjustments.

Bottom Line

Corel AfterShot Pro is best used for processing, sorting, tagging, and viewing photos and is not a stand-alone photo editor. Even as a tool to organize photos, it is not quite on par with Lightroom or Capture One, as it is missing facial recognition and has weak sharing options. If you want a free Lightroom alternative with facial recognition and all the tools you need to share and edit photos, try PhotoDirector Essential.

6. ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate - Best for facial recognition

Key Features:

1. AI Face Edit: Adjust the shape of facial features, remove blemishes, add makeup, and more
2. Photomerge Tools: Includes HDR, Focus Stacking, and Panorama Stitching
3. Shape Selection Tool: Make precise selections around curves and corners

Compatibility: Windows

PCMag Rating: 3/5

Photo Organization Tools: 5/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $89.95

Who It’s For

ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate is a free Lightroom alternative for digital asset management, RAW photo editing, and layered editing. It is an industry leader in face detection and recognition. We like the program’s new People Mode, which uses machine learning to organize by a specific client, friend, or family member and then allows you to merge, rename or delete faces. The AI assistant will even offer labeling suggestions and group similar faces that you have yet to name.

Why We Picked It

You can also organize photos by keywords, categories, and tags, and sort, filter, and group photos in any combination. There’s also a duplicate photo finder. This free Lightroom alternative also has tools to edit photos such as layer editing with adjustment layers, masks, blend modes, layer effects, and adjustable opacity.

Bottom Line

This alternative to Lightroom offers RAW photo processing, photo management, and layered photo editing all in one place. We felt it was a great all-around solution, however, ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate falls slightly short of other software in every category. For instance, it doesn’t match DxO PhotoLab or RAW Therapee in RAW image quality, lacks some helpful photo-management tools found in Capture One and PhotoDirector, and the quality of its photo editing tools falls short of PhotoDirector and Luminar AI.

7. Darktable - Best open-source alternative to lightroom

Image from Darktable.

Key Features:

1. Geotagging: If your camera includes geotagging, it will link to Darktable; you can also add location info manually, and use Google Maps, Virtual Apps, Apple Maps, and more as your map source
2. Color Correction: Use sliders to adjust brightness and contrast, or use deep color enhancement to change colors entirely
3. Tethering Support: Connect your camera to your desktop and your images will import directly to Darktable as you shoot

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

TrustedBay Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 4/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

Based on our testing, Darktable is the best open-source free Lightroom alternative for professionals on a budget. Like other open-source editors, Darktable is constantly updated by users and professionals, and bugs are located and fixed in record time. The program supports 21 languages and offers many learning tools like user forums, video tutorials, and instructional posts. Darktable is one of the only open-source photography editors to offer tethered shooting support and RAW processing for over 400 cameras. And while a lot of open-source software have a chaotic UI, Darktable’s interface is almost identical to Lightroom. Best of all, it is 100% free for life.

Why We Picked It

Darktable has some photo management tools so you can sort, tag, and organize photos. Add metadata and search content by tags, star rating, color labels, etc. Other features include professional color tools, hot pixel fixes, denoise, masking, and blending. Some of these features offer finer control than their Lightroom counterparts, making Darktable a viable alternative to Lightroom.

Bottom Line

If you are a professional photographer who regularly deals with thousands of images, Darktable will not work for you as a free Lightroom alternative. You can’t create image collections, and the software doesn’t support anything over 10,000 photos. For large image collections, try ON1 Photo RAW or Capture One.

8. Google Photos - Best for sharing

Key Features:

1. Photo Archive: Move photos off of the main interface without deleting them
2. Smart Filters: This free Lightroom alternative has 19 unique presets to choose from
3. Facial Recognition: Recognizes faces over the course of a lifetime

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 4/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

Google Photos is a free Lightroom alternative for beginners and anyone who loves to share photos. You can create a link or share with anyone in your contacts with the click of a button. It comes with direct uploads to Facebook and Twitter. Our favorite tool was Partner Sharing, a unique feature that will automatically share photos under chosen parameters (such as all photos taken after a certain date, or only photos of a specific person or pet) with the loved one of your choice. It’s a great option for parents to send photos to grandparents without missing a single memory.

Why We Picked It

Organize photos with Geotag maps, facial recognition, favorites, dates, or type of image, such as selfies or screenshots. You can create, name, and edit albums as needed. There are tools to edit photos as well, including an array of filters and color adjustments, plus crop and rotate. With this free Lightroom alternative, you can create videos from photos, such as collages, slideshows, and animations with the help of themed templates. There is also a Photo Store onsite where you can create and order photobooks, prints, and other gifts.

Bottom Line

Google Photos is a great free Lightroom alternative for partners to share images back and forth with ease. And it offers 15GB of completely free Cloud storage (Apple Photos only give you 5GB). However, it’s not an alternative to Lightroom for professionals, as it lacks advanced features to both organize and edit photos.

9. Photo Mechanic - Best for browsing photos

Image from PCMag.

Key Features:

1. Multi-Card Ingest: Import photos from multiple memory cards simultaneously
2. Export to Popular Photo Sharing Services: Share to PhotoShelter, Zenfolio, Amazon S3, Flickr, SmugMug, and more
3. Side-by-Side Comparison: Compare and review images side-by-side, either vertically or horizontally

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 3/5

Photo Organization Tools: 5/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $169 for Photo Mechanic 6 and $329 for Photo Mechanic Plus

Who It’s For

Photo Mechanic is a file and metadata management tool and free Lightroom alternative for professional photographers. Professionals often have to browse through thousands of images on a tight deadline, and Photo Mechanic allows them to do this quickly, without having to wait for each shot to render. We found you can see all of your thumbnails while they are still being copied from your memory card, so you can start tagging, deleting, and renaming files immediately.

Why We Picked It

Use the ITPC entry boxes to add detailed metadata to your images with this free Lightroom alternative. You can also save the metadata as a template to quickly apply it to batches of photos. Tagging your photos with more than one keyword allows you to get ultra-specific and search images faster than ever before.

Bottom Line

Photo Mechanic is a great alternative to Lightroom for professionals who need a quicker way to browse, cull, tag, and organize photos. While we think it’s one of the best ways to browse and search through images, it is not a one-stop shop for photographers. Unlike our top choice, PhotoDirector, Photo Mechanic has no tools to edit photos, and it requires extra software for tethering.

10. Apple Photos - Best for Mac & iPhone users

Image from Apple.

Key Features:

1. Filters: Choose from 9 Instagram-Style presets
2. Noise Reduction: Reduce noise and grain automatically, then use the slider to adjust the strength
3. Red-Eye Remover: Erase glare with one click

Compatibility: Mac

PCMag Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 4/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

Apple Photos is a free Lightroom alternative found built-in on all Mac computers. If you have thousands of photos on your iPhone just waiting to be organized, then Apple Photos is for you. Photos taken on an iPhone will automatically transfer to your iPad or Mac, without any importing, and edited photos will transfer back to your iPhone without any exporting. The app also supports the ProRAW format used by iPhone 12 Pro and up and offers tools specifically for iPhone photos like Live and Portrait mode.

Why We Picked It

This free Lightroom alternative can handle RAW files from popular digital cameras as well, even brand-new models. Organize photos with keyword tagging, geo-tagging, and facial recognition. Click on the info box to see the camera model, exposure settings, tags, and a map of where the photo was taken. The app will also automatically create albums of photos by type, such as Screenshots, Selfies, Panoramas, Live Photos, and more.

Bottom Line

Apple Photos’ editing tools are better than you’d expect from software that comes with your device. In fact, its auto-correct tool is better than many paid software. It’s a great free Lightroom alternative for beginners to practice some rudimentary photo editing and for iPhone users to organize their photos into albums. Intermediate to professional photographers and editors will need to look elsewhere. This free Lightroom alternative lacks features such as layer editing, lens profile corrections, content-aware edits, and chromatic aberration, to name a few. If you want the user-friendliness of Apple Photos with more advanced photo editing tools, try PhotoDirector.

11. ON1 Photo RAW - Best for presets & filters

Image from Digital Camera World.

Key Features:

1. Tack Sharp AI and NoNoise AI: Sharpen and remove noise from images at the same time
2. Sky Editor: Automatic AI sky swap with precise manual adjustments
3. Portrait AI: Use automatic retouching for every face, or retouch individual faces

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 3.5/5

Photo Organization Tools: 4/5

Price: 14-day free trial, then $99.99 for a full license

Who It’s For

ON1 Photo RAW is our choice as the best alternative to Lightroom for anyone who loves applying presets and filters. The program comes with hundreds of popular one-click presets, filters, LUTs, textures, and borders that can be combined, blended, and customized. Presets and filters are easy to find and apply using responsive sliders. You can also selectively apply your effects to a specific area of your image, then brush in or out to your liking.

Why We Picked It

This free Lightroom alternative is also a powerful export and image converter with great organizational tools. Search by star ratings, likes, color labels, keywords, or metadata. Choose to see your images as photos, folders, or thumbnails. Then skim through them with multiple options - Grid View, Detail View, Filmstrip View, or Compare View.

Bottom Line

ON1 Photo RAW offers many professional tools, but the learning curve is steep and the interface is confusing. The company doesn’t offer any tutorials, and you have to pay for teachable videos. This lack of beginner support or any AI photo management tools has moved it down our updated list from #4 to #11. However, we still felt ON1 Photo RAW was a better all-around alternative to Lightroom than the other options with a similar rating, so we placed it higher on our list.

12. Skylum Luminar Neo - Best AI tools

Image from PhotoLemur.

Key Features:

1. Powerful Photo Retouching: Iris, Skin, and Body AI fixes
2. Dodge & Burn: Control the lighting in a particular area of an image
3. Lense Corrections: Remove optical distortions like chromatic aberrations and vignettes

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 3.5/5

Price: 7-day free trial, then $119/year for Explore, $149/year for Pro, or $199 for a Lifetime License

Who It’s For

Skylum Luminar AI is an alternative to Lightroom which is fully powered by AI. It offers more than 20 unique AI photo effects and tools such as sky/weather replacement, facial retouching, super contrast, portrait bokeh, and more. AI-powered tools mean easy, one-click solutions with professional-looking results making it a good choice for beginners.

Why We Picked It

There are some digital asset management tools, which make this a worthy alternative to Lightroom. It has four workspaces: Catalog, Templates, Edit, and Export. Catalog has folders containing All Photos, Single Image Edits, Recently Added, Recently Edited, and Trash, as well as any manually added folders and albums. You can also use batch editing to recreate complex-looking edits in a large group of photos at once.

Bottom Line

Sylum Luminar AI is very easy to use, and its powerful AI tools produce extraordinary results in one click. However, we found it lacked some important tools to organize photos such as keyword tagging and facial recognition. If you are in the market for a free Lightroom alternative and rely on tagging to organize your images, try Capture One, PhotoDirector, or Apple Photos.

13. Exposure X7 - Best for special effects

Image from DPReview.

Key Features:

1. Watermark Tool: Watermark images with metadata or graphical elements upon export or before printing
2. Tone Curve Editing: Precisely adjust brightness with control points
3. Huge Library of Filters: This free Lightroom alternative has over 500 customizable presets

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 3.5/5

Photo Organization Tools: 4/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $129

Who It’s For

We found Exposure X7 to be the best free Lightroom alternative for special effects because many Lightroom and Photoshop users use the software as a special effects plug-in. Exposure X7 has effects like film grain, bokeh, light effects, overlays, vignettes, and more. Flexible masking and layering help you blend effects in every way possible. You can also selectively apply effects using radial, planar, or half-planar gradients and adjust the opacity.

Why We Picked It

With this free Lightroom alternative, there’s no need to import photos; find them on your desktop and edit where they are. Instead, create smart collections from a file list and populate them by specific criteria. The program also has tons of printing options, such as printing multiple images per page, output sharpening for specific paper types, presets for print settings, etc.

Bottom Line

Exposure X7 works better as a plug-in than a complete alternative to Lightroom. It has features and effects that Lightroom lacks, but many of its features are patchy. This includes features that any photo editor would deem necessary, like lens correction, noise reduction, and mask selection tools.

14. Photoscape X - Best for batch editing

Key Features:

1. Creative Assets: Over 1,000 stickers, 120+ overlays, 290+ frames, 240+ figures, and many more
2. Photo Merge Tools: HDR and Focus stacking
3. Split Tool: Slice a photo into several pieces

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

TechRadar Rating: 4.5/5

Photo Organization Tools: 3/5

Price: Free
*Pro version available for $39.99

Who It’s For

Photoscape X is a RAW image editor, image viewer, and batch processor. We think it’s one of the best free Lightroom alternatives, especially for photographers who need to rename, resize, and change the format of multiple images at once.

Why We Picked It

There’s also a photo and metadata viewer in Loupe View and full screen. You can flag and add star ratings to easily search favorite images. We found that where Photoscape X really excels, however, is in its editing tools. Merge, crop, and combine photos into stunning panoramas. Use the various brushes and tools found in this free Lightroom alternative to draw, paint, scatter, fix red-eye, clone, and spot heal. There are also advanced color tools akin to what you might find in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Bottom Line

Photoscape has a completely free version, an affordable Pro version, and it is beginner-friendly. However, it lacks many of the image management tools that Lightroom users would expect. If you are looking for an alternative to Lightroom primarily for image organization, try Capture One.

15. DxO PhotoLab - Best photo processor for professionals

Key Features:

1. Local Adjustments: Utilizes U Point™ technology with Control Points and Control Lines for intelligent selections without layers
2. ReTouch Tool: Remove unwanted elements with automatic source selection and select your own Clone and Repair sources
3. Soft Proofing: Ensure accurate colors and even simulate ink and paper according to ICC profiles

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

PCMag Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 3.5/5

Price: 30-day free trial, then $139 for Essential and $219 for Elite

Who It’s For

We found DxO PhotoLab to be another solid alternative to Lightroom because of its superb RAW photo processing features. PhotoLab uses DxO DeepPRIME - a deep learning AI technology - to demosaic and denoise images for top-notch quality. Experts can shoot at a higher sensitivity level, while amateurs can make up for the lack of professional camera equipment. It can even be used to fix old photos that until now were unusable.

Why We Picked It

As far as image management goes, this free Lightroom alternative offers metadata and keyword management in the photo library and an Advanced History feature that keeps track of each edit made to your images. However, it is missing geotracking and facial recognition tools. DxO PhotoLab includes a limited selection of additional editing features, including 40 presets and base-level adjustment tools.

Bottom Line

While its demosaicing tools and photo processing quality are similar to Raw Therapee, DxO PhotoLab offers better photo management options, giving it a higher spot on our list. However,

in our product test, we found it to be less user-friendly because it organizes images into a linear list, making it challenging to find a specific photo at a glance or compare images across a photoshoot. If you desire high-quality photo processing but need an entirely free Lightroom alternative with no learning curve, we suggest RAW Therapee.

16. RAW Therapee - Best photo processor for beginners

Image from RAW Therapee.

Key Features:

1. Haze Removal: Remove haze automatically and adjust saturation with a slider
2. Lens Corrections: Fix perspective, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and more
3. Dark Frame Subtraction: Eliminate sensor dust and lens color casts

Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux

G2 Rating: 4.1/5

Photo Organization Tools: 3/5

Price: Free

Who It’s For

RAW Therapee is another open-source, entirely free Lightroom alternative. It has a 32-bit floating-point processing engine and superb demosaicing tools so you get the highest quality from your images. In fact, RAW Therapee uses 2 demosaicing algorithms on each image and employs flat field correction and hot/dead pixel correction for flawless photos.

Why We Picked It

Another reason we like RAW Therapee as a free Lightroom alternative is that its user interface is very similar. Users familiar with both Lightroom and Photoshop will find it easy to crossover, and beginners will find it much more user-friendly than Adobe products. It also has all the advanced color-correcting tools you’d look for in a free Lightroom alternative.

Bottom Line

The reason we voted Darktable and not RAW Therapee as the best open-source free Lightroom alternative is that it mirrors Lightroom more closely overall, especially when it comes to photo management tools, an area where RAW Therapee is severely lacking. We recommend our top choice PhotoDirector Essential as a better beginner-friendly alternative to Lightroom. It offers RAW image processing and is filled with tools to edit and organize photos.

17. Affinity Photo - Best for layer editing

Key Features:

1. Blend Modes: A large selection of blend modes with an array of precise adjustments
2. Flawless Retouching: Use frequency separation to smooth skin, plus clone, patch, and removal tools to heal imperfections
3. Design Assets: A huge library of assets in categories like Trees and People

Compatibility: Windows, Mac

Digital Camera World Rating: 4/5

Photo Organization Tools: 2/5

Price: 90-day free trial, then $69.99

Who It’s For

Affinity Photo has unlimited layers, so your creativity knows no bounds. This is the best alternative to Lightroom for anyone who needs layer effects and layer editing with mask and clipping layers and live blend modes. Affinity Photo has non-destructive live filters that can be applied to a single layer or the whole stack. Erase away, mask, or reorder filters after they are applied.

Why We Picked It

We found this alternative to Lightroom had excellent digital painting options - choose from the large library of brushes or create your own. You can also use the magic wand, marquee, or lasso tools to make ultra-precise selections down to a single strand of hair. Other features in this free Lightroom alternative include skin retouch, blemish removal, and ultra-smooth pan/zoom functions.

Bottom Line

Affinity Photo focuses on quality over quantity of tools, so while its tools perform better than Lightroom, it offers fewer of them. It also focuses more on tools to edit photos than organize photos, so you may be disappointed if you’re looking for a free Lightroom alternative that excels in image management. Try PhotoDirector Essential if you need top-notch software to both edit and organize photos.

How to Choose the Best Free Lightroom Alternative

The free Lightroom alternatives on our list below are not one-size-fits-all software. Here are a few key things to look out for to find the right fit.

Usability

There are free Lightroom alternatives that are easy enough for first-time users, and some that only professional photographers could figure out. You may want to “punch above your weight” so you can learn advanced techniques, but we advise against this. There are beginner-friendly alternatives to Lightroom with advanced features that will grow with you as you learn. If you start with confusing software, it could take months before you can start using it. Why spend time learning software when you can get started right away?

On the flip side, if you are a professional, you can find a free Lightroom alternative with a UI and workflow you are used to - and you don’t have to sacrifice advanced tools to get it.

Compatibility

There are free Lightroom alternatives on our list for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but there are other factors you need to be mindful of, not just your operating system. Check the System Requirements tab on the software’s website before downloading to make sure your device is the correct version and has enough available RAM for the program to function properly. Photographers should also check that the free Lightroom alternative they choose is compatible with their camera. This information will also be listed on the product’s website.

Features

In all of our reviews, we point out whether the free Lightroom alternative is geared toward photo management, photo editing, or a good combination of the two. Maybe you already use software to edit photos and are only in the market for a program to organize photos or vice versa. Maybe you are currently using Lightroom and Photoshop, and are looking for an all-in-one solution. Our list of free Lightroom alternatives has something to cover all of these needs.

We recommend making a list of your feature must-haves before you begin your search. If a program is missing a key feature on your list, move on to the next.

Best Free Lightroom Alternatives Comparison Chart

How to Edit and Organize Photos With PhotoDirector

Here is a step-by-step guide for using PhotoDirector, the #1 free Lightroom alternative, to crop, rotate, add filters, and adjust the colors of an image.

Click the link below to download and follow these simple steps:

How to Crop a Photo

1. Open PhotoDirector and click Organize and Adjust.
2. Click Import, then Photos.
3. Click the photo you want to crop and choose Open.
4. Click Adjust from the menu at the top.


5. Click Manual, then choose Crop and Straighten, the first icon under Regional Adjustment Tools.


6. Crop the image using one of two ways:
• Choose a predefined ratio from the Aspect Ratio drop-down. For example, if you plan to post to Instagram, there is 1:1 for the feed and 9:16 for Stories.
• Use the Crop Box in the Preview Window to adjust the size of your crop. If you want to unlock the aspect ratio to freeform crop, just deselect the Lock Icon.


7. Once you have your crop just right, click Done.

How to Rotate a Photo

1. Follow the steps above to import a photo into the PhotoDirector Library.
2. Click on the Rotate icon under the Photo Preview box.


3. Keep clicking Rotate until you are happy with your image.

How to Add Filters to a Photo

1. Import the photo you would like to edit and hit the Adjust tab.
2. Click Presets.
3. Click Default Presets and choose a category to see the filter options.


4. Once you’ve settled on a filter, you can adjust the strength of the filter with the Slider Bar below the thumbnail of the image.

How to Adjust Colors in a Photo

1. Import your photo into PhotoDirector, then click Adjust.
2. Click Manual.
3. Under Global Adjustment Tools you will find tons of color tools.


4. Experiment with the different color tools. When you are happy with your image, hit Create at the bottom of the screen to save your color changes as a preset to use in the future.


For a detailed look at using the best free Lightroom alternative to edit your photos, go to 7 Best Free Image Croppers, and Transforming the Colors of Your Image.

How to Organize Photos

1. After choosing the individual photos or folders you want to import into PhotoDirector, you can add tags by clicking Photo Import, Advanced, then Apply During Import.


2. Go to Tags and type in keywords.



Separate any keywords or numbers with a semi-colon, and use " > " between them to create hierarchical tags.

3. Click Import.
4. To sort photos by people, select the photos and click the Facial Recognition icon. Choose Auto Detect Face in Selected Photos.


5. Assign a name to each folder, then click Done.
6. To organize by flags, go to the Thumbnail View, select the photo you wish to flag, and click the Flag icon.


7. To reject a photo, click the photo and select the Reject icon.


8. When you are done sorting your photos, click the Double Flag icon to view only the flagged photos or only the rejected photos.



For more info on how to import and organize photos with the best free Lightroom alternative, click here.

Download the Best Alternative to Lightroom for Free

Lightroom is no longer the only high-quality management program for photographers. Dozens of excellent alternatives to Lightroom exist on the web, and finding the right one for you ultimately comes down to personal preference. Our favorite free Lightroom alternative is PhotoDirector Essential for its innovation, ease of use, range of features, and intuitive processing tools. 

Many Lightroom customers like using the program to organize photos, but they’d rather not have to switch to Photoshop to edit photos with advanced tools. PhotoDirector is a free Lightroom alternative that excels in photo editing features and intuitive organization options, giving photographers the best of both worlds and eliminating the necessity for a second editing program. 

PhotoDirector Essential’s editing tools don’t require any previous experience to master thanks to its guided editing options. Guided editing allows you to make complicated photo edits, like face beautification and content removal, with the touch of a button. This alternative to Lightroom uses artificial intelligence to make these changes automatically, saving you time and hassle. However, if you are someone who could edit photos for hours, you’ll appreciate PhotoDirector’s Photoshop-style layer-editing options. Adding clipping masks, layer filters, frames, and clip art is a breeze with this program’s intuitive layering tools. 

Download the best free Lightroom alternative today and use beginner-friendly tools to make professional-quality images.