Presentation 17th September: Plugins and Photoshop Alternatives

Last night we presented a detailed review of the major plugin packages and photoshop alternatives available today.

It is a given that Photoshop and Lightroom represent the pinnacle of image processing software, however many people baulk at the ongoing costs and ever rising subscription fees that Adobe and many others have adopted.

It is also a given that no single piece of software can do everything at the highest level, so there is plenty of scope for other software vendors to claim a piece of the market. 

In our presentation we looked at the best of the plugins that are designed to work with Lightroom and Photoshop and that also can operate as standalone software, some of which arguably do a better job than Adobe’s products in some areas.

We also looked at several packages that claim to be “Photoshop killers” but which often fall short in one area or another.  All of these packages we reviewed have their good points, often in the purchase price, which can be as low as zero in the case of Affinity, while some have shortcomings that some may feel are insignificant to their needs.  In short, there are plenty of different “horses for courses” and many of our members use one or more of the packages discussed.

The most controversial discussion however, centred around the use of AI tools such as Google Gemini, Chat GPT and others to carry out photo processing and enhancement.  Some feel that the days of downloaded software are coming to an end and others argued that using the AI tools reduces or eliminates the authenticity of the photograph.  It is time we had a further discussion and review of what we, as amateur photographers can accept as “authentic” photography.

There is one area where AI tools can’t compete (yet?) and that is in creative vision and composition.  Our imagination is our greatest asset, and our next challenge will put those concepts to the test.  The “Mix ’n Match” challenge is designed to allow our members to exercise their creative interpretation of supplied base Raw files and process them in a new and different way, free from any preconceptions that may arise from the point of capture.  We look forward to what our members can create.

Michael Smyth, President.